[revrew]

When San Fransisco came to town the next week, the stands were crawling with reporters waiting to get their claws into some inflammatory soundbites. Many of the same, square-jawed rednecks showed up waving even larger Confederate flags, just to cause a stir. It was working, too, with the journalists and security weaving through the crowd.

Some just didn't care about the hullabaloo. One father was quoted as saying, "I'm here to watch a football game with my son, not argue politics. You see those flags at every truck stop, diner, courthouse, and school around here anyway. I don't see what the big deal is."

Others, of course, went off the deep end. Maria Blackwell of the NAACP made herself and her organization look bad with sit-down protests that were later accompainied by marijuana possession arrests.

A good stir was created, not just by the flags, but by the Rebels second victory, a surprise 17-13 defeat of the 49ers. Yes, the first-year Rebels were bad, but not nearly so bad as a few of the other teams in the league. I don't know how they did it. They must have been trying to be bad. 'Cause Lord knows Jeffrey Davis' "guidelines" were killin' us.

Despite the good feelings about a 2-0 Rebels squad, the quagmire of racial and political tensions was coming to a head. It was time for Keaton Graves to step in and do his dirty magic.