TIDE FANS IN SOONER LAND
What it’s like to live in Oklahoma and cheer for Alabama
The hangs crimson from flag the porch roof right above the front door at Rod and Lorie Costner’s house. Not Oklahoma crimson. Alabama crimson. That familiar script A adorns the top of the flag, and at the bottom, in bold letters, ROLL TIDE. Even though the Costners live in Edmond, deep in the heart of Sooner country, they aren’t shy about letting everyone know of their love of the Crimson Tide.
“Never have been,” Lorie said, laughing.
On the day Alabama and OU meet in the Orange Bowl with a trip to the national championship game on the line, millions of folks in Oklahoma will be cheering the Sooners. But there will be a smaller band of folks in our state pulling for the Crimson Tide.
Tide fans in Sooner land. It’s impossible to say how many Alabama fans call Oklahoma home. The Alabama Alumni Association says about 200 alums live in Oklahoma, not an insignificant number but not enough to have an alumni chapter anywhere in the state either.
For the Alabama fans living in Oklahoma, the past few weeks have been interesting.
Crimson Tide diehards and Oklahoma City residents Chris and Amee Shaw say the trash talk has been constant since the matchup was announced earlier this month. Lots of it comes from friends and even some family, and most of it is good-natured. But some is not. “Anywhere Chris goes in his Alabama hat or something ... people will say ugly things,” Amee said.
Sometimes, though, they can’t help but chuckle.
“A lot of them give me the ‘Horns down,’” Chris said with a laugh. “I get it, but that doesn’t really apply to me.”
Chris Shaw has been an Alabama fan since birth. His family took him to the national championship game before he was even a year old. It was the 1980 Sugar Bowl. Alabama vs. Arkansas. Bear Bryant vs. Lou Holtz.
“I wish I could remember it,” he said of the night Alabama won its third national title.
Chris only became a bigger fan as time went on, and when he met Amee in 2005, he had to make sure she would join in. Even though she grew up in Norman and her family has been Sooner fans for generations, she never cared all that much. But the longer she was with Chris, the more interest she had in Alabama.
When Amee got to know the names of the players, Chris knew she was a keeper.
The couple moved to Oklahoma more than a decade ago to be closer to Amee’s family, and while they have a few friends who are also Alabama fans, they are always excited to see someone in Crimson Tide gear.
The other day, they noticed a car in the Walgreen’s parking lot.
“He drove around like a crazy person,” Amee said of Chris, “rolled down the window and screamed, ‘Roll Tide!’”
Rod and Lorie Costner are always on the lookout for other Alabama fans, too. Living in Oklahoma since 1995, the Edmond couple has found a few. But most of their co-workers, neighbors and friends cheer for other teams on Saturdays in the fall.
Not that they mind since they don’t really do watch parties. They prefer being at home where the distractions are minimal.
Even though Rod has been a Crimson Tide fan all his life — he moved around a lot but spent much of his childhood in Alabama — and Lorie didn’t become a die-hard until she was college-age, she gets much more emotional on game days.
Rod: “She’s too nervous to watch.”
Lorie: “I go to the store. I do laundry. I check in periodically.”
Rod: “She gets way more nervous than I do.”
An Alabama loss on Saturday night would be tough for them for many reasons. It would mark the end to an otherwise glorious season. It would mean no national title, the norm in Tuscaloosa over the past decade.
But for the Costners and other Alabama fans living in Oklahoma, it would also mean being surrounded by joyous, raucous Sooner fans.
Rod and Lorie Costner know what that’s like. The days after OU beat Alabama in the Sugar Bowl a few years back were rough. But it didn’t stop them from wearing their Bama gear or flying their “ROLL TIDE” flag. Nothing could.
“I’m not a front-runner,” Rod said.