There seems to be a lot of bashing ( even including Coach Saban) going around since we lost the title game.
Let me tell you a little story.
My son, a former Marine attended Alabama on the GI bill courtesy of U of A’s Yellow Ribbon program. For those that don’t know, the Yellow Ribbon program waives out of state tuition for GI bill recipients.
He served three tours in Iraq during the second Gulf War in some of the nastiest areas of the country. At one point of his second tour he went 83 consecutive days with a fire fight every day. When he returned home from his last tour he enrolled at Alabama.
He has been classified by the VA as 60% disabled without a PTSD claim.
Some of you saw my comment about how my mother got Coach Bryant to sign personalized pictures, well she managed to get Coach Saban to do the same shortly after he came to Alabama. One of those signed pictures was for my son.
My son was living in an apartment complex owned by my cousin on April 27, 2011. He stayed in his bathtub as the tornado nearly destroyed his apartment. It blew out the back and front windows and tore a huge hole in the side of his apartment.
Needless to say most of his possessions were destroyed. His mattress ended up near the front of the McDonald’s rubble on 15th Street. His autographed picture from Coach Saban was sucked off the wall and never found.
I went back home to Tuscaloosa the next day. I helped him salvage what could be salvaged, get his remaining possessions into a storage unit, helped him get his seriously damaged car to a body shop and helped him get new clothes on his back and the essentials. We then returned to our new home in Florida.
After a month or so, when the dust was starting to settle in Tuscaloosa, I called the Athletic Department to request a new autographed picture from Coach Saban. I told them his story.
(If you will remember, near that timeframe, the Athletic Department had announced that Coach Saban was not able to sign anything by request any longer. I assume the demand was so high due to his popularity and fame.)
Two days later, an overnight delivery came to my house. Enclosed was a new signed photograph from Coach Saban.
Say what you will about Coach Saban, that gesture by him in signing that picture and bringing a sense of his former home back to my son was amazing to say the least.
That picture means an awful lot to him. He hangs it proudly on his wall, right next to a picture I took of him the day after the tornado in his bathtub with his thumbs up. That bathtub saved his life and Coach Saban raised his spirits.
I will always respect Coach Saban for the great job he has done for the University and for us fans, but I will always have greater respect for the man who did what he did for my son.
Thanks for listening to my long story.
Let me tell you a little story.
My son, a former Marine attended Alabama on the GI bill courtesy of U of A’s Yellow Ribbon program. For those that don’t know, the Yellow Ribbon program waives out of state tuition for GI bill recipients.
He served three tours in Iraq during the second Gulf War in some of the nastiest areas of the country. At one point of his second tour he went 83 consecutive days with a fire fight every day. When he returned home from his last tour he enrolled at Alabama.
He has been classified by the VA as 60% disabled without a PTSD claim.
Some of you saw my comment about how my mother got Coach Bryant to sign personalized pictures, well she managed to get Coach Saban to do the same shortly after he came to Alabama. One of those signed pictures was for my son.
My son was living in an apartment complex owned by my cousin on April 27, 2011. He stayed in his bathtub as the tornado nearly destroyed his apartment. It blew out the back and front windows and tore a huge hole in the side of his apartment.
Needless to say most of his possessions were destroyed. His mattress ended up near the front of the McDonald’s rubble on 15th Street. His autographed picture from Coach Saban was sucked off the wall and never found.
I went back home to Tuscaloosa the next day. I helped him salvage what could be salvaged, get his remaining possessions into a storage unit, helped him get his seriously damaged car to a body shop and helped him get new clothes on his back and the essentials. We then returned to our new home in Florida.
After a month or so, when the dust was starting to settle in Tuscaloosa, I called the Athletic Department to request a new autographed picture from Coach Saban. I told them his story.
(If you will remember, near that timeframe, the Athletic Department had announced that Coach Saban was not able to sign anything by request any longer. I assume the demand was so high due to his popularity and fame.)
Two days later, an overnight delivery came to my house. Enclosed was a new signed photograph from Coach Saban.
Say what you will about Coach Saban, that gesture by him in signing that picture and bringing a sense of his former home back to my son was amazing to say the least.
That picture means an awful lot to him. He hangs it proudly on his wall, right next to a picture I took of him the day after the tornado in his bathtub with his thumbs up. That bathtub saved his life and Coach Saban raised his spirits.
I will always respect Coach Saban for the great job he has done for the University and for us fans, but I will always have greater respect for the man who did what he did for my son.
Thanks for listening to my long story.
