Author melds fandom with season

Casting off the traditional journalistic approach toward bias, sports columnist and author Clay Travis writes like he’s a fan.

Released in August, Travis’ new book, “On Rocky Top: A Front-Row Seat to the End of an Era,” does more than simply document the 2008 Tennessee Volunteers’ football season. He shared his own thoughts and experiences as a fan, as well, enduring the 5-7 year and the departure of legendary Vols coach Phillip Fulmer.

“Basically what I tried to do was write in the same tone as I would have if I was sitting around, talking with my friends, and obviously humor is a big part of that,” Travis said.

Indeed it is. About the heart-wrenching overtime loss against the UCLA Bruins that kicked off the ‘08 season, Travis makes the connection in his book to the first game he attended in 1985 — also a season opener, also against UCLA.

Before the days of overtime, the mid ‘80s game ended in a 26-26 tie. His father told him a tie is better than a loss, but Travis was skeptical.

Fast forward to 2008, and the Vols’ overtime loss makes him rethink his attitude.

“I discover that my dad was right — a tie isn’t so bad after all,” he quips.

The columnist admits in the book that he wanted to throw up after that 2008 game. His wife lectures him about not letting the outcome of a football game affect his mood for the next week, but he said he’s still that type of person.

“I was in Oxford (Saturday), and I’m still having flashbacks of (Ole Miss running back) Dexter McCluster,” Travis said. “I don’t think that’s ever going to change. That’s why I’m a fan.”

It’s this association with fandom that caused Travis, even with all that sideline access, to hop into the stands during the 2008 UCLA game, where he found shouting and yelling along with other diehards not as awkward.

And it’s this passion that Travis identifies as essential to his writing.

“Sports are supposed to be fun,” he said.

With “On Rocky Top,” Travis aimed for a story with duality — what happened with the team and how he experienced it as a fan. He said this has broadened his audience.

“People who aren’t Tennessee fans have enjoyed this story because it captures what it means to be a fan while at the same time providing a lot of detail,” Travis said.

He chose to write the book in real time, so allusions to later in the season are nonexistent and all of Travis’ thoughts are reactionary to that week’s occurrences.

“I think that it makes for a better reading experience,” Travis said. “And honestly, I’d like to think that in 10 years, if you read it, you can still feel the immediacy.”

He said this adds to the gravity of each situation as it arose during the season.

“I wanted the reader to experience the feeling of what being a fan is like,” Travis said. “If you write it in retrospect, it doesn’t feel like you are actually experiencing the season.”

As a result, he had as little control over the book’s content as he did over the outcome of games. Each week his book would change.

“You don’t control the narrative at all,” he said. “The game, the season, the players control the narrative.”

The 29 year old has almost a quarter-century of UT football memories to draw from when he attends a game, and he said those stories draw him into writing.

“(The game) ascends and joins that litany of games that have gone in the past,” Travis said. “It becomes a transcendent experience. … I’m genuinely excited as I was when I was 6 years old.”

The grandson of Richard Fox, who played under Gen. Robert Neyland at UT from 1931 to 1933, Travis said he was destined to become a Vol fan.

“It wasn’t something that I ever remember making a conscious choice about,” Travis said. “It was just a way of life.”

That family connection is part of the reason why he originally loved SEC football.

He lamented that the era of SEC football teams coached by alumni or former players is past, with the Fulmers of the world replaced by highly paid coaches migrating from other programs like Florida Gators head coach Urban Meyer and Alabama Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban.

"Fulmer is the last SEC coach born in his state, the last SEC coach to graduate from his university," Travis said. "And when it started, it wasn't uncommon at all."

He said guys like Meyer, Saban and new UT head coach Lane Kiffin might excel at coaching but "aren't necessarily one of us."

Of course the end of the Fulmer era did more than close the book on what Travis calls the "regional era in SEC football." It also changed the narrative of his book.

Travis worried about wins and losses even more during the 2008 season, as he knew it would have a dramatic impact on book sales.

"For the first time in my life, I generally felt like I had thousands of dollars riding on each game because I knew that if UT had a national championship or SEC Championship-type season ... fans would want to remember it," Travis said.

He identified question marks in the paly of UT quarterback Jonathan Crompton and the offensive style of then-offensive coordinator Dave Clawson, but he expected solidarity in an improved defense and returning starters.

He identified three major tossup games -- Florida, Alabama and Georgia -- and expected an eight- or nine-win season.

"I thought in general it was going to be a very successful season, and I was shocked by the results," Travis said.

While Travis described the experience of watching the season as "brutal" from a fan's perspective, the 5-7 season added to the final product.

"I think the book is better from a literary perspective because of the season being bad," Travis said. "I think that the story stands alone in terms of a season that UT fans will remember for a very, very long time."

From a personal perspective, he missed Fulmer, who reminded him of coaches he had growing up.

"I just thought it was an awfully tough decision that (UT men's athletic director) Mike Hamilton, from a business perspective, felt he had to make," Travis said.

As a fan, he likened it to the growing trend of business over personality. He pointed to television ratings as proof of the SEC going national.

It surprised him that CBS games, which only have SEC teams and only showcase one matchup, get higher ratings than ABC split-telecast games, which draw from a plethora of conferences and target specific, more-local audiences.

Willing to both support and critique his own team and its conference, Travis said his honesty, coupled with his passion for the game, drive his writing style.

In one passage of "On Rocky Top," when interviewing UCLA head coach Rick Neuheisel, Travis said he accidentally spit out peanuts on Neuheisel's black turtleneck. While other authors might choose to omit an embarrassed anecdote such as this, Travis leaves it in.

"For me, for better or worse, I tend to be fearless in my writing," Travis said. "And if I'm going to make fun of other people, which I do a lot in the column, ... then I think I have to hold myself to the same rigorous standards of ridicule."

So Travis freely writes that if he gains weight, he gets "man boobs." He tries to take a carefree approach to his vocation.

"I don't take myself too seriously would be the other thing," Travis said. "Some people might think what they do is very important, changes the scope of the world. I don't happen to think that."

As a result, he enters a leg-press feud with the Rev. Pat Robertson, or he'll endeavor to eat only pudding for 50 days in protest of the lack of NFL Sunday Ticket in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

These stunts, as well as his personality and humor, permeate his writing. The Civil War history buff uses historical references from time to time, and his Dixieland Delight Tour was so named partly because of the resulting initials -- DDT, also the finishing maneuver of his boyhood idol, professional wrestler Jake "The Snake" Roberts.

It's this humor that first attracted Caleb Owen, senior in journalism and electronic media, to Travis' writing back in Owen's junior year of high school.

"I started reading him because I thought he was funny, but over the years, he's transformed into a legitimate sports journalist," Owen said. "But he's maintained his trademark sense of humor."

Growing up as a UT fan, just as Travis did, Owen appreciates Travis' take on what being a fan of college football means.

"It's good how he can articulate a lot of the psychology of being a fan, sort of make the emotions you feel as a college football fan more tangible," Owen said.

And it's these experiences that make Travis think of his writing as not a job at all. The part-time lawyer works from home, writing his AOL Fanhouse column, hosting his radio show, appearing on other radio shows, responding to reader e-mails and working on full-length projects like his three books, all in the span of a week.

"I work a lot, but I don't necessarily pay attention to the clock (often)," Travis said. "I've found that I enjoy what I do so much that I look at the clock and notice that hours have passed."