A Story of Change : When a Football school becomes a Basketball school in the Deep South

- Achieve the first AP #1 ranking in basketball ever

- Dramatically lose the football coach after signing day due to unusual internal issues for cause, capping a tumultuous football season and early offseason

- Have to make a panicked late hire of a football coach

- Basketball seems to have taken the spot of football and the basketball coach rightfully makes roughly the same as the football coach


I'm talking, of course, of Alabama of 2002-2003

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12/23/2002
Alabama is Number One in AP Men's Hoops Poll
By JIM O'CONNELL, AP Basketball Writer

The school that has won six Associated Press national football championships moved to the top of the AP college basketball poll Monday for the first time ever.

The Crimson Tide (8-0) moved up one spot following Arizona's loss at LSU on Saturday night, giving the Top 25 a No. 1 team other than the Wildcats for the first time this season.

Alabama, which beat Providence 69-61 in its only game last week, were to play Morehead State on Monday night. Crimson Tide coach Mark Gottfried declined to talk about the No. 1 ranking until after the game.

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Alabama Fires Price for Cause

May 4, 2003

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- Mike Price was fired by Alabama without coaching a single game because of behavior including a night at a topless bar -- another embarrassment for a once-proud football team.

University president Robert Witt said Saturday that Price failed to live his "personal and professional life in a manner consistent with university policies."

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Alabama Decides to Hire Mike Shula as Its Coach

By Judy Battista
May 9, 2003

With graphic reports about former Coach Mike Price's behavior and his threat to pursue legal action serving as a backdrop, the University of Alabama announced yesterday that Mike Shula, a former Crimson Tide quarterback, would be its next head football coach.

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UA signs Gottfried until '08

Sept 13, 2003

TUSCALOOSA | University of Alabama head basketball coach Mark Gottfried received an amended contract Friday that will pay him more than $800,000 per year for the next five seasons.

The overall compensation package is just short of UA head football coach Mike Shula, who signed a six-year contract worth $900,000 plus incentives annually.

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