It seems that no matter how sincere a writer is about infiltrating the group and understanding the mind-set of its members, he can't fully comprehend what's behind the obsession. And he certainly can't understand why its followers will be no-shows at family weddings and birthday parties or skip work to satisfy a passion that has no discernible direct effect on anything in his own life.

But Warren St. John has no such problems in his hilarious college football travelogue, Rammer Jammer Yellowhammer: A Journey Into the Heart of Fan Mania.

As a dyed-in-the-wool Alabama fan from Birmingham, St. John - who acknowledges having drunkenly cried himself to sleep after a particularly heartbreaking loss by the Crimson Tide - already has a sense of what drives these fans. He just needs to find some who will let him tag along.

Joining up with a band of RV-owning Alabama fanatics whom he tracked down through a combination of Internet message boards, word of mouth and fortuitous game-day tailgates, St. John, who writes for The New York Times, quickly does away with any pretense of journalistic objectivity. Sure, he's there to document what makes this particular group tick, why they plan their lives around the team's game schedule. But he's also a fan, and with that fact well out in the open, St. John is free to react to the team's highs and lows, each victory and defeat giving him a new opportunity to philosophize about the joys and perils of being a die-hard.

"At a typical Alabama game, between 250 and 800 motor homes show up, depending on the opponent and the venue. If you have never seen 800 motor homes in a single place, let me tell you, it is a strangely impressive sight."

After a few weeks of bumming rides in fellow fans' RVs, he goes out and buys one himself - which he quickly spends several thousand dollars repairing and names "the Hawg."

And while St. John presents the book, whose title is taken from an Alabama victory chant, as a sociological study of sorts, he makes sure never to get too dry or scientific. There are a few passing references to crowd studies and the psychology of groups but they're not where the meat of Rammer Jammer Yellowhammer is found.

Rather it's in the characters. People like John Ed, the ticket scalper who seems to know everyone in Birmingham; Chip Glass, a fan who vomits before games because of anxiety, cries joyfully after wins and believes it's bad luck for him to attend the games; Paul Finebaum, a local sports columnist and radio host who revels in the Tide's struggles and is therefore viewed as a mortal enemy by Bama fans, who often threaten him physically; and Chris and Paula Bice, a charming couple from South Carolina who pack their motor home up each week to go and cheer on the team.

St. John presents these people with a disbelieving good-naturedness. But he doesn't shy away from the dark side of some of the fans either: casual racism, drunken fights and vandalism.

But those dark moments are not what this book is made up of. With an intelligent, humorous voice that is tempered by the knowledge of someone who's had his night ruined by a Tide loss, St. John delivers a rousing, often laugh-out-loud performance that could even get an Auburn fan yelling "Roll Tide!"

Well, maybe not.

---

Rammer Jammer Yellowhammer: A Journey Into the Heart of Fan Mania. By Warren St. John. Crown. 275 Pages. $24.