We ARE No. 1

I can say it, without hesitation and without irony. We ARE No. 1. Top of the heap, top of the ladder, top of the whole dang thing.

It is without reasoning, or understanding, or explanation really. But for once in my life, and I strongly suspect this will not be an every year thing, and my experience tells me this won't last forever, but for right now, we ARE No. 1.

We being my college, Mississippi State.
We being football.

Look, I've searched for my tee-shirt for a week now. I don't know where my hat is. It's not like I had a great deal of time to think this through or pour over it. But here I am, a semi-alumnus (a bit short of that ol' graduation thing), and my school is No. 1.

I don't have much experience at this whole thing. The Saints won one Super Bowl. The Braves won one World Series. My high school has never won the state in anything. I don't have a real NBA kinda thing to get excited about. My college has never won a national championship in anything that I'm aware of, though it got close a couple years back in baseball.

So this whole No. 1 thing, though way, way premature, is new to me.

But right now, we ARE No. 1.

Three weeks or so ago, we weren't number anything. We weren't ranked. Then the damn burst, pigs got their motors running on the runway and whew, the world flipped upside down. Wins at LSU, at home against Texas A&M and Auburn propelled Mississippi State to the top of the country's polls. Ole Miss, or biggest rival, our only rival, is No. 3, and I've found myself rooting for them.

Pigs have taken off, and are flying around the airfield.

It wasn't all that long ago that the newspaper I was working for named the game between Mississippi State and Ole Miss the Egg Bowl because neither of them ever went to a bowl.

Now? Hey, we ARE No. 1. No foam fingers int he air, no students going bat  crazy on TV, no, no. We ARE No. 1 for real.

I never saw this coming, never believed it possible, still don't know exactly what to make of it. But after years and years of being at the bottom of everything, my native state suddenly is at the top.

Don't believe it? Just look right at the polls.

We ARE No. 1. Miracles do happen, friends.