(Note: This article was written by Lamar Thames’ son, Robert. They sit on different sides of the aisle when it comes to football loyalty.

      It’s almost here! The game of games between the fabled Alabama Crimson Tide and the rich, fast and powerful Florida Fightin’ Gators.

      I was raised to be a Bama fan, unknowingly, by a Florida fan. The subtext of that remark is what brings scope and color to this game for me.  

       Thanks to my dad [Lamar Thames] for that ‘accidental’ 1973 moment, when   watching the Sugar bowl, he said, “We’re rooting for Alabama son.” 

       My dad, a Florida fan then living in Montgomery, ‘liked’ Alabama and the Bear but the Gators were his favorite team. I took his rooting comment to heart and we’ve been crisscrossed in our passion for Florida and Alabama ever since.

       Passion is what drives this game Saturday for Florida and Alabama. Passion, a tangible word that’s value is applied differently for both sides. For Alabama fans that passion has been attached to a long, storied time line on which men like Ken Scott, UA’s first successful coach, George Denny, school president to whom a great football team mattered much in relation to University success, Wallace Wade, Frank Thomas and Paul Bryant, winning coaches upon which the Capstone tradition rests, have tied their legacy to.

     Alabama football has always been a blue-collar mountain-moving affair. They’ve always been a consistent conservative forward moving force that impresses with victories more than style points. In the 1960s the Northern press decided they didn’t respect Crimson Tide football on a national level and, thus, it was always a big shock when the Crimson Tide defeated a Nebraska or an Oklahoma in a bowl game.

     Alabama’s great winning tradition always seems to run parallel with the experience of those who shortchanged them before big games. In other words, detractors always say,  “yeah Bama’s good but they ain’t that damn good.”   “They ain’t gonna win this game against sexy U (Florida maybe?).”  If you pick up a sports almanac you’ll find Alabama with the higher score in a lot of those ‘they ain’t gonna win’ games. 

      For Florida fans, passion grows as high as the crowd noise and decibel levels reached at The Swamp. If you’ve ever been there for a game against Tennessee or FSU you can well imagine what it must have felt like witnessing Saturn 3 blasting off. Florida football tradition doesn’t reach as far back into the past as other programs do but they’ve more than made up for lost time.

     Starting with Steve Spurrier’s Heisman winning 1966 season when he punted, passed and kicked Florida into the national college football consciousness the Gators have been on a fast track to football glory. (Here’s hoping memories of the Doug Dickey era won’t slow the momentum of this marginally written column).

    Then John Reaves made his mark for the Gators, throwing about 80 gazillion touchdown passes,  … to who Gator fans??    ……  I knew you’d come through for me on that one Orange and Blue.  The ‘give ‘em Hell Pell’ Gators in their double orange   uniforms may not have beaten UGA consistently but they had much better teams than their   predecessors.

     Spurrier’s 12-year coaching era helped push UF football to it’s present location on   top of the college football pile right smack dab in the face of college football tradition and like it or the Gators are here to stay.  

      OK, this discourse has evened itself out. Now enough of the niceties and cordialities.  We all know Jacksonville is the heart of Gator Country and you Gator diehards in your typical charming fashion don’t think the game will be that close. You don’t think grumpy, boring, dusty old Alabama will put up a fight Saturday.

    I can only raise my hand  with caution, pointing toward a football almanac. Hopefully, Nick Saban will lead the  Crimson Tide  to a new chapter and page in college football history.

    We’ll see, wont’ we? The Gators are a great football team and beating  them would be  an amazing accomplishment, an  accomplishment even my Gator dad could respect. I wont’ make a prediction but I cant help leaving my heart on this page . . .

     “So, roll onto victory hit your stride, you’re Dixie’s football pride, Crimson Tide!”