Alabama Pays Tribute to Kenny Stabler Prior to LSU Game
Even though some fans have been wearing black jerseys in remembrance, it hasn’t been the same at Bryant-Denny Stadium this season.
The warm smile, Southern gentlemanly disposition and silver hair have been noticeably absent from the place was that was essentially his second home for the past 50-plus years. Granted, the trips had been fewer of late, but his presence and influence can always be felt. That part, at least, will never change.
Saturday, the University of Alabama said goodbye with a special tribute to one of its fallen sons, heroes and icons, Kenny Stabler, who died in July from complications associated with colon cancer. The former quarterback and National Football League star who bled Crimson and White as much as anyone was 69.
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“He loved the University of Alabama; he truly did,” said Stabler’s oldest daughter Kendra Stabler Moyes, who along with the rest of the Stabler family was honored on the field before the LSU game. “He was proud to be from Alabama and of the University, and he always said so.”
One would be hard-pressed to find a Crimson Tide fan anywhere who doesn’t have some sort of Stabler story, which only adds to why his absence has been so noticeable. He wasn’t there when the 1965 national championship team was celebrated during Ole Miss weekend and would have described his throwing away the ball on fourth down all over again when Tennessee visited.
Meanwhile, former teammates like Jerry Duncan can still hear his voice in their heads, like when he would enter a huddle and say something such as: “Alright guys let’s take this thing down here, knock it in and get us a touchdown and go out tonight and have a good time.”
“He loved life and he loved to have a good time and he was a tremendous football player,” Duncan surmised.
So many people, so many tales that will continue to be told and handed down.
“I’ve had the chance to be around some of the best to ever play college and pro football, and Kenny may have been one of the greatest competitors to ever play the game,” Nick Saban said. “He was not only an outstanding football player, he was an all-around great guy and someone I really enjoyed spending time with. We lost a legend.”
One retrospective comment that got Saban’s attention in particular was from Stabler’s former coach with the Raiders John Madden. In addition to saying “The hotter the game, the cooler he got,” he still maintains that if he had one drive to win a game and could pick any quarterback, past or present, he’d go with Stabler.
Saban called it the ultimate compliment for a quarterback.
“You think that Kenny is one of those guys that whatever you throw in front of him, it’s not going to get him down. Then, when you hear Kenny Stabler died, it’s like a kick in the gut,” Madden told Raiders reporters in July.
“You think of the good times and the memories, all of the games and all of the practices and all of the meetings. No matter what you throw in front of him, he enjoyed it. He always had a twinkle in his eye and a smile. He was one of the greatest competitors ever.”
From 1973, when he took over the starting job, Stabler quarterbacked the Raiders to a 50-11-1 regular-season record over an amazing five years and helped lead a 32-14 victory over the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl XI.
Overall he played 10 seasons for the Raiders (1970-79), and also briefly with the Houston Oilers and New Orleans Saints, en route to 194 touchdown passes (222 interceptions) and 27,398 passing yards. His record as an NFL starter was 94-49-1, and he ended up playing in more “name” games than anyone, including “The Ghost to the Post,” “The Holy Roller” and “The Sea of Hands.” Named All-Pro three times, he was the league’s Offensive Player of the Year in 1974, and both the Player of the Year and passing champion in 1976.
But his legacy was arguably even greater at Alabama, where he followed Joe Namath and Steve Sloan, and after taking over as the starting quarterback led the 11-0 season of 1966 that didn’t result in the national championship. Pollsters instead rewarded Notre Dame for pulling off a tie at Michigan State, which remains sore subject to many Crimson Tide fans.
“That ’66 team, he rarely got his uniform dirty at all because no one ever touched him,” joked Duncan, which was ironic for the player known for the “Run in the Mud,” a 47-yard touchdown that was the difference in a 7-3 victory against Auburn in the 1967 Iron Bowl.
Stabler compiled a collegiate starting record of 28-3-2, including a dominating 34-7 victory against Nebraska in the 1967 Sugar Bowl to be named the game’s most valuable player. After his playing career concluded, he again became a fixture in Tuscaloosa while working a color analyst for Alabama football games on the Crimson Tide Sports Network from 1998-2007.
By then he was more than viewed as being a state treasure.
Stabler was born Christmas Day in 1945 in Foley, Alabama, where he was a highly regarded high school player, and it was after a long, winding touchdown run that coach Denzel Hollis first called him “Snake.” Over the years he raised a lot of money for local charities and spent most of his final years in the Gulf Shores area.
“There is no way to describe the pride an Alabama player feels in himself and the tradition of the school,” Stabler once said about the love affair he had with the university and its fans, and his influence reached both near and far.
AJ McCarron, who also hailed from Mobile and won three national championships, considers Stabler the greatest quarterback in Alabama history, while NFL quarterback Jake Plummer (1997-2006) and professional wrestler Jake Roberts both adopted his Snake nickname as a tribute.
He was part of the famous "Great Taste...Less Filling!" ad campaign by Miller Lite, and when with the Houston Oilers had his own soft drink called Snake Venom (and later admitted in his autobiography that it "tasted about like its name.”)
As a result, when the man who seemed to collect friends and memories like they were the most valuable commodities died, people reached out in droves any way they could, with the family receiving thousands of cards, emails and messages. They were simply overwhelmed.
“We knew that he was loved, but we had no idea the magnitude,” Moyes said. “They were from all over the world, from places like Japan and Germany, and the really cool thing was that 95 percent of the messages had the same theme, about how he made them feel. ‘He made me feel so special.’”
Above all else that may have been Stabler’s greatest gift. Sure he played the rebel part while leading the Raiders, often with a mischievous grin, and maybe he made as many headlines off the field as on. But when a game started, he was all business, and when it was over, he was all charm.
“Travelling the country with him was truly like traveling with a rock star,” said Stabler’s radio broadcast partner Eli Gold. “He’d walk through the airport, and it would take forever because folks would want his autograph, [would want to] take pictures and he’d never turn down a request for any of that. He was just one of those people that everybody knew.
“Kenny loved people, and people loved Kenny. If you didn’t like Kenny Stabler you’ve got a problem. He was just a great, great guy. … The fact that he’s gone now is very, very sad.”
Quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.
Christopher Walsh is a lead SEC college football writer. Follow Christopher on Twitter @WritingWalsh.
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