Cowbells Tolling

Robert Jordan was assigned to blow up the bridge. He knows, when he receives his assignment, that he might not survive it. But he also knows there is camaraderie when facing an enemy in hostile territory. He knows the need to surrender oneself for the common good of his fellows. To do “as all good men should” means to be willing to sacrifice self. It means laying it all on the line. For Robert Jordan, it meant death over defeat.

I don’t know if Nick Fairley ever read Ernest Hemingway’s novel about Robert Jordan. He certainly played as if he did. After all, the junior defensive tackle had one interception, one fumble recovery, 1.5 sacks and 2.5 tackles for loss. He played as if he were a cloned mixture of Reggie White and Darrelle Revis. While the offense was sputtering in a bell-acious hostile environment, Fairley’s assignment from defensive line coach Tracy Rocker was simple: sacrifice yourself for 60 minutes and don’t let the bell-hounds out your grasp. Do it for your team. They will be there to drag you off the field of battle when it’s over. Surrender self for the common good of the team. Rocker asked Fairley to be like Hemingway’s hero.

Hemingway borrowed a line from John Donne and used it as the title of his novel. Most people think the line came from a poem entitled “No Man is an Island”, but actually Donne wrote it as prose in a piece entitled “Meditation No. 17”. Those memorable first words of the Meditation are: “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of a continent, a part of the main.”

Certainly Donne’s words were taken to heart by the men of the orange and blue on Thursday night. No one particular player was able to beat Mississippi State. It took a team. Not just the offense….in fact one might say “not the offense”, but also the defense. Not just Cameron Newton, but also the Nick Fairley led defense (here I insert a shade-of-memory shout-out to Wayne Hall, Auburn’s defensive coordinator during the Pat Dye era, as Scarbinsky did today in the Birmingham News) won the game in a manner reminiscent of his coach and mentor’s days on The Plains. No man was an island in Starkville.

Mississippi state circled September 9 as the turning point for their program. It was the first SEC game where the cowbells were legal. It was Thursday night on ESPN. It was against an SEC West opponent. It was their opportunity to gain respect. The cowbells would move them over the hump from that dreaded left side of the SEC bell curve. They had everything to win. Auburn had everything to lose. Even the prognosticators had pointed to this as a “trap game” for Auburn.

But State forgot one thing. They forgot to read Hemingway’s novel. Or even Donne’s Meditation.

The last line of Donne’s Meditation No. 17 reminds us of a bell. It reminds us of a bell we cannot escape. Certainly that is what every Stark-vegas Bulldog was thinking as they entered Davis Wade Stadium at Scott Field. They must have been thinking, "Auburn....this is a bell you cannot escape!!"

That famous and often quoted last line reads “…for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee”. Hemingway took part of this line for his novel: “For Whom the Bell Tolls”. Donne spoke of it as a death bell.

But as much as the maroon clad bulldogs rang their cowbells in an effort to confuse, frustrate and finally get the Auburn Tigers to roll over and die, it didn’t happen. Rather, Donne’s words came hauntingly back…..”For whom the bell tolls……it tolls for you.”