Culpepper no ordinary Pepper
Published 6:23 pm Friday, May 25, 2018
Scooter Hobbs
Ladies and gentlemen, this is an outrage. This is disgraceful. Yes, it’s time to write your congress-type person, organize a boycott.
Something. Anything.
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Enough is enough.
We, as a proud nation (most of the time), cannot take this kind of corporate strong-arming any longer.
It is time to revolt. To unite as one.
Who knows? Maybe you can make a difference.
For this, my friends, cuts straight to our core values.
In other words: Is there really any reason to have the college football season anymore?
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It just won’t be the same, that’s for sure.
The news was hidden on busy news cycles, or maybe it was one of those Friday dumps of bad tidings.
But they couldn’t cover it up forever.
Blame it on Dr Pepper.
But the heartless mega-soft drink company, illustrating everything that is bloated, heartless and savagely greedy about Conglomerate America, has decided to banish Larry Culpepper from the college football scene.
Say it ain’t so.
Yes, the everyman who made flip-up glasses and a knee brace fashionable and almost ushered in a new sartorial era of tight short pants, is no more.
I’m told you can still buy his distinctive outfit online (don’t ask me where or how) so maybe all it not lost.
But, for now, Culpepper is just another sad victim of corporate layoffs.
Where’s the love? The gratitude? The respect for loyalty?
Oh, how soon all that was forgotten.
Kicked to the soda fountain curb, as it were.
We’re not talking about any ordinary product-pitching doofus here.
No, we’re talking about the man who “invented the College Football Playoff.”
Where’s the love?
That doesn’t count for anything?
Granted, his stake to the CFP claim was always somewhat fuzzy, but it was good enough for me.
Did anybody else ever call him on it? Did anybody else produce a blueprint of their own? Think about that.
I know all you had to do was gaze into those glazed eyes of a man watching his brainchild unfold each fall, and there was no doubt who the real father was.
The man was a legend, a symbol of hope and admiration for all of us.
He was living proof that, yes, you could make a difference.
We’re talking about a man who could make wearing a fanny pack acceptable in polite society.
And yet he’s gone, mostly likely without even so much as a gold watch.
Oh, Dr Pepper tried to smooth it all over with some corporate gobbledygook.
“Larry Culpepper has been a great part of our Dr Pepper college football sponsorship for the past four years and has helped us delight fans throughout the season,” the carefully worded release from headquarters read. “With the renewal of our college football sponsorship, we’ve decided to take our football-related advertising in a new creative direction.”
We, as a free people, cannot stand for this.
Social media, which first uncovered the coup, was quick to respond. In fact, the ruse was first uncovered on Twitter. Or maybe it wasn’t. But it’s where I first learned of it, so there.
Among the comments were:
“Do not let this minor victory fool you. larry culpepper has killed and will kill again.”
“Our long national nightmare has ended.”
“AMERICA IS GREAT AGAIN.”
Well, that’s the elitist (pig-headed) view.
Ignore them.
Some of us will miss him.
Some of us appreciate his genius and can’t imagine college football without him.
I’ll be the first to admit that when Larry Culpepper first burst onto the scene — 2014, I guess it was — I sized him up and figured that this was kind of cool, but that there was a bit of refined obnoxiousness that might go over some fans’ heads. There was a real danger that he might wear thin rather quickly.
He never did. And he never forgot where he came from (or revealed it).
Surely, having invented the CFP, there were other opportunities out there for Mr. Culpepper. He could have rested on his laurels or cashed in on his invention.
But he was himself, the consummate wannabe from hell, until the very end.
I remember he showed up at SEC football media days in Hoover, Alabama, one year.
I was in awe, but found him very approachable (we once nodded at each other). Just one of the gang. Never put on heirs.
You have to appreciate that, even if Dr Pepper doesn’t.
Meanwhile, Dr Pepper has threatened an “all-new campaign this season.”
Somebody has some big, thigh-length white socks to fill.
<strong>Scooter Hobbs</strong> covers LSU athletics. Email him at shobbs@americanpress.com
