Recruiting

Apparently Alabama is mellowing with age.
Four-star junior tailback Alvin Kamara of Norcross, Ga., couldn't believe what he found in his mailbox after getting home from school one recent day.  Or rather, what he found falling out of his mailbox.
"There were 105 letters from Alabama," Kamara told Rivals.com.
Sending a kid lots of letters is a really nice way to ask him to join your football team, especially given how much work it is for someone from Alabama to write a letter.

Still, it sounds pretty weak compared to the old Bear Bryant play.
"If I wanted a kid bad enough," Bear Bryant of Alabama once said, "I used every trick I could think of.... [W]hen I was at Kentucky I dressed our manager, Jim Murphy, in a priest's outfit to recruit Gene Donaldson away from Notre Dame.  Maybe Jim Murphy did tell Donaldson he was a priest.  Shucks, I'd have told him Murphy was Pope....
Well, the old days are gone forever.

6 comments:

Elise said...

Sending a kid lots of letters is a really nice way to ask him to join your football team, especially given how much work it is for someone from Alabama to write a letter.

Did I ever tell you I was born and raised in LA? (That's "Lower Alabama" for those not familiar with the abbreviation.)

Grim said...

You never did. But I'll forgive you as long as you don't say "Roll Tide." :)

Actually, this post is mostly bait for Major Joel Leggett, who is a big-time Alabama man. As a UGA man myself, of course, I am obligated to mock the Tide. (Even if they did have a pretty good record last year, given their limitations.)

Anonymous said...

When I was in grad school at Flat State U, we had a prof who was a rabid LSU fan, my office mate had framed pictures of Ugga on her desk, and one of the other grad students survived Alabama. The only thing they agreed on was that if the department admitted someone from Auburn, they would all protest.

The fastest I ever saw the prof move was one lovely Friday afternoon in fall when the 'Bama grad sauntered past his door, around the corner, and yelled "ROLL TIDE!!!" as he took off running. Dr. S was out the door and in hot pursuit before the rest of us had time to react. Really, religion has no place in academia ;)

LittleRed1

Elise said...

I'm not particularly a University of Alabama fan (although my brother is) but having no affection whatsoever for LSU, I got a good laugh out of the bumper sticker I saw in an Alabaman Wal-Mart parking lot after the National Championship game. It read simply:

21-Zereaux

MikeD said...

Almost off topic, my father-in-law keeps English bulldogs (1-2 at a time since before my wife was born). For one Christmas, we bought him "Damn Good Dog", the story of the Ugas. Which my wife forgot to bring him for that Christmas. So I had a chance to read it before we brought it to him in LA. I'll admit, coming from an ACC region, I knew next to nothing (and cared less) about UGA and it's mascots. But I got teary eyed reading about those dogs. I'll still not say I'm a UGA fan, but I'll root for em over most everyone else. And all because of those dogs. THAT'S an effective mascot.

Grim said...

They are good dogs.

Of course, the University of Tennessee has a pretty cool mascot, too.