Big Al...what's the story BAMA fans?

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The other was a game against Ole Miss. The varsity squad was announced and the earth shook as they entered the stadium and someone yelled "here come the Red Elephants".

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this is how the elephant came to be associated, in the early 1900s.


Big Al, the mascot, didn't come around until the 70s when students began a push to get a mascot


Bama occasionally had live elephants in the 40s and 50s

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Just curious because I'm a real fan of college traditions...

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So you're filling up your piss balloons for Bama this week, right?

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"At the end of the quarter, the earth started to tremble, there was a distant rumble that continued to grow," wrote Everett Strupper of the Atlanta Journal when describing the Tide's domination of Ole Miss on Oct. 8, 1930. "Some excited fan in the stands bellowed, 'Hold your horses, the elephants are coming,' and out stamped this Alabama varsity."

Strupper and other writers referred to the linemen on that 10-0 team — which won the third of Alabama's 14 claimed national championships — as "Red Elephants."

But it would be nearly five decades until Alabama recognized the animal as its official mascot. Which isn't to say that elephants didn't factor in prominently to gameday tradition.

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Alabama actually had a live elephant mascot at one time.

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During the 1940s, the school kept a live elephant mascot named "Alamite." It was a regular on gamedays, and for several years it would carry that year's homecoming queen onto the field prior to the game.


(1947 Alabama homecoming)

By the 1950s, keeping a live elephant year round proved to be too expensive for the university. Instead, the school's "Spirit Planning Committee" started hiring elephants — often from traveling circuses passing through or by Tuscaloosa — for every homecoming.

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Coach Bryant hated the elephant mascot.

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It was clear that Crimson Tide Nation's obsession with the pachyderm would not cease. So what took so long for the Alabama administration to adopt the animal as the school's official mascot?

"Coach (Bear) Bryant thought it was not representative of football players," Gaddy said. "He thought that elephants were big, slow and clumsy. That was not the image of his players he wanted to portray."

Bryant was Alabama's football coach and athletic director, not to mention a legendary figure that Crimson Tide fans would never cross. When Bryant shot down the elephant mascot idea, that was that. But the same students that worshipped the Bear persisted, and he finally relented in the late 1970s.

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LINK

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Coach Bryant hated the elephant mascot.

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Heard the following story from my wife's late uncle, Alf Van Hoose:

When the UA Cheerleaders first came up with the idea of having one of their members dress up as 'Big Al', everyone on the administration said the same thing: "Sounds like a great concept, but you're going to have to take it up with Coach Bryant." Naturally, as the Athletic Director, he would be the one to ultimately sign off on the idea. And it was well known around the Capstone that he did NOT like anyone on the sidelines that 'didn't have any business there' during a game (which also included sideline reporters).

So it was with great reluctance that the squad leaders pitched the idea to Bryant in his office. He listened half-heartedly, with an obvious expression of distaste, but when they finished the presentation, Bryant sighed, and said, "Well, if y'all think its a good idea, then I suppose it's okay. But you tell me this thing is going to be on our sidelines during games?" "Yes sir, that's the idea."

"Fine, then. But only on one condition - you keep that sonofabitch the hell away from me."

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"Fine, then. But only on one condition - you keep that sonofabitch the hell away from me."

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That's a football coach right there.

The luggage story was the one promulgated first, but over the past twenty years or so, UA has been rewriting/sanitizing some of the stories surrounding the traditions and symbols.

For example: dropping Warm Gray 9 from the official colors (though it's still listed in the visual ID guide), completely whitewashing where the crimson and white colors came from (blood of the ACoC and their white pants), and dropping the first 13, or so, notes from "Alabama Fanfare."

Alf Van Hoose was my favorite ever sports writer, he could spin a story so good it would come alive.

Anyone who has never read his column's have missed a treasure.com