For the past five years, students who have attended The University of Alabama have bared witness to perhaps the greatest collegiate athletic program of all time. Whether it is football, softball, women’s golf or the always dominant gymnastics program, Alabama athletics is unmatched throughout the country.

This past weekend’s epic win over Georgia in the SEC Championship defined the championship level fight the football team and other programs possess. While much of the credit goes to the coaches in their respective programs, it is the fans that have made this championship atmosphere what it is today.

Not many outside state lines know what it is like to be part of a consistent championship program. Heck, not many inside state lines know what it is like to be a consistent champion. A team southeast of Tuscaloosa looking for a head coach could tell you that firsthand.

But I digress.

We are living in an era of greatness at the Capstone and it is up to Crimson Tide fans, especially students, to relish it and soak up all the crystal footballs, diamond-studded rings and wooden NCAA trophies because it has not always been this way and unfortunately will not last forever. I can tell you that firsthand.

Growing up in a multicultural family, American football was a foreign concept and was not part of the household. But like many children in Alabama are forced to do when they are young, one must pick a side to root for. Then Tigers coach Terry Bowden was doing well so I picked Auburn. For years and years I rooted against the Crimson Tide and was always happy when they lost.

Even when a family member of mine chose to go here, I rooted against the Tide. Even when the Tide was supposed to beat then lowly Northern Illinois, I cheered through the streets of Tuscaloosa as a bandwagon Huskies fan after the Tide fell in one of the biggest upsets in Crimson Tide history.

But after all of the seething hatred I had for a program that was coming off NCAA sanctions and that had struggled for years in the early 2000s, something about this town and this University completely changed how I viewed Alabama and college football.

Some people have an “a-ha” moment in which they realize what they’ve been doing wrong all along. Mine came in a series of weekends spent in Tuscaloosa, even during the “down years” at the Capstone. The passion and exuberance displayed by Tide fans, even though they knew they had no shot, baffled me. How could a fan base not give up on their team despite them being terrible? Why are so many fans still packing out a stadium to watch their team lose?

Those questions soon became impossible to find a clear-cut answer to. So I chose to embrace the atmosphere for a couple of weekends not knowing what to expect. What I discovered was my true college football team and the best fan base in the Southeastern Conference and entire nation.

Whether it was the tailgaters or the pregame rituals, Crimson Tide fans were as passionate about their team as major fan bases like the New York Yankees, Philadelphia Eagles and Los Angeles Lakers even during rough stretches, and I wanted to be a part of it.

But now that the football team and other elite Tide programs are once again champions, it is now crucial that fans and students, like the teams, not get complacent. A certain sense of arrogance comes with championships. Trust me – I’m a Yankees fan. It is important to remember these teams are special, but it is the fans that make this University stand alone when it comes to championship atmospheres.

Despite what happens in the most highly anticipated championship games in college football history against two traditional powerhouses, Crimson Tide fans should relish every second, every minute and every hour from today up until kickoff because that is what this athletics program is all about.

That is what college football is truly about.