How & when did you become a college football fan? Who introduced you to cfb?

CrimsonPaul · Mar 2, 2019

Coach Paul Bryant. I became a fan when I went to the UofA in 1959, Coach Bryant's second year. I used to go to the stadium very early to watch the warm ups and see all the coaches and players you all read about now. In 1957 you could say I was an Auburn fan, my sister went there, but I guess I was saved.

GrayTide · Mar 2, 2019

I have noticed there are a lot of posters who watched Alabama on TV with their parents. For those too young to remember ABC's college football on TV, it was something you could not afford to miss.

First, there was only one game on each Saturday and it was a day game, usually kicked off around 2 to 2:30 PM CST. Only the big games were televised, Alabama vs UT, Nebraska vs OU, USC vs ND, UF vs UGA, tOSU vs UM and Texas vs TAMU. Eventually a couple of times a year there would be a double header. These double headers would usually include an intersectional game, Alabama vs USC, Texas vs OU, UCLA vs UT. Some times there would be a nationally televised game Alabama vs Auburn and usually an earlier regional game depending on where you lived. A regional game might be Alabama vs UGA, but if you didn't live in a certain regional you got Penn State vs Pitt. The regional game was a crap shoot. There was no instant replay. When instant replay was finally introduced there was no review. The first prime time night telecast was in September of 1969 Ole Miss vs Alabama from Legion Field. The best part the national games had Keith Jackson and Frank Broyles, the regional games had lesser known and lesser quality commentators. It really made Saturdays special unlike the current saturation of meaningless games.

CaliforniaTide · Mar 2, 2019

GrayTide said:
I have noticed there are a lot of posters who watched Alabama on TV with their parents. For those too young to remember ABC's college football on TV, it was something you could not afford to miss.

First, there was only one game on each Saturday and it was a day game, usually kicked off around 2 to 2:30 PM CST. Only the big games were televised, Alabama vs UT, Nebraska vs OU, USC vs ND, UF vs UGA, tOSU vs UM and Texas vs TAMU. Eventually a couple of times a year there would be a double header. These double headers would usually include an intersectional game, Alabama vs USC, Texas vs OU, UCLA vs UT. Some times there would be a nationally televised game Alabama vs Auburn and usually an earlier regional game depending on where you lived. A regional game might be Alabama vs UGA, but if you didn't live in a certain regional you got Penn State vs Pitt. The regional game was a crap shoot. There was no instant replay. When instant replay was finally introduced there was no review. The first prime time night telecast was in September of 1969 Ole Miss vs Alabama from Legion Field. The best part the national games had Keith Jackson and Frank Broyles, the regional games had lesser known and lesser quality commentators. It really made Saturdays special unlike the current saturation of meaningless games.

This wouldn't occur every weekend college football was on TV, but I distinctly remember only watching Alabama when the Iron Bowl was on, and wherever they went for the bowl game. Even into the late 1990s and early 2000s, I simply do not remember seeing an Alabama game on TV (aside from the Alabama-UCLA game in the Rose Bowl) unless it was the Iron Bowl and the bowl game. Now, TV watching has changed completely from those days to be sure, but that was my experience growing up on the West Coast.

TheBamaBeno · Mar 2, 2019

I was 5, listening to my Dad rave about Lee Roy Jordan. "The Bear says, if he stays between the sidelines. Lee Roy will get a piece of him."

Professor · Mar 2, 2019

When I was a kid living in Canton, NC (Haywood County near Asheville) my brother-in-law took me to a Georgia Tech game. They were playing-------get this------ Alabama. I can remember the names Leon Hardman and Billy Teas for Georgia Tech. I was not an Alabama fan then, so I knew no player for the Tide. I am now 80 years old, so that had to be at least 60 years ago. Ended up on the faculty at Alabama. My, my such irony.

CoachInWaiting · Mar 2, 2019

From my earliest memories, I was surrounded by Crimson Tide fans and discussion. My father and both grandfathers were big fans. I was born in 1960 and when I was little, I heard Coach Bryant and Pat Trammell spoken about with such reverence, I thought both were family members. By the time I was in kindergarten, Saturdays around the radio to listen to the games was a given. A night game never went too late that I had to miss any of it to go to bed. By the end of the 60's I was a committed fan for life. One of my best memories is the 1969 televised shootout between Scott Hunter and Archie somebody.

One of the worst was the 1970 shut out loss to Tennessee. But good times were around the corner and it has been an awesome ride. I feel sorry for every football fan who isn't privileged to be a Bama fan. Roll Tide Forever.

JD95 · Mar 3, 2019

For as long as I can remember, I considered myself a Bama fan because my parents met at school there and my father is a true fanatic. (It was actually a little scary sometimes as a boy in the 1970's, listening to him yelling and cursing at the radio on the rare occasion the Tide wasn't playing well.) The first game that I watched start to finish was the Penn State Goal Line Stand Sugar Bowl that won the 1978 national championship. I've been completely and utterly hooked ever since (and every bit as fanatical as my dad, who has mellowed with age!).

GrayTide · Mar 3, 2019

My wife and I were living in South Carolina in the late 1970's. When Alabama had a night game that was not televised I had to go outside to my car in the drive way, turn on the radio and desperately search for the Alabama game with John Forney. My wife found me more than once asleep with the radio still on. Would not recommend doing that now.

