Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer: A Road Trip into the Heart of Fan Mania [Paperback]

Warren St. John (Author)

Book Description

Release date: May 31, 2005

What is it about sports that turns otherwise sane people into raving lunatics? Why does winning compel people to tear down goal posts, and losing, to drown themselves in bad keg beer? In short, why do fans care?

In search of answers, Warren St. John seeks out the roving community of RVers who follow the Alabama Crimson Tide from game to game. A movable feast of Weber grills and Igloo coolers, these are hard-core football fans who arrive on Wednesday for Saturday’s game: The Reeses, who skipped their own daughter’s wedding because it coincided with a Bama game; Ray Pradat, the Episcopal minister who watches the games on a television beside his altar while performing weddings; and John Ed, the wheeling and dealing ticket scalper whose access to good seats gives him power on par with the governor. In no time at all, St. John buys an RV (a $5,500 beater named The Hawg) and joins the caravan for a full football season, chronicling the world of the extreme fan and learning that in the shadow of the stadium, it can all begin to seem strangely normal.

Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer is not only a hilarious travel story, but a cultural anthropology of fans that goes a long way toward demystifying the universal urge to take sides and to win.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

St. John, a New York Times reporter and native Alabaman, explores the nature of extreme sports fandom in this compelling and funny audiobook. Over the course of five months, St. John follows the University of Alabama's football team in his own RV and connects with the "RV culture," fans for whom game day is simply the focal point of a celebration that can last for days. Some of the fans he encounters are indeed extreme—like the couple that skipped their daughter's wedding because it took place on game day, or the man who risks having his name taken off a heart transplant list, declaring "If I can't go to Alabama football games, what's the point in living?" But St. John's focus is less on these eccentric characters than on the general culture, in which football fetishism has been completely integrated into everyday life. St. John has a pronounced lisp, which is jarring at first, but it quickly becomes endearing. And while his character voices all sound like variations on the loud-dumb-Southern-guy theme, he approaches his narration with the gusto and enthusiasm of a fervent fan, which succeeds in getting listeners into the spirit of this fun, insightful tale.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School - With the intent of investigating hard-core "fandom" in all its extreme manifestations, St. John, an Alabama native and lifelong fan of the Crimson Tide, spent a season commingling with those who trail this college football team from stadium to stadium. He purchased a motor home and joined the dedicated crowd that often arrived for the Saturday game on Wednesday, jamming the roadways of the host town and jockeying for prime parking in lots where they quickly deployed all of the amenities of ongoing tailgate parties. The narrative is lively and entertaining, punctuated by rich regional speech patterns and sports-related profanity. A modest amount of space is devoted to analyzing fan moods/behaviors from a sociological standpoint (why fandom "is as much about opposing as advocating"), but the greater portion of the book consists of memorably drawn portraits of the regulars in the crowd, including a couple who skipped their daughter's wedding because it conflicted with a game. The coach, the team, their stats, and headline-generating plays are certainly on scene, but it is the fan action that St. John captures with empathy and wit. - Lynn Nutwell, Fairfax City Regional Library, VA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Broadway; Reprint edition (May 31, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0609807137
• ISBN-13: 978-0609807132
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.6 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (70 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #332,102 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Warren St. John is the author of the national bestsellers "Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer: A Journey into the Heart of Fan Mania" and "Outcasts United: An American Town, a Refugee Team and One Woman's Quest to Make a Difference." A former reporter for the New York Times, he has also written extensively for The New Yorker, the New York Observer, and Wired. He was born in Birmingham, Alabama, attended Columbia University and now lives in New York City.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Crimson...with envy. WSJ can write, and he got it right. August 8, 2004

By D. Keith

Format:Hardcover

As a writer myself, I admit I was a bit concerned when I first met Warren St. John in the RV lot before one of the games he tells about in this book. Concerned on two accounts.

