The Goat Pen

The history of that piece goes to Wildcat00 at the old CNNSI site. It started as a gag, and I would bang out another sentence or two every time she asked about it.

concluded with "Disrobe"

EFZ

AlabamAlum wrote:The history of that piece goes to Wildcat00 at the old CNNSI site. It started as a gag, and I would bang out another sentence or two every time she asked about it.

I thought it was a copy/paste from the Birmingham News coverage of that game.

No one at the Bham News has written that well since Alf Van Hoose.

Ah, Alf Van Hoose. I haven't thought about him in a long time

If Bama can isolate and contain MSU's Jackmerious Tacktheratrix in the Cotton.Bowl, they have a slugger's chance

It was a blustery and frozen night as I entered the dank, austere surroundings of the Liberty Bowl on the late December night of 1982. Slow barges lumbered down the Mighty River. Blues bands played a somber dirge - as if they were heralding in a fresh lamb to the slaughter.

The Mighty Fighting Illini were big. They were strong. They were mean. The wounded and much-beleaguered Crimson Tide team formed a thin red line as they shielded themselves from the cold and valiantly headed onto the tundra that night.

The rifle-armed All-American, Tony Eason, set his angular jaw against the gale-like, frozen winds on that dark Memphis night. Like a gridiron Baryshnikov, Eason’s 6’4” frame danced nimbly through the pregame warm-ups as he focused his mind on the task at hand: Embarrassing – no humiliating – the great, but terminally ill Paul Bryant and his rag-tag band of undersized and injured players...

Head Coach of the Mighty Fighting Illini, Mike White, knew a pro career lay ahead of him. He chuckled slightly as he perused the gameplan and thought to himself, “This is Bryant’s last game. I’ll make him wish he’d quit sooner.”

The ailing Bryant grimaced as he slowly emerged from the tunnel. Heart disease was killing him and he knew his doctors had warned him about coaching this game, especially considering the extremely harsh weather. He struggled to keep from letting his family – the players – see him in such mind-searing pain as he covertly placed a nitroglycerin tablet under his tongue. He never wanted this game to be about him. He simply wanted the players to hold their heads high and compete honorably for the University, their families, and most importantly, themselves. “Make your mamas proud," he growled as the last of the players and trainers ran from the tunnel.

Somehow, Alabama had managed to keep it close through most of the game; however, Eason was driving his team for what should have been the winning score. But Alabama's defense came through ... one last time for Bryant. Afterward, the young Illinois coach said that he had never seen a team hit as hard as Alabama that day. Bama was outgunned and out-manned, but they played with incredible heart and won the game for Bear on desire and grit alone.

That fateful Liberty Bowl was played on December 29, 1982. Less than one month later Bryant would die of heart disease. Coincidentally, less than one month after that, his beloved wife of 59 years, Mary Harmon Bryant, would die, too.

From the time Bryant first prowled the sidelines at the University of Alabama in 1958, until the day he died in 1983, no other team in the Nation won as many games, had as high of a winning percentage, or as many championships. And no one was really even close.

I feel like I should stand up and salute

You should read it while humming "O Beautiful for spacious skies..." Try it.

Or the drum and fife that backed up Oliver Douglas' farming soliloquies in Green Acres.

This place is dead.

I wish you were more like this place...

By AA's absence, you'd think his team lost.

I wish you'd