Offseason thread - What "qualifies" you as a Bama fan?

Graduated from graduate school from Bama; parents are UA grads; Grandparents are UA grads; statue of a family member is outside the football stadium. Born into it.

FThomas said:

Graduated from graduate school from Bama; parents are UA grads; Grandparents are UA grads; statue of a family member is outside the football stadium. Born into it.

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He was a great coach. Coach Bryant's coach, NC winning coach in 1934, 3 perfect reg seasons, 2 overall, 2-1 in Rose Bowls, 4-2 major bowls, coached literally almost half of Bama's college football HOF'ers, won first 2 SEC championships, 4 overall, 80+ winning %, college football HOF. Truly great coach, sometimes somewhat overlooked, unfortunately. But that is the nature of earthly fame - fleeting.

I graduated from Bama in 1975 during the Bryant era and have been a die hard fan my entire life. I live in Knoxville now and no one every gives me any flack....

B.s. Ua 1974,md @uab 1978

Damn! Didn’t know I needed credentials to be a Bama Fan! Well, ok, if I must present bona fides….

Dad and Mom attended Bama back in the ‘30’s, Dad got his BS, Mom her Mrs. Both knew and were friends with the Bryants, mom rooming briefly with Mary Harmon until each pledged and moved to their respective sorority houses. After they were both married the two couples socialized a good bit as well. Mom was probably one of the foremost believers in Coach Bryant, commenting immediately after his announcement as head coach at Bama, “Paul is damned smart, he’ll fix the problems!”. History shows that the woman knew what she was talking about too…

Since my first memories are seeing Harry Gilmer in the sports reels at the Saturday matinees and ultimately, listening to the 1946 Rose Bowl with my parents on the old floor model Zenith in the den, I’ve been a fan for a while. Then in the Fall of 1956 I was a freshman at the University of Alabama, maybe the biggest moment in my life, although to be truthful I had no idea how big it really was.

Football wasn’t too great in 1956 going only 2 – 7 – 1 after coming off of a 0 – 10 – 0 season in 1955. Going to the games was essentially an exercise in getting drunk for many as at the end of the game a number of fans would still be sitting in the stands like a flock of boiled owls, too drunk to get up and leave. Lots of tales I could tell about this period but those must wait for another time.

Come the end of the 1957 season, another 2 – 7 – 1 one effort, Coach Whitworth was canned and Coach Bryant hired and the football world at Bama changed almost immediately, well at least as soon as Coach Bryant arrived on campus after his bowl game. Again, many stories there but best left for another time.

Long and short, from the Fall of 1956 through the Sugar Bowl game of January 1962 I attended every Bama game in T-town or Birmingham and some of the road games as well including the Sugar Bowl against Arkansas. That was a helluva a game by the way, two top-notch coaches and two well drilled and motivated teams, just a helluva game.

Been to a lot of games over the nearly sixty years since, some wins, some losses, but all treasured memories. Admittedly, in later years I’ve become more of a fan viewing the games on TV than an attendee, but then age related infirmities will do that to you.

Oh, and I did get my BS from Bama as did my beloved wife of the past 56 years, who is probably the most rabid Bama fan I've ever known. But still and all, I’m still ol’ bama61, and the Tide is still my team ‘til the day I die. Sorry this was so long, but it would have been a whole lot longer if I’d really let it all hang out…..

Bama61, you have to be of a certain age to remember “fans sitting in the stands like a flock of boiled oils.”

I'm actually a bigger fan now then when I was there. Too many other distractions and I was a transplant and still a huge Baltimore Colts fan. Now if I had to choose whether to watch the Tide or the Ravens, Tide all the way. I can only watch on TV but its probably been well over 10 years since I have missed a game.

jabcmb said:

Bama61, you have to be of a certain age to remember “fans sitting in the stands like a flock of boiled oils.”

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Guess I'll have to plead guilty to that.... but I also know that there are several others on this forum that can make the same claims I do.

I guess I just got a reminder of my own mortality today with the news of Billy Cannon's death. He was a large part of the reason Coach Bryant's first game at Alabama was a loss, although to many of us if there is such a thing as a moral victory that was certainly one. To me, watching the Tide fight like hell and slowly get ground down by a team with vastly superior talent was a harbinger of better days to come. I left Ladd Stadium in Mobile that night terribly optimistic about the future.

As for Billy Cannon, he had a troubled history in high school and even more so after his pro career, but I've got to say that he paid the penalties and kept the faith, still ending up as the darling of the LSU fan base. But what a fabulous athlete he was!

I took the AFT (Alabama Fan Test) and made the highest grade possible.

I was born in Alabama in 1960. I grew up hearing about Bryant, Trammell, Jordan, Namath, Crane, Sloan...the list goes on and on. My dad and both grandfathers were huge Bama fans. My maternal grandfather grew up in a border county in Tennessee, but was still always a Bama fan. There was very little likelihood that I would have or could have been anything but a fan of Alabama football. It was my home state university, it had a legendary coach, who had produced legendary players and teams. Pat Trammell was from about 30 miles from my hometown, and he was so much mentioned in reverent tones in conversation that I thought he was family until I was 8 or 9 years old. In a way, he was. They all were. I fully understand when other fan bases have a similar upbringing and atitude, but I always feel just a little bit sorry for them for not having the privilege of being Born 'Bama.

bama61 said:

Guess I'll have to plead guilty to that.... but I also know that there are several others on this forum that can make the same claims I do.

