Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer: A Journey into the Heart of Fan Mania
by Warren St. John
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Book Summary Information
Author: Warren St. JohnEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2004-08-03
ISBN: 0609607081
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Crown
Book Reviews of Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer: A Journey into the Heart of Fan Mania
Book Review: Thoughtful and well-written voyage of subtle discoveries
Summary: 5 Stars
St. John's exploration of die-hard college football fans is extraordinary in several ways. First, he's a first-class investigative reporter, able to follow slender threads of connection to find interesting people and stories. Second, he's an excellent writer who's able to move back and forth from reporting to observation with ease; he describes the characters he encounters along the fan trail with exceptional vividness. Third, and most importantly, he's able to see social and personal truths that are larger than the immediate subject of his story. It's true that sports fans, and college football fans in particular, will connect to his subject most fully, but St. John's broader discoveries about individuals, groups, allegiances, friendships, and rivalries will be interesting to anyone who has even a marginal acquaintance with the dimensions of fanship, sports or otherwise. St. John's story of ingratiating himself with the RV crowd that follows Alabama football games at home and on the road is a page-turning read, artfully set to the dramatic backdrop of a turbulent SEC-championship run by the Tide. He weaves the stories of those he meets into a deep historical fabric of college football in the South, discovering some subtle (and not so subtle) realities about his own fanship in the bargain. This is a fine read for anyone interested in fanship, group dynamics or just good people stories; and it's a terrific read for sports fans. [?2008 hyperbolium dot com]
Summary of Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer: A Journey into the Heart of Fan Mania
"Fresh and funny. St. John has crafter a winner." -Tony Horwitz, author of Confederates in the AtticIn the life of every sports fan, there comes a moment of reckoning. It may happen when your team wins on a last-second field goal and you suddenly find yourself clenched in a loving embrace with a large hairy man you've never met. . . . Or in the long, hormonally depleted days after a loss, when you're felled by a sensation similar to the one you first experienced following the death of a pet. At such moments the fan is forced to confront the question others-spouses, friends, children, and colleagues-have asked for years:
Why do I care?
What is it about sports that turns otherwise sane, rational people into raving lunatics? Why does winning compel people to tear down goalposts, and losing, to drown themselves in bad keg beer? In short, why do fans care?
In search of the answers to these questions, Warren St. John seeks out the roving community of RVers who follow the Alabama Crimson Tide from game to game across the South. A movable feast of Weber grills, Igloo coolers, and die-hard superstition, these are characters who arrive on Wednesday for Saturday's game: Freeman and Betty Reese, who skipped their own daughter's wedding because it coincided with a Bama game; Ray Pradat, the Episcopalian minister who watches the games on a television set beside his altar while performing weddings; John Ed (pronounced as three syllables, John Ay-ud), the wheeling and dealing ticket scalper whose access to good seats gives him power on par with the governor; and Paul Finebaum, the Anti-Fan, a wisecracking sports columnist and talk-radio host who makes his living mocking Alabama fans-and who has to live in a gated community for all the threats he receives in response.
In no time at all, St. John himself is drawn into the world of full-immersion fandom: he buys an RV (a $5,500 beater called The Hawg) and joins the caravan for a football season, chronicling the world of the extreme fan and learning that
in the shadow of the stadium, it can all begin to seem strangely normal.
Along the way, St. John takes readers on illuminating forays into the deep roots of humanity's sports mania (did you know that tailgaters could be found in eighth-century Greece?), the psychology of crowds, and the surprising neuroscience behind the thrill of victory.
Reminiscent of Confederates in the Attic and the works of Bill Bryson, Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer is not only a travel story, but a cultural anthropology of fans that goes a long way toward demystifying the universal urge to take sides and to win.
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