Because old habits dye hard, I reached into my closet Monday and pulled out a white shirt. On Tuesday, I went with gray. On rivalry week, you can’t get more neutral than that.

On Wednesday, I remembered that I’m no longer a sportswriter or sports editor, so I boldly chose garnet. On Friday, I had to balance that with orange. Gotta be fair.

On Saturday, I showed my true colors: black and gold. Go Mizzou! Gotta support the ol’ alma mater.

When I say blue or red, you might think one thing, but I worked many years in a state where blue (and orange) meant Auburn and red meant Alabama. Let’s just say my closet was filled with white shirts.

I’d love to see Clemson, USC and Georgia go undefeated every season. We’d sell more newspapers. But because Clemson plays USC and USC plays Georgia, that can’t happen.

A good newspaper can be its community’s biggest cheerleader and its worst critic, yet it must strive for objectivity above all. That goes for news and sports.

“No cheering in the press box,” I was taught early and often. I was in journalism school when I covered a 1978 game in Lincoln, Neb., between Missouri and No. 2 Nebraska. When Rick Berns ran 80 yards for a touchdown on the game’s second play, Nebraska fans went wild, and so did some red-clad sportswriters. I was appalled. Such sportswriters are known in the business as “homers.” Missouri, by the way, went Wilder. Star running back James Wilder lifted the Tigers to a dramatic 35-31 victory.

That was the greatest game I ever covered. Maybe I remember it so fondly because it was my alma mater, no matter how much I pride myself on objectivity.

The greatest postgame celebration I have witnessed was after a 1982 game at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville, Tenn. Tennessee defeated No. 2 Alabama 35-28 to end an 11-year losing streak to the Crimson Tide.

I vividly remember sitting late that night in a Holiday Inn lounge. Suddenly, I heard a booming “thud!” The lounge nearly emptied. The first edition of the Knoxville News-Sentinel had just arrived.

“WE DID IT!” screamed the headline on the front page.

We?

I grabbed a final edition the next morning and noticed the headline had been changed. “VOLS DO IT!” was more acceptable, but the orange ink was a little over the top.

In the newspaper business, the line between point of view and partisanship is thin. Last week, three quarters of the way through a big Clemson-Boston College game that we helped hype, we had our front page ready. “Champ” was the huge headline on the front page.

But the line between victory and defeat is thin, too, and when the Tigers couldn’t hold on, we changed photos and rewrote the headline. “Heartbreaker” captured the essence of the loss.

“We” liked the other headline better, but last Sunday, that only would have sold in Boston.