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I enjoy your posts. And I also used to wear a suit to the games, amongst the “owls.”

FThomas said:

Graduated from graduate school from Bama; parents are UA grads; Grandparents are UA grads; statue of a family member is outside the football stadium. Born into it.

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Well judging from your nom de plume I'd suspect that family member would likely be Coach Frank Thomas. That said, I always loved the story regarding Dr. Denny's comment to Coach Thomas following his signing the coaching contract:

“Now that you have accepted our position, I will give you the benefit of my views, based on many years of observation. It is my conviction that material is 90 percent, coaching 10 percent. I desire to further say that you will provided with the 90 percent and that you will be held to strict accounting for delivering the remaining 10 percent.”

I'd say that a lot of our fans pretty much share that same point of view today...

Being annoyed by being told you can only cheer for teams you went to college at? Does that count?

I was born and raised an Alabama fan, as was my mom. My grandfather would watch Alabama practice in the Frank Thomas era.

I ended up going to a college that didn't have a football team. So woe is me for not having "University of Alabama" on my degree.

One of my earliest memories is watching my mom & dad jump up and down while listening to John Forney's call of Steve Higginbotham returning an INT 80 yards for a TD in 1970 against Houston. I was 8. I knew that Coach Bryant was something special just by listening to my parents refer to him as "Bear". I thought this man must be as important as the President. Crying after watching Johnny Musso struggle off the field after injuring his foot against LSU in 1971 was probably the first time I can recall being so invested that I could never look back. Treating my threadbare #22 jersey that my aunt had given me with the utmost of care throughout junior high school until it finally fell apart before the 1976 season. And then getting mad when my mom threw away the remnants. After high school and junior college I transferred to UA where I spent a year getting killed on the scout team, had knee surgery and that experience was over. Took my wife & kids to as many games as I could manage over the years, with 5 of my 6 kids being Bama fans. My son, who was an AU fan, died last summer, but he always helped us cheer for the Tide during the big games. Not because he loved Alabama, but because he loved me. When my daughters sends me pics of my grandkids wearing Bama gear, you know that what you love has been passed on to your future bloodlines. I think that all of these things wrapped together would qualify me as a "Bama Lifer". I've never known anything else. And never wanted to.

skrayper77 said:

Being annoyed by being told you can only cheer for teams you went to college at? Does that count?

I was born and raised an Alabama fan, as was my mom. My grandfather would watch Alabama practice in the Frank Thomas era.

I ended up going to a college that didn't have a football team. So woe is me for not having "University of Alabama" on my degree.

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I was the first in my family to go to and graduate from Alabama but you couldn't find a more loyal fan than my late father, who got as far as about 6th grade and did some tech training on the GI Bill after his service. Season tickets until his death. He NEVER gave up on his team, even when everyone else did. Had he been around for the CFPNCG he would have just been quietly saying "They gonna win...just watch. Bull!" Point being, don't let unimportant people bother you.

Well...I was not born in Alabama, I didn’t attend Alabama and I didn’t become a fan of college football until the Shula years. That doesn’t mean anything in relation to how much of a fan I am of Bama football.

Became a Bama fan in 89 after watching my pops and uncle scream at the TV for about 3 hours during the Iron Bowl...but I was accused of being a bandwagoner by a guy who is from New York​ who claims there are no legit teams to root for in college football.

I've met Alabama fans that have barely set foot in the state, they just love to watch Alabama football and appreciate the history. I say the more the better. Being in my sixties, the people I've met who are Alabama fans and have no connection to the state or school at all started watching when Coach Bryant was coaching.

Born and raised in Alabama and a 2nd generation graduate of UA. I grew up in Brewton and as a child I remember all of the excitement surrounding Water Lewis playing QB.

NationalTitles17 said:

I was the first in my family to go to and graduate from Alabama but you couldn't find a more loyal fan than my late father, who got as far as about 6th grade and did some tech training on the GI Bill after his service. Season tickets until his death. He NEVER gave up on his team, even when everyone else did. Had he been around for the CFPNCG he would have just been quietly saying "They gonna win...just watch. Bull!" Point being, don't let unimportant people bother you.

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FWIW, not having read the whole thread, but this ^^^ resonates with me.

I have a graduate degree from The University, and two of my kids earned undergrad degrees from UA. But THE most ardent, loyal and passionate UA fans I've ever had the pleasure to know were my ex-Father-in-Law and ex-Grandfather-in-Law; both of whom are deceased, God Rest their Souls. Both of them grew up in "Real live" poverty, and Neither of them attended a day of college anywhere. But IMO they were two of the finest human beings I've ever known, their sorry daughter/Gr-daughter notwithstanding....
(but I digress).

TO THIS DAY, One of the absolute highlights of my Alabama fan-dom was taking my then Father-in-Law to his first "live" Alabama game - the UA-UcheaT game in B'ham in 1993. Our seats were near the goal line about half-way up the lower deck, in the corner where David Palmer made his amazing 4th Quarter 2 point scoring run in the closing seconds of the game.

For that reason, its still my favorite game that Alabama didn't win......