Dear Sports Illustrated, Shame on You for Disrespecting the South Carolina Gamecocks

We are college football fans. Big college football fans. We live in the South and are partial to the SEC (South Eastern Conference) teams, but we watch college football every chance we get. When schedules and finances allow, we travel to games; especially to watch the Alabama Crimson Tide football team. Last year, we had the good fortune of attending the Crimson Tide versus the Tennessee Volunteers game. That football game was so thrilling that I wrote a poem about our experience: Alabama Crimson Tide Versus the Tennessee Volunteers - a Poem. And before the BCS Championship game last year, this poem popped out: Alabama Crimson Tide Versus Texas Long Horns: Poem about the Battle for the BCS Championship.

I won't belabor the point but we have a dog named Bear and a cat named Nick. My husband's first son is named Bryant. Surely you get the point.

We subscribe to Sports Illustrated magazine and eagerly await it's arrival every Thursday. We save back issues that have exciting stories about SEC teams. As I write this I'm flanked by the January 8, 1979 Sports Illustrated that reads "Bama Stops Penn State" on one side and the December 14, 2009 magazine that reads "Sweet Win Alabama" on the other. Yep, we've kept those SI editions along with stacks of others. Did I mention that we like college football?

So here's our beef. The South Carolina Gamecocks soundly and convincingly whipped Nick Saban's #1 ranked Alabama Crimson Tide last Saturday with a final score of 35 - 21. It was a real game, a battle, and the Gamecocks won. Steve Spurrier's Gamecocks played a great game that day and came out with the biggest victory in their football history.

It's not the way we wanted the game to go but that's college football - and it was an epic win for the Gamecocks. After all, Alabama had not lost a regular season game in 2-1/2 years. They won the National Championship in 2009. In fact, Alabama's loss to the Gamecocks caused the Tide to drop to #8 in Top 25 polls after being on top for so long. So, even though we pull for the Tide, we were happy for the beleaguered Gamecocks. We even agreed that we would keep the next edition of Sports Illustrated, add it to our growing pile.

But when the October 18, 2010 magazine arrived the cover was about a Sports Agent. What?! Okay, it's a good story but... really? No Gamecock cover? In fairness, the double-truck image on pages 6 and 7 is excellent but the tiny article about the game is buried on page 28.

Now we are waiting for Thursday. It will be interesting to see who makes it onto the coveted cover of Sports Illustrated. My hunch tells me it could be the Wisconsin Badgers upset over the Ohio State Buckeyes. After all, the Buckeyes WERE in the #1 spot for a whole week. The South Carolina Gamecocks get no respect.