Saturday, April 09, 2005
Ten years ago. It was a simpler time for Alabama football -- or it seemed.
The Crimson Tide was back in its accustomed place, on a mind-blowing roll under Gene Stallings, having just compiled a four-year mark of 45-5-1 from 1991-94.
Has anything really gone right in the Crimson Empire since?
This thought occurred the other day upon coming across a headline from the spring of 1995, reading: "What if the NCAA Slaps Tide?" It was in reference to the NCAA's investigation into the Antonio Langham affair where Alabama initially had offered up four scholarships as a penance and haughtily assumed the NCAA would say fine.
When the verdict came down on Aug. 2, 1995, the Tide was thunderstruck. The initial decree was three years probation, including 30 scholarships. The school eventually got the third year of the penalties reversed (nine scholarships were returned). The Tide would be ineligible for a bowl game in 1995 and would have to forfeit 11 games from the 1993 season -- turning a 9-3-1 season into 1-12.
What was even worse was the shameful and painful peeling away of Alabama's once pristine reputation.
Although the Tide did win the SEC in 1999 and go 10-3 in 2002, four times during this 10-year epoch Alabama has had either a losing or a non-winning season. In the previous 37 years, Alabama had suffered only one losing season. From 1995-2004, Alabama has lost nine of 10 to Tennessee. The Tide has lost six of 10 to Auburn and Arkansas, and gone 5-5 against LSU. The Tide has also lost twice to Louisiana Tech and South Carolina, as well as losses to Central Florida, Northern Illinois and Hawaii. The program has had five head coaches -- including one who never even made it to the first game.
And one more thing that nobody thought conceivable in 1995 -- another eviscerating NCAA penalty, which came in February 2002.
Using hindsight, it's always easy to say what could have been done differently. However, perhaps the biggest mistake was refusing to take a wide-ranging assessment of how Alabama got in trouble and in particular, the maddening culture that surrounded and permeated the program.
One reason for this was that even after the 1995 penalty, Alabama officials couldn't seem to figure out what they had done wrong or accept it. Sound familiar?
Perhaps there was some justification for the hubris. What got Alabama in trouble in the first place wasn't a big deal. Langham had signed with an agent. Had the school been proactive instead of pompous, they would have turned it in, and at worst, Langham would have had to sit out three games. However, the infrastructure at Alabama at the time was not conducive to criticism or accountability, and a minor problem quickly became a major disaster.
The school's Board of Trustees, another group awash in arrogance, brought in a fresh face as president in Andrew Sorensen and he brought in an unknown as athletics director in Bob Bockrath. In the history of intercollegiate athletics, it's difficult to imagine two shoddier hires.
It has been a series of disasters ever since.
There is an easy answer and a difficult answer to what could have been done differently.
The most difficult concerns serious change and a complete overhaul of the program, getting rid of decades-old dead wood and starting anew. In retrospect, that was halfheartedly attempted by bringing in two outsiders, which led to calamitous decisions like Mike DuBose being retained in 1999, as well as the ascension of loyal solider Mal Moore as athletics director.
Meanwhile, nobody was really minding the store, which may have led to more NCAA problems and conflicts between coaches and compliance people and out-of-control boosters. This may have proved ruinous to Alabama in its NCAA defense, since some believe the Tide may have been done in by its own hired outside legal counsel, faculty rep and compliance people.
This comedy of errors continued with the inability to lock down Dennis Franchione, the best Tide coach in years, to a contract instead of arrogantly (yep, there's that word again) believing that no Alabama coach would leave Tuscaloosa for College Station of all places.
The bungling continued with the disaster of the Mike Price hiring and the dubious selection of Mike Shula to fill out this dance card.
The easy answer to the aforementioned question is this was all inevitable. It was going to happen anyway. Perhaps the 25 spectacular years under Bear Bryant have been answered with 25 years of toil and turmoil. If that's true, and who's to say it isn't, the curse has only a few more years to run.
Still, it's been only in the last 10 years that it seems everything that could go wrong has gone wrong. The only question now is simple: When will the bad tidings ever end?
(Paul Finebaum's column appears Tuesdays and Saturdays in the Mobile Register. Contact him at [EMAIL PROTECTED])
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