Everyone loves a good rivalry, some probably a little too much.
Down here in Alabama, the state’s two largest universities, the University of Alabama and Auburn University, clash in the Iron Bowl every year after Thanksgiving. It’s a contest that contends with some of the great rivalries in sports: Packers and Bears, Lakers and Celtics, Red Sox and Yankees.
Imagine those legendary encounters but with all the animosity concentrated in one state.
A 2020 survey of just more than 4,500 Alabamans found that 53% of fans rooted for Alabama and 34% rooted for Auburn. But unlike Oklahoma vs. Texas or Michigan vs. Ohio State, there is no border creating a barrier between us. Co-workers, family and friends spend time every day surrounded by rivals, who are quick to enjoy their bragging rights through trash talk year-round.
The rivalry’s atmosphere extends behind bars to Alabama state prisons. I am incarcerated at Donaldson Correctional Facility in Bessemer, just outside Birmingham. In my prison, the rivalry creates a whole different dynamic. Football season is a reprieve from the daily grind of prison.
“Your mind’s not here,” said Randy Matkins, an Alabama fan. “You’re just pulling for your team. It’s a release until the game is over.”
Another Alabama fan, Terry Collier, told me that watching his favorite team is “like being somewhere else.”
Auburn fans, despite the team’s struggles in recent seasons, have felt the same way. Auburn diehard Michael Jordan told me watching the Tigers is entertaining, while another Auburn fan, Thomas May, said that games are “something to look forward to.”
“It’s definitely an escape,” added Samuel Hitt, another Auburn fan.
“When the Iron Bowl is on, even the guys who don’t follow either team will choose a side. From what I’ve noticed, those people mostly root for Auburn because a lot of guys here blame Alabama’s law school for sending them to prison. Auburn doesn’t have a law school for them to get mad at.“
Choosing sides in this rivalry can be serious business. On multiple occasions outside, people have been shot or killed because of a dispute connected to the Iron Bowl. One fatal shooting in 2013 happened at a watch party because a woman felt like fellow Alabama fans were not incensed enough about the team’s upset loss to Auburn. Another shooting, in 2017, happened after a man asked another man which team he thought was better.
The violence around football in our state — for all games, not just the Iron Bowl — has gotten bad enough at times that a 2021 column for AL.com was headlined: “People of Alabama, please stop shooting each other over football.”
One crazy Alabama fan even used herbicide to poison the famed oak trees at Auburn’s Toomer’s Corner, where Auburn fans would festoon the trees with toilet paper after big wins. The trees have since been replaced and the fan who poisoned them served jail time and probation before dying in 2020.
It’s not a stretch to say there have been people in the prison system with me who were sent here for caring too much about the outcomes of these games and unable to positively deal with their disappointment.
That violence can permeate our prison. I’ve heard intense arguments over which team is better. Bad calls or missed calls — depending on your perspective — have led to bitter accusations. I’ve even seen this fervor lead to fights over the outcomes of games.
Like Jordan said: “If you’re already obnoxious, you’re even more so” during the Iron Bowl.
Many people like watching football or the Iron Bowl in our common room’s TV area, regardless of the sometimes-tense environment. But some men try to avoid the mayhem, like Alabama fan Danny Williams, who prefers to listen to the radio in his cell.
“I don’t really like how the other fans act during the game,” Williams said. “I’m not into the trash talk.”
Despite arguments and fights, the Iron Bowl provides more positive moments than bad ones at my prison. It’s mostly good-natured ribbing between rivals. Watching the Iron Bowl in prison is as close as we get to going to the stadium, sitting in a bar with fellow fans or watching at the house with buddies.
Inside prison, we have a lot of the same game day rituals as people on the outside.
I have seen tailgating in the recreation yard, where people use homemade barbecue grills made from 1-gallon corn cans. They stuff tightly rolled toilet paper inside the cans and light a fire that heats the cans for grilling sausages or hot dogs. And yes, someone will usually provide homemade wine, or hooch, for those who feel like drinking. Guards don’t seem to mind as long as people don’t get rowdy, but I have seen them pour people’s wine out.
Matkins told me of several games where Alabama and Auburn fans bought chips, soups, cheeses, summer sausages and soft drinks from the commissary to make a feast and watch the game together.
When the Iron Bowl is on, even the guys who don’t follow either team will choose a side. From what I’ve noticed, those people mostly root for Auburn because a lot of guys here blame Alabama’s law school for sending them to prison. Auburn doesn’t have a law school for them to get mad at.
I’ve also spoken to people upset at the role the University of Alabama played in segregating our state during the Civil Rights era. Not to say that one school was better in this regard than the other, but in 1963, Gov. George Wallace — a staunch segregationist — provided one of the more infamous moments in our state’s racial history when he stood outside a University of Alabama auditorium in an unsuccessful attempt to stop the school’s first two Black students from entering. Hitt and Matkins said that image still plays a role in how people perceive the university.
When the game comes around on Saturday, it will be hard not to get caught up in all the hype and tradition. The Iron Bowl is important to people in our state and the college football landscape.
Auburn will once again have a chance to upset Alabama’s championship hopes as they did in 2013 and 2019. This season, Alabama is the heavy favorite to win. But you never know what will happen in the Iron Bowl. Despite Alabama winning several more championships than Auburn, the historical record has been competitive — with Alabama at 50 wins and Auburn at 37.
I hope people have fun with this newest chapter in the rivalry, as we certainly will at my prison. Please enjoy the game in a responsible manner so you don’t wind up watching next year’s Iron Bowl here with us.
