Guess Who Wears The Pants in That Family?

A couple of hours into our tailgate at the Duke-Alabama game on September 18, an Alabama fan named Harold ambled over to our tent to chat with me. Harold had traveled to Durham from his home in Florence, Alabama. He hadn’t missed a Tide home game since the mid-70s and was a very friendly guy. That is Harold to the far right of the picture below, wearing white baseball cap and red shirt, getting ready to toss the bag in corn hole.

The only problem with Harold was that he was a bit of a close talker. Chris, who was throwing the football during our extended conversation, was busting my chops about that after Harold returned to his corn hole game. That was a bit awkward – he sort of had me pinned between my tailgate canopy and the Civic.

I mentioned remembering the time when Alabama beat Penn State for the National Championship in the Sugar Bowl in 1979. That night Harold was one of the Tide fans who rushed the field at the Superdome and was able to actually take pictures in the end zone. Unfortunately for Harold, he ripped his polyester slacks going over the railing. (Maybe too much information.)

Harold also related to me how Alabama has had statues erected for all of their coaches that have won National Championships.The statues sit outside of Bryant-Denny Stadium. Since Alabama won the ship last year, the plan was for the statue for current coach Nick Saban to be originally unveiled by the Spring Game and then rescheduled to be unveiled before the first game of the season. But neither target was met. Those plans were torpedoed by Coach Saban’s wife, who apparently was not at all pleased with either version of the statue. In the words of Harold and in his deep Bama drawl:

She had that dayummm thing sent back twiiiiice!