Glenda Beall interviews Ed Southern

We appreciate the Executive Director of NCWN and author of Fight Songs, Ed Southern taking the time to answer these questions. I have read this book considered one of the best sportsbooks you will read, and found it is all about the south and our southern fanaticism about college football as well as our history. Although I am not a sports fan, I found it totally engaging and it kept me reading page after page. Be sure you join us on Zoom when Ed is featured on Writers' Night Out, sponsored by NC Writers' Network-West, November 12, 7:00 PM. Contact me at glendabeall@msn.com if you want to sign up for Open Mic that evening.

GLENDA: I grew up in a male-dominated household that loved sports. I never played team sports and am not a football fan. Please tell me why someone like me will enjoy your book.

ED: Fight Songs isn’t really about sports. It’s about the roles that sports play in our culture and in our lives, and how and why they took on those roles. I like to think that anyone with an interest in the South would enjoy this book.

GLENDA: Your wife, Jamie, is a huge football fan and she is from Alabama. Your love story is told throughout the book. How did she influence you as a football fan?

ED: My football fandom was pretty well fully formed by the time we met, but she certainly reinforced it. Watching football and reading are our only two shared hobbies.

GLENDA:  Some of the men in my family, when UGA lost a game, said it ruined the entire following week for them.  Are you the kind of fan who takes losing this seriously?

ED: I can’t be: I’m a Wake Forest fan. Wake lost way too many games for me to let them ruin my entire week. I’d have never had a good week growing up.

GLENDA: You say that NC is more of a basketball state than a football state. Why are sports fans in NC more interested in basketball?

ED: Well, you have to read Fight Songs to get the full story, but the short answer is that NC college basketball teams won national championships, and college football teams didn’t. The question then is, Why?

GLENDA: North Carolina is known for great writers, its higher education and medical centers. In your book, you say that some southern sports fans claim that NC is not really a southern state and the south ends with South Carolina. How is NC different from the deep south states?

ED: The short answer is, one, NC didn’t have as large or as powerful an antebellum plantation aristocracy as the Deep South states; and, two, the state had a longer time between its “frontier” period and the Civil War. Really, though, we’re not all that different than the Deep South. We just managed to avoid having demagogues in our governor’s mansion during the Civil Rights Movement. We managed to keep a better public image.

 GLENDA: My husband, Barry, was obsessed with college football and particularly the SEC. He taught my niece to love and understand the game of football. It is hard for me to understand the passion men have for the sport and harder to understand it in women. Does it have anything to do with the male ego or does it have to do with belonging to a group of like-minded men?

ED: I’m sure male ego has a lot to do with it for some men. I’m sure the sense of belonging – which can be healthy or unhealthy – has a lot to do with it for some people, male and female. 

I love it for many reasons. I love how the game combines great intricacy of technique and tactics with brute force and raw speed. I love that it’s usually played outdoors, in the fall. I love how you find a story – a set-up, rising suspense, climax, and resolution – not only in every game, but in every snap of the ball, and in every season as a whole. I love the sense of community I feel, and how it connects me with my friends and family.

 GLENDA: Fight Songs, your book, began as an essay but became a highly praised book. Will you tell us how this happened and how a fun little love story about sports, became what is called “one of the greatest sports books you will ever read?”

ED: My editor at Blair, Robin Miura, also edits an online magazine called South Writ Large. I spoke to her about the essay for SWL. She passed on it but asked if I’d be interested in expanding the essay into a book. I didn’t think there was enough there for a book, but she convinced me otherwise, and she was right.

GLENDA: You say that football is a game of violence and basketball is a game of assertion. I don’t enjoy football because I abhor the violence on the field and the violent language in the stands. Since deep south fans seem to be rabid about football, is it the violence, the physical damage done to the players that intrigue them?

ED: For some, I’d imagine that it is. Some may be sadists who like watching damage done to others. Some may imagine the players as their avatars, inflicting damage on their behalf. I don’t think that’s limited to football fans in the Deep South.

I think what appeals more in the South is how football embodies notions of domination and honor, notions that held sway in most of the South long before anyone saw a football.

GLENDA: There is talk lately of paying college football players who earn millions of dollars for the colleges where they play. If they get hurt playing for their college team and can never play professional ball, their hopes of earning anything from the game are doomed. In your research did you find support for this and what do you think?

ED: Yes, public opinion has turned in favor of paying college athletes. College football and men’s basketball have generated tremendous revenue for decades, but that revenue has grown exponentially since the 1980s, with the rise of TV contracts. It’s way past time for the players to get a fair share of that.

GLENDA: Will you tell us how the COVID-19 pandemic influenced sports and the fans. What were the major effects, and will they last after the pandemic is finally over?

ED: Again, you really have to read the book to get the full answer to that. The pandemic influenced some fans greatly. They began taking sports less seriously, willingly stayed away from games, even lost their fandom entirely. Others, though, weren’t influenced by the pandemic at all. They saw it as an inconvenience, keeping them from watching their beloved games.

I think the widespread effects will not last, once the pandemic ends. I think the effects on individuals might.

GLENDA: You are just coming off a book tour.  Did your publisher schedule the tour or did you plan and pay for it?

ED: My publisher and I worked together to plan it, and they scheduled it.

GLENDA: What did you like and what did you dislike about the tour?

ED: I loved visiting people and places I hadn’t seen in a while, and I was humbled by readers’ enthusiasm for this book. I disliked touring during a pandemic, which was fraught with fears and doubts.

GLENDA: Do you have a certain place and/or time when you write?

ED: I usually write early in the morning, before anyone else has woken up. I like the quiet.

GLENDA: Thank you, Ed, so much for giving us your time to answer these questions. We appreciate your being our guest on Writers’ Night Out, November 12. I am sure our members and others will want to meet you and hear more about this interesting book.