THE STORIED RIDE OF THE CRIMSON TIDE: PROLOGUE

Growing up, I heard about a few bitter feelings expressed by those who were children during the Reconstruction.  Because of what the war in so many ways had destroyed, especially their financial securities, it took many years for the South, overall, to again reach a decent standard of living.

Despite the rise of an intolerant religious atmosphere, a revival of the Ku Klux Klan, the 1925 “Monkey Trial” and the still held hostility to their terms of surrender, Southern modernizers slowly moved the South closer to the mainstream fundamentals of the cultural and economical standards of the upper East Coast, out of which Southern football emerged.    

Tuscaloosa, the state capital prior to Montgomery, was chosen as the site for The University of Alabama.  But a still “Frontier Alabama” lacked the culture to adequately prepare students.  After its 1831 opening, behavior soon became a major problem.  Riots and gunfights were not uncommon, with few students graduating in those early years.

With 5000 volumes, Alabama did have one of the largest university libraries, but severe discipline problems remained.  The university president finally requested and received financial approval to solve this problem.   In 1860, the university became a military school, with many of the graduating cadets serving as officers in the Civil War. 

Several months before Sherman’s March to the Sea, Union troops burned down most of the campus.  Four buildings survived, and two of them were the President's Mansion built in 1841 and the Gorgas House built in 1829,the oldest building on campus. 

But after its rebuilding, the University of Alabama campus is now considered by many as one of the nation’s most beautiful.                 

Each new Southern generation wanted to find some way of demonstrating there was something they could better accomplish, always feeling “second” to those of the old Union.  While my parent’s generation was no longer bitter, they still deeply resented the “Yankees” up north, considering those with a southern drawl, as lower class “Hillbillies.”

Original Southern football was primarily sectional, with “Dixie” repeatedly played during their games.  Southern universities soon began realizing how important having a competitive football team would be for their university.  Playing teams outside the South was the only way for young men to legitimately do battle with the descendants of those who had defeated their ancestors.

While possibly not the first university president to realize the importance of having a great football team, University of Alabama President Dr. George H. Denny was definitely the first in getting this accomplished.  Denny Chimes on the Quadrangle, directly between the President’s mansion and Amelia Gayle Gorgas Library, is a very fitting tribute.

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