First worry: He seemed to be a nice enough fellow, but he did work for the NY Times. That's the way he was invariably introduced to everyone in the lot, sort of like politely pointing out a slightly addled third cousin at a family reunion. I assumed he would come at us serious college football fans (read: "crazy as a loon") from the usual perspective. You know: rubes bearing rolls of toilet paper and a Tide detergent box impaled on a "plumber's friend." screaming crimson-tinged obscenities at anyone ignorant enough to root for anybody else.

Either that or, coming from where he did, he would miss the whole point, that these folks may act a bit peculiar when they pull their RVs into the Law Library lot on Wednesday before a Saturday game, but they are mostly salt-of-the-earth types, people you are proud to have in your army, just like millions of other folks who color their lives in pursuit of pastimes or allegiances that seem absolutely goofy to most of the rest of us right-thinking intellectuals. Certainly no different from rabid Red Sox or Cubs fans, the Dawg Pound in Cleveland or the crazies who show up for Raider games. Just different in the color of our face-paint and the poetry of our cheers. Our poison just happens to be 18-year-old young men on a college football field who proudly sweat and bleed while wearing our school colors. Not pro football, international soccer or widget collecting.

But then, it turns out that St. John is one of us. He understands. And yet he is a good enough reporter to tell the truth about us, warts and all, and do it in an informative and entertaining way.

There's the rub. As a writer, I'm damned envious. Man, this guy can put us right in the middle of a tailgate party, a fourth-and-goal with the clock running down, or a scholarly dissertation on the nature of fandom in ancient Rome as it applies to college sports and make it all read like a lazy conversation over a Coors Light at a bar on the Tuscaloosa strip. St. John had me hooked right up front when he described Bear Bryant's "old growth stature." Bingo! That's a goodie!

This, by the way, is not a college football book. No more than HUCK FINN is a book about a raft. This is a very funny, sometimes serious, often moving, and an always entertaining (and sometimes astonishing) examination of a phenomenon that surprisingly few have really tried to dissect before. I hope it helps others see why we do the things we do in the name of our beloved Crimson Tide, or whoever "our team" happens to be. Or gives us better insight into the psyches of the fans of the Red Sox, Cubs, Browns, and Raiders. Maybe even a glimpse into the thought processes of those poor, misguided souls who pull for the Tennessee Vols or Auburn Tigers.

No. Belay that. That would be asking too much of any book or writer.

Thanks, Warren. You took the ball over the top, into the end zone, and we're huggin' and high-fivin' and lettin' loose a rousing rendition of Rammer Jammer that they'll hear all the way to wherever we tee up the ball next.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Rammer Jammer should be required reading at all tailgates! August 3, 2004

By Brett Young

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

As a lifelong Alabama fan, I, too, have experienced the thrill of great victories and numerous championships and also suffered the agony of many recent defeats while living in far-away (from 'Bama) places, Also, as a publisher of a fan website (www.TideFans.com) devoted to the thousands of passionate fans that Warren St. John describes, I empathize with Warren St. John's outstanding depiction of what it is like to be a true fan of the Crimson Tide.

Rammer Jammer is a great read for not just Alabama fans, but for any true fans of any team where passion is displayed on a large scale. St. John's story of the picture he had taken with legendary Alabama coach, Paul "Bear" Bryant, is one that little boys our age in Alabama grew up dreaming about.

St. John's book should be required reading at tailgates across the nation.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars outstanding read, for sports fans and non-sports fans August 4, 2004

By Gretchen C. Rubin VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

First, I have to confess that I have absolutely no interest in any kind of sports, especially college football -- but I read this hilarious and fascinating book in one day. I loved St. John's account of careening through the South in his R.V., with accounts of his conversations with other fans, the logistics of cadging the tickets, the etiquette of the tailgates and trailer lots, the traditions and superstitions surrounding what to wear to the games. St. John is a true fan himself, and a Southerner, so the book doesn't have an annoying snarky tone; he's part of what he describes.

Tom Wolfe provides a blurb for the book, and it is truly Wolfe-ian in its inclusion of the precise details that give an intense sub-culture its vitality.