UA Student Fans: A Bond like No Other

There is nothing that brings the people of Alabama together more than Alabama football. It’s more than a simple pastime to the thousands of fans here at the University of Alabama; it’s a way of life. There are thousands upon thousands of Alabama fans that span the entire nation, and nowhere is there a greater concentration of these fans than here in Tuscaloosa. Out of all these fans however, there is a group that stands out from the rest. A group that shares a common experience that cannot be easily be replicated. That group of fans is the student fans of the University of Alabama. One may wonder what brings this group of students together so closely. What makes them different from other UA fans? Alumni are, by necessity, excluded from this elite group of fans because of how the experience changes and evolves into something new every year. Being a student fan means the forging of a bond between each other that cannot be found elsewhere. It is not simply because students all sit in the same section at the football games; it is because they all represent the same thing: The University of Alabama.

Football season is a time of great excitement for all fans of the Crimson Tide, and this is especially true for students of the University of Alabama. There is a feeling of excitement and anticipation of fun that charges the air throughout the campus. Every student of Alabama can feel it all throughout the week leading up to game day. This sense of fun and excitement hits its crescendo on game day. It’s felt by all who visit Tuscaloosa on a game day at the University of Alabama. The thing that makes student fans a step above even the most die-hard fan of the Crimson Tide is the immense feeling of school spirit. The entire student body feels this every time they attend or watch one of Alabama’s games. It’s this immense sense of pride at watching their school win or lose game after game that bonds this group of people together.

Lamar Kirkman is a graduate student at UA who has been a die-hard Alabama fan since he was a child, he was unable to attend UA for his undergraduate years, but has now received the chance to do so in his graduate classes. I asked my brother what it was like being a fan of the Crimson Tide compared to now being a student fan. He said, “There’s a big difference in seeing UA on T.V. and being a part of UA and you can feel it.” (L. Kirkman). Immediately I understood what my brother meant by saying “you can feel it.” I heard a change in the tone of his voice there was a definite feeling of joy. Lamar Kirkman was now a part of the exclusive group many Alabama fans will not be able to experience. He was now one of the 28,000 students who represent the school he loved so dearly. What drew my brother to join was not just his unwavering loyalty to the football team. It was the prestige that came along with being a student of The University of Alabama.

Not every Alabama fan is a student of the university; alumni are excluded from the student fan group, even though they were a part of it at one point and can relate to the experience. In order to find out exactly what the difference is between being an alumni and being a student fan of Alabama, I talk my mother and father Anita and Edric Kirkman, who both graduated from UA in the early 1980’s. I ask them what it is like to be a fan as alumni compared to being a student. My father told me “A lot has changed at the UA since I was there; it is like a completely different campus…I wish I could have gone to school here now, compared to the way it was back then.” I asked him about his experience of being a student fan, “There is nothing like being in the mix and being a part of the Crimson Tide, the students are the voice of UA.” (E. Kirkman). I could tell by talking to my dad that he was somewhat envious of my brother and me because we are reliving his old days of being at the Capstone and being “in the mix.” He told me that now that he is older looking back at his college days, that there was a special bond between him and his fellow classmates and once that time had passed that bond would never be the same.

Everyone in my family was at one point an Alabama student fan. My parents were able to witness what it was like to be a fan as a student and what it is like now as alumni. Both agreed that being a student fan is special and should be taken advantage of if given the opportunity. It is the pride of knowing that they are a part of UA that’s makes the student fans stand out from the rest. It is that pride that bonds them on a deeper level than the rest of the Crimson Tide’s fan base. It is that sense of pride that they will be reminded of every time they say “Roll Tide!”