Dixieland Delight

A sports columnist documents the University of Tennessee’s 2006 football season in the NCAA’s Southeastern Conference.

“As indispensable to college football fans as ibuprofen on Sunday morning.” —Warren St. John, bestselling author of Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer

There is no college ball more passionate and competitive than football in the Southeastern Conference, where seven of the twelve schools boast stadiums bigger than any in the NFL and six.five million fans hit the road every year to hoot and holler their teams to victory.

In September 2006, popular sports columnist and lifelong University of Tennessee fan Clay Travis set out on his “Dixieland Delight Tour.” Without a single map, hotel reservation, or game ticket, he began an eight,zero-mile journey through the beating heart of the Southland. As Travis toured the SEC, he immersed himself in the bizarre game-day rituals of the common fan, brazenly dancing with the chancellor's wife at a Vanderbilt frat party, hanging with University of Florida demigod quarterback Tim Tebow, and abandoning himself totally to the ribald intensity and religious fervor of SEC football. Dixieland Delight is Travis's hilarious, loving, irreverent, and endlessly entertaining chronicle of a season of ironic excess in a world that goes a little crazy on football Saturdays.

“It's the irreverent attitude and willingness to make fun of one's own obsessions that give the account its zip.” —Booklist

“[Dixieland Delight] promises to be so popular down South it might replace the Bible in select motel rooms. Pretty much anyone will love this thing, but if you have even a remote interest in the SEC, this essentially is your new handbook on life.” —Dan Wetzel, Yahoo! national sports columnist and co-author of Glory Road