Since I was 9 years old, Alabama football has been one of the greatest loves of my life.
I remember on Saturdays, I would help my daddy work in our fields in Arab, Alabama until it was time for the Alabama football game to start. We listened to every game we could pick up on the radio. For Christmas in 1944, when I was nine, I got a football. Daddy would hike me the ball and I would jump up and throw it like Harry Gilmer.
In 1962, all grown up and working as a machinist for an engineering firm in Huntsville, and still a big Bama fan, I took my 10-year-old nephew, Mike Wright, who had never seen an Alabama football game, to see the Crimson Tide play Georgia at Legion Field. I had been to games before but this was special, to watch a young boy experience his first Alabama football game.
A friend of mine went with us but I had just two tickets. My friend was hoping to buy one at the game.
Mike and I got to our seats, which were on the 10-yard line, and we got to see Joe Willie Namath and, of course, the Bear. I remember Mike couldn’t believe how loud the crowd was yelling and how big the players were. He told me years later that the roar of the crowd and that atmosphere of excitement and anticipation hooked him for life on Alabama football.
We got to see Namath throw his first touchdown pass. Alabama won big—35-0—and later we found out the game was even more famous than we realized at the time. It was the game some crazy magazine reporter said Wally Butts helped Alabama win. Ridiculous. Bama didn’t need any help.
I was so glad I had the opportunity to carry Mike to see a game. It was like Christmas for a small boy, sorta like the football I got. Come to find out, my friend had to jump the fence to get into the game.
Years later, I was working at Saginaw Steering Gear near Athens. In March of 1982, I was coming home and had a car wreck and was flown to UAB hospital in Birmingham.
Coach Bryant probably did more of this than we’ll ever know. Wonderful story. Roll Tide!
I work with Mike Wright from this wonderful story and he is still the biggest Alabama fan I have ever met. Like Bear Bryant and the philosophy of Alabama football, he is a man of high integrity and exceptional moral character. I’m proud to be called his friend and an Alabama fan as well. I see more clearly now where all this came from.
I am one of Donald Wright’s daughters. My sister forgot one little tidbit about "The Call." Daddy’s nurses at the hospital joked with us, saying that, after he received "The Call," they didn’t have to give him any more medicine that day... The Call was medicine enough! I love you Daddy! Roll Tide!!!!!
Great story. My daughter, Patricia, was a counselor one summer at Camp Bear Bryant (formerly Ccamp Winnatoska), and received an injury in a softball game. Coach Bryant made a special trip to check on her, which the whole family has never forgotten. As busy as the Bear always was, he always had time for his Bama family.