Pennington: Hard to miss Manning's status

At any rate, I walk in and grab a seat for lunch. Looking up from the menu, I spot a familiar face. Was I surprised to see him staring back at me, dressed in his finest clothes? A serious, almost mournful look on his face?

Not at all. Photos of Robert E. Lee grace darn near every bar, tavern or watering hole across the old Confederacy.

(If you're wondering when this will turn into a sports column just bear with me.)

Across the Deep South from Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia to South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia, Bobby Lee graces many an establishment's walls. It's sort of a "you may have won the war, but you didn't have anyone who could compare with OUR guy" statement for all the Northerners who still pass through the South on their way to Florida (a state that's truly fallen to Yankee carpetbaggers).

Many folks refer to Lee as the Patron Saint of the Lost Cause. Southern sons and even daughters are still being named for him. So are city streets. And that got me to thinking.

We have someone like that in Tennessee, too, but it's not ol' Bobby. This state, after all, wasn't as rebel as most of the other Southern states, especially not Union-leaning East Tennessee.

So we've gone and found our own Patron Saint. His image is everywhere in Knoxville. His autographed photos hang in Beale Street blues bars and barbecue pits. They grace more than one of the honky tonks in Nashville.

The Volunteer State version of Robert E. Lee is Volunteer legend Peyton Manning. I've seen his autographed picture in so many beer joints that I've begun to wonder "just how many beer joints has this guy been in?" Which leads, of course, to, "just how many beer joints have I been in?" And at that point, I drop the subject.

Manning is the man Vol fans want their kids to be like. He's the poster boy for the state, even though he's an adopted son, rather than a native like Davy Crockett. And like Lee, his legend grows larger as time passes.

Street names? Check. Kids' names (both males and females)? Check. Photos in the bars and restaurants? Oh, yeah.

Taverns and neighborhood bars still are our cultural meeting places, after all. I think we must get that from the English, Scots and Irish. Want to find out what a group of people care about? Go to their local watering holes and check out the walls. The photos and memorabilia that hang there will tip you off right quick.

Those are the images that represent what we as a community care about and even how we picture ourselves. They represent the best of us. And onto them we project all the good, all the positives, all the things we "wish we could be." Better days. Heroes and legends.

Lee (in deep Dixie) and Manning (in Tennessee) have become totems. They symbolize what COULD have been. And what could have been is always greater in our minds than what actually was.

Hank Williams, Jr.'s "If the South woulda won we'd a had it made" sums up this idea nicely (if you're crazy enough to think the Confederacy could have worked long-term). And how many Vol fans, despite the national championship in 1998 (sans Manning), still ache over the Florida losses that put the kibosh on Peyton's '95, '96 and '97 campaigns?

"If only he'd caught a break." "If Stonewall Jackson hadn't been killed..." "If Florida hadn't returned that interception for a touchdown ..." You know the drill.

That's Lee. And that's Manning. What could have been. The Lost Cause.

Lee and Manning never could get that one key win that would have won their respective wars. Yet, their gentlemanly demeanor and their strategic genius have put them at the top of many folks' most-beloved lists.

And when one group loves you, another group will want you to fail. Historian Shelby Foote once told an author that he liked finding faults in Lee because Lee was always put on such a high pedestal. Sound like a certain quarterback that gets more than his fair share of criticism?

Of course, Lee's got the easy part. He's dead. Manning? His remaining battles will all be fought live in front of millions of people. His every move will be dissected by the educated and uneducated alike on the Internet, on talk radio, and now on talk TV (have you seen my show). As Stephen King once wrote, "sometimes dead is better."

But as much as folks try to tear him down, Manning, quite clearly, always will be the Patron Saint of Tennessee. (Just as his old man is down in New Orleans.) Even if he never wins another game, most Tennesseans will still look back fondly at "the greatest we ever had." "You may have won the war, but you didn't have anybody that could compare to OUR guy." Ol' Peyton.

And if you don't believe me, just check out the walls of the next tavern or restaurant you pass. Chances are a photo of Number 16 will be staring back at you.