SZVETITZ COLUMN: Don’t fear the need for more cowbell
Need more cowbell....baby!
Mississippi State asked for more, legalized cowbells, and they got it.
Doesn’t that just make you want to roll down the windows, crank Blue Oyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear The Reaper” and rock out, Will Ferrell style?
For the first time in 36 years, cowbells are kosher at Mississippi State home games, leaving more room in your socks for airplane bottles of bourbon.
Good stuff, if you’re a Bulldog fan.
Not so much for everyone else, it seems.
Since the SEC ruled that the “responsible” ringing of cowbells during “appropriate” times in a game is OK, everyone outside of Starkville has been mooing about just how unfair it is.
Cowbells = controversy. Using artificial noise makers is cheating. They’re too loud. Too obnoxious. Too much.
Whatever.
Loud is loud. Period.
Now, I’m no sound expert (I do, however, have two young daughters who can shriek with the best of them), but it seems to me once it gets to a certain decibel level, cowbell or foghorn, it all sounds the same.
And I’ve been at plenty of college football games where it’s been so loud, if you were ringing a cowbell in my ear, I’d have no idea. The 2004 LSU-Auburn game at Jordan-Hare Stadium comes to mind.
I’ve also been in stadiums where the press box shook like a school bus going over a speed bump because the fans above were cheering (and stomping) so ferociously.
Didn’t it get so loud in Baton Rouge one night that the Richter scale took notice?
When’s the last time an earthquake hit Starkville?
It’s not like this is a new thing. The ringing of cowbells has been going on for more than three decades at Davis Wade Stadium, and teams have survived. Even won.
Now, cowbells are legal — well, only before the game, during timeouts and halftime and after scores.
The last time Auburn visited Mississippi State they weren’t, but that didn’t stop thousands of fans from ringing their hearts out anytime they wished.
Did it make a difference? Well, in that 3-2 game in 2008, nothing would have helped either team. Except for maybe a defibrillator.
Sure, it’s tough to play on the road in the SEC with thousands and thousands of fans screaming. But, in case you were wondering, Davis Wade only holds 55,082.
That’s 32,369 fewer than Jordan-Hare, and 46,739 fewer than Bryant-Denny.
By my calculations, 55,000 cowbell ringing fans might be just as loud as 87,000-plus screaming.
Maybe a few decibels here or there. Loud is loud.
Most Auburn players, especially those who will be affected most by the noise (the offensive linemen), have played in plenty of ear-bleeding venues during their careers.
Lee Ziemba, one of Auburn’s four senior O-line starters, isn’t too concerned for whom the bells toll.
“That’s just one of the things that makes a place unique,” Ziemba said. “It’s one of their traditions, just like we have traditions.
“You have to look past it. It’s out of our control. You just have to play through it.”
Gene Chizik said that the cowbells were the least of Auburn’s worries against Mississippi State. He and his team are (and should be) more worried about playing defense.
“It doesn’t matter,” Chizik said. “When you can’t hear, you can’t hear. That’s what we prepare for. You’re going to get that pretty much every week no matter where you go.”
Even quarterback Cameron Newton, who will be making his first road start for the Tigers, isn’t too concerned with what he’ll be (or won’t be) hearing tonight.
He’s used to it.
“I think we had a couple of games like that at Blinn (College),” Newton said.
Of course, he was joking. We think.
But loud is loud.
Cowbells or foghorn.
So don’t fear the reaper.
Mike Szvetitz is sports editor of the Opelika-Auburn News. He may be reached at mszvetitz@oanow.com or 737-2513.
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