FitToBeTide · Mar 3, 2019

I can't come up with a seminal moment when I became a fan. As a young fellow I had some friends who were Bama friends who acted as kind of vectors for me. This was in a small Barn-centric town in south Alabama back in the early 50's. Played sandlot football after Bama games on the radio and pretended to be some of our favorite players. Fun times, long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away...

ReturnToGlory · Mar 3, 2019

NationalTitles17 said:
One day long ago a zygote formed in my mother's womb and I became a college football fan on that day.

I can't ever remember not being one, so that's my story.

This is me also. My dad didn't like sports. My mother claims she is a fan but doesn't closely watch. I did not learn it from them. My father's first cousin's husband was a professor at Alabama and we went to a football in Tuscaloosa in 1974, I think. I have faint memories of it.

bvandegraff · Mar 3, 2019

My family, my dad especially, are dyed-in-the-wool Alabama/CFB so I was too from day 1. If Bama wasn't on TV, we'd listen on the radio to John Forney and watch Keith Jackson call whatever game ABC was airing. Sunday was the Bear Bryant Show, co-hosted by Charley Thornton, then Steadman Shealy, with the bottles of Coke and the big bag of Golden Flake chips on the desk. Jan 1 he'd stack every TV in the house together and we'd watch all the bowl games simultaneously with Bama (usually the Sugar Bowl in those days) on the big color console.

In my peewee football days, my coaches would say, " I wanna see you play for the Bear one day!" A kid on an opposing team named Emmitt Smith dispelled that notion in a hurry - the only thing I played when I went to UA was the cello (Ray Perkins was coach by then, anyway).

Watching CFB and Bama is one of my favorite memories of my dad - the last game we got to talk about over the phone was the FSU game in 2017. He passed away the following week.

Ping Pong Champ · Mar 3, 2019

1958. I grew up about 40 miles away from Tuscaloosa. Alabama was natural for me. It seemed to me that the Auburn fans were always angry about something. I didn’t like that. Good choice.

deliveryman35 · Mar 3, 2019

My dad(He passed away very young in 1989). He grew up in Gadsden, AL, was a center in HS there(the old Emma Sansom HS), he was not big enough to play college ball but attended and graduated from UA in 1966 with a degree in biology, where he had vivid memories of having classes with Joe Namath. I came along two years later and, needless to say, I was indoctrinated at an early age to love Bama football at the very beginning of what would be a great decade for the program. My earliest memories are watching or listening to games with him back in the very early ‘70’s, specifically, the 1973 Sugar Bowl was the first game that I recall actually watching. I’ve been a fan ever since...

GrayTide · Mar 3, 2019

Ping Pong Champ said:
1958. I grew up about 40 miles away from Tuscaloosa. Alabama was natural for me. It seemed to me that the Auburn fans were always angry about something. I didn’t like that. Good choice.

Nothing has changed since 1958 Auburn fans are still angry!!!!!!

wishbonesooner · Mar 3, 2019

My dad took me to my first Sooner game in 1962. Bud Wilkinson was on the sidelines, my dad thought he was the greatest coach ever. My dad was at the game in Norman when Notre Dame stopped our 47 game win streak.

Probius · Mar 3, 2019

I don't remember the moment I became a Bama fan, I was too young to remember. Like many others, I grew up going to Bama games with my dad. My earliest memories are of watching players like Bobby Humphrey, Siran Stacy, Gary Hollingsworth, etc. I remember the 1989 season well, including the heartbreaking loss in the Iron Bowl and the loss in the Sugar Bowl to Miami. I remember the 1992 season very well, especially going to the SEC championship game against Florida in Legion Field. I remember watching the title game against Miami and wanting that win so badly. From my earliest days, Bama players and coaches were seen as rock stars. Bama football stole my heart as a very young child and that will never change.

PA Tide Fan · Mar 3, 2019

I can't remember the first college game I watched but after watching Bama with Coach Bryant a few times I became a college football and Bama fan.

RWTT11 · Mar 4, 2019

In 1981 I was taken to my first Alabama game by my pee-wee football coach. Unfortunately, Alabama lost to GA Tech that day. I didn't care, I was hooked and never looked back. I've been bleeding crimson since that day and can't thank Coach Wayne enough for doing that for me.

I've since moved from Alabama and now live in NC. I've not seen him in over 15 years, but as I was walking through the CNN center the day of the NCG against GA, I ran into Coach Wayne. We sat and talked for a very long time. I've been to countless Bama games since that first one, but how ironic to run into the man who took me to my first one on a night like that.

DawgByte · Mar 4, 2019

I started watching CFB in the late 60's. I think I took the most notice on New Year's Day. When I was a kid we always spent New Year's Day at somebody's house who was having a party. The tv was always on a Bowl game, so it became a point of conversation and focus early on in my life. I didn't really pick it up again until 1982 when I went to the Orange Bowl to see Penn St. play Oklahoma for the National Championship.

I started following recruiting online 7/365 in 1996. That ratcheted things up to a new level of appreciation.

deliveryman35 · Mar 5, 2019

DawgByte said:
I started watching CFB in the late 60's. I think I took the most notice on New Year's Day. When I was a kid we always spent New Year's Day at somebody's house who was having a party. The tv was always on a Bowl game, so it became a point of conversation and focus early on in my life. I didn't really pick it up again until 1982 when I went to the Orange Bowl to see Penn St. play Oklahoma for the National Championship.

I started following recruiting online 7/365 in 1996. That ratcheted things up to a new level of appreciation.

Penn State played Oklahoma in the 1986 Orange Bowl.

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