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Posted on 1/24/26 at 8:59 pm to LovetheLord
Scab was trying to be Finebaum.
Posted on 1/24/26 at 9:01 pm to bamadam2
This has nothing to do with the current a-hole columnist, but since we’ve talking about what used to be The Birmingham News, just found out that their longtime outdoor columnist, Mike Bolton, Clyde’s son, died today. (Clyde is still with us, he will be 89 this year.) Mike was a good guy and a Bama graduate, interned in the SID office.
Posted on 1/24/26 at 9:04 pm to InkStainedWretch
i lay it at the feet of Don Kausler. He was not as strident as Finebaum but he was the first who IMO, was somewhat disrespectful of Coach Bryant and Alabama. Previous columnists were usually “appreciative” of Coach Bryant and Alabama, knowing what Coach Bryant had done for the state. I didn’t mind someone being more objective but I felt he went further than that, especially revealed by the unnecessary acidic verbiage.
My impression was that the P-H was always a very distant second to the Bham News. Things may have changed in the latter years of their existence. UAB and it’s mostly unfounded bitterness and resentment toward Alabama was IMO, a primary source of the vitriol that fueled the adversarial attitude toward Alabama in the latter years and hastened the death of the daily print media in Bham.
I think Kausler was Finebaum’s editor at the P-H for a time.
My impression was that the P-H was always a very distant second to the Bham News. Things may have changed in the latter years of their existence. UAB and it’s mostly unfounded bitterness and resentment toward Alabama was IMO, a primary source of the vitriol that fueled the adversarial attitude toward Alabama in the latter years and hastened the death of the daily print media in Bham.
I think Kausler was Finebaum’s editor at the P-H for a time.
Posted on 1/24/26 at 9:21 pm to tattoo
Damn I forgot about Kausler. I only spoke to him maybe once or twice. He kind of kept to himself.
I just found the column that got him in trouble and read it again. He tried to say he wasn’t saying Coach Bryant should retire, and someone from another part of the country who read it might agree with him, but there’s no way any Bama fan was going to read it any other way.
Plus it was as snarky as you would expect from someone who was only a couple of years out of college. And I blame The News for hiring someone that inexperienced to be the Alabama beat writer.
But as best I can remember, The News had gotten this bug in their saddle about hiring graduates of Missouri’s journalism school, which had the reputation of being the best J school in the country (I wouldn’t know, I never took a journalism course, I learned the trade on the job by actually doing it), and Kausler was like tops in his class. I think Scarbinsky went to Missouri too.
Kausler supposedly said The News told him to treat Coach Bryant like everyone else, and that’s just silly. Someone of that stature, you don’t want to genuflect before him, sometimes you might have to do something difficult because that’s part of the job, you just need to be fair and respectful. But you can’t treat him like anyone else because he’s not like everyone else.
I just found the column that got him in trouble and read it again. He tried to say he wasn’t saying Coach Bryant should retire, and someone from another part of the country who read it might agree with him, but there’s no way any Bama fan was going to read it any other way.
Plus it was as snarky as you would expect from someone who was only a couple of years out of college. And I blame The News for hiring someone that inexperienced to be the Alabama beat writer.
But as best I can remember, The News had gotten this bug in their saddle about hiring graduates of Missouri’s journalism school, which had the reputation of being the best J school in the country (I wouldn’t know, I never took a journalism course, I learned the trade on the job by actually doing it), and Kausler was like tops in his class. I think Scarbinsky went to Missouri too.
Kausler supposedly said The News told him to treat Coach Bryant like everyone else, and that’s just silly. Someone of that stature, you don’t want to genuflect before him, sometimes you might have to do something difficult because that’s part of the job, you just need to be fair and respectful. But you can’t treat him like anyone else because he’s not like everyone else.
This post was edited on 1/24/26 at 9:24 pm
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