BeltwayVol
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Apr 29, 2005
- Messages
- 1,441
- Likes
- 4
This you know: Auburn went 13-0 last year, plowed through the SEC and couldn't sniff even a shot at a national title. Coach Tommy Tuberville was reduced to working the press box at the Orange Bowl hoping to lobby voters for last-minute support while USC made the point moot out on the field.
This you didn't know: Some of the Tigers' biggest sympathizers were down the road in Tuscaloosa -- or should have been.
"We knew exactly how they were feeling," said Philip Shanks, a 55-year-old born-and-bred 'Bama grad. "We knew precisely what they were going through."
That's because one of the most heinous ripoffs in poll history has nothing to do with the BCS. It is 39 years old this year and is as fresh in the minds of 'Bama Nation as last night's dinner.
"There were literally people marching in the streets," said Shanks, now an attorney in Decatur, Ala., who was a senior in high school back in 1966. "We felt like we'd been robbed."
USC is going for an unprecedented third national championship this season. The obstacles are significant. Computers, voters, injuries, upsets. But Alabama sealed the deal in '66.
No program has come as close to a three-peat. No program was more deserving. After consecutive AP wire service titles in 1964 and 1965, the Crimson Tide started as the preseason AP No. 1 for the first time in its history in '66. They went 11-0 while shutting out six opponents, allowing only 44 points all season. Nebraska fell by 27 in the Orange Bowl.
And Alabama finished with a No. 3 ranking.
Almost four decades later, Alabama fans old enough to remember are still incredulous. Ten players who were, or would become, All-Americans lettered on that team. There were 14 such all-SEC players. It was the 'Bama of Ken Stabler and Ray Perkins.
Third!
"He was so diplomatic, he wouldn't go public," said former 'Bama assistant Clem Gryska of Bryant. "He thought they should have won."
True, it was a different time, more civil, even if there were fewer civil rights -- a key point in the discussion. Some of the poll craziness was just accepted back then. Coaches would call each other and arrange major bowl games. The closest Bryant came to speaking out was this dry appraisal of the Michigan State-Notre Dame 10-10 tie that year that "clinched" the title for the Irish
"At Alabama, we teach our men to win," Bryant said after watching Notre Dame sit on the ball instead of go for the win late in the game.
The reasons for the 'Bama snub are only hinted at: The voting media seemingly got caught up in the Michigan State-Notre Dame phenomenon that produced "The Game of the Century."
Back then Notre Dame didn't play in bowl games, so coach Ara Parseghian knew if he sat on the ball late in the game, his team's No. 1 ranking only had to survive the USC game the next week. The Irish won, of course, 51-0. And you thought the BCS was unfair.
"I was absolutely outraged," Shanks said. "People in my class were outraged. We haven't gotten over it since. It still bothers us. If we'd won it, we would have been the first team to win three in a row."
Turns out another kind of outrage might have been working. It played itself out on TV every night on the nightly news. No one can say for sure if The Movement crossed paths with The Polls, but Shanks certainly thinks so.
"I'm awful afraid politics got involved in it," said Shanks, who is writing a history of Alabama football. "Alabama was not getting a lot of (good) publicity back then. (Former governor) George Wallace standing in the schoolhouse door. We had an all-white team.
"I was living through it here, every night on TV. It was embarrassing, we hated for that to impact our football team."
In the fall of 1966, the civil rights movement was in full flower changing a state, a nation and minds. Alabama was its stage. No one can say for sure but for one season, it seems that the noble struggle for equal rights and football intermingled.
Was Alabama the football team punished in the polls for being Alabama, the state of intolerance?
"Coach Bryant told us the fact that we didn't have any votes on the East Coast was his fault," said Jim Fuller, a defensive tackle on that '66 team. "We didn't have the integration of the other teams. He said, 'I'll never let that happen again.'"
In the Alabama program, 1970 is given as the pivotal year for integration.
Sam Cunningham scored two touchdowns for USC in Tuscaloosa that year and, as legend has it, changed Bear's mind about the black athlete. But, reportedly, every SEC team except LSU and Ole Miss had at least one black player that year. Crimson Tide already had future star Wilbur Jackson on scholarship in 1970.
The Tide already had started to turn. The real turning point might have been 1966. Fuller has been quoted as saying Bryant apologized to the coaches and players -- saying he should have scheduled tougher teams -- for the lack of African-Americans on the team.
"You win back to back national championships and come back out and win all your games and you don't get it?" Fuller said. "Coach Bryant didn't make any excuses or whine or complain."
That's left to a generation of Crimson Tide fans.
"It just hard to swallow 40 years later," Shanks said. "That team is my No. 1 Alabama team."
Just not the voters'.
This you didn't know: Some of the Tigers' biggest sympathizers were down the road in Tuscaloosa -- or should have been.
"We knew exactly how they were feeling," said Philip Shanks, a 55-year-old born-and-bred 'Bama grad. "We knew precisely what they were going through."
That's because one of the most heinous ripoffs in poll history has nothing to do with the BCS. It is 39 years old this year and is as fresh in the minds of 'Bama Nation as last night's dinner.
"There were literally people marching in the streets," said Shanks, now an attorney in Decatur, Ala., who was a senior in high school back in 1966. "We felt like we'd been robbed."
USC is going for an unprecedented third national championship this season. The obstacles are significant. Computers, voters, injuries, upsets. But Alabama sealed the deal in '66.
No program has come as close to a three-peat. No program was more deserving. After consecutive AP wire service titles in 1964 and 1965, the Crimson Tide started as the preseason AP No. 1 for the first time in its history in '66. They went 11-0 while shutting out six opponents, allowing only 44 points all season. Nebraska fell by 27 in the Orange Bowl.
And Alabama finished with a No. 3 ranking.
Almost four decades later, Alabama fans old enough to remember are still incredulous. Ten players who were, or would become, All-Americans lettered on that team. There were 14 such all-SEC players. It was the 'Bama of Ken Stabler and Ray Perkins.
Third!
"He was so diplomatic, he wouldn't go public," said former 'Bama assistant Clem Gryska of Bryant. "He thought they should have won."
True, it was a different time, more civil, even if there were fewer civil rights -- a key point in the discussion. Some of the poll craziness was just accepted back then. Coaches would call each other and arrange major bowl games. The closest Bryant came to speaking out was this dry appraisal of the Michigan State-Notre Dame 10-10 tie that year that "clinched" the title for the Irish
"At Alabama, we teach our men to win," Bryant said after watching Notre Dame sit on the ball instead of go for the win late in the game.
The reasons for the 'Bama snub are only hinted at: The voting media seemingly got caught up in the Michigan State-Notre Dame phenomenon that produced "The Game of the Century."
Back then Notre Dame didn't play in bowl games, so coach Ara Parseghian knew if he sat on the ball late in the game, his team's No. 1 ranking only had to survive the USC game the next week. The Irish won, of course, 51-0. And you thought the BCS was unfair.
"I was absolutely outraged," Shanks said. "People in my class were outraged. We haven't gotten over it since. It still bothers us. If we'd won it, we would have been the first team to win three in a row."
Turns out another kind of outrage might have been working. It played itself out on TV every night on the nightly news. No one can say for sure if The Movement crossed paths with The Polls, but Shanks certainly thinks so.
"I'm awful afraid politics got involved in it," said Shanks, who is writing a history of Alabama football. "Alabama was not getting a lot of (good) publicity back then. (Former governor) George Wallace standing in the schoolhouse door. We had an all-white team.
"I was living through it here, every night on TV. It was embarrassing, we hated for that to impact our football team."
In the fall of 1966, the civil rights movement was in full flower changing a state, a nation and minds. Alabama was its stage. No one can say for sure but for one season, it seems that the noble struggle for equal rights and football intermingled.
Was Alabama the football team punished in the polls for being Alabama, the state of intolerance?
"Coach Bryant told us the fact that we didn't have any votes on the East Coast was his fault," said Jim Fuller, a defensive tackle on that '66 team. "We didn't have the integration of the other teams. He said, 'I'll never let that happen again.'"
In the Alabama program, 1970 is given as the pivotal year for integration.
Sam Cunningham scored two touchdowns for USC in Tuscaloosa that year and, as legend has it, changed Bear's mind about the black athlete. But, reportedly, every SEC team except LSU and Ole Miss had at least one black player that year. Crimson Tide already had future star Wilbur Jackson on scholarship in 1970.
The Tide already had started to turn. The real turning point might have been 1966. Fuller has been quoted as saying Bryant apologized to the coaches and players -- saying he should have scheduled tougher teams -- for the lack of African-Americans on the team.
"You win back to back national championships and come back out and win all your games and you don't get it?" Fuller said. "Coach Bryant didn't make any excuses or whine or complain."
That's left to a generation of Crimson Tide fans.
"It just hard to swallow 40 years later," Shanks said. "That team is my No. 1 Alabama team."
Just not the voters'.
lol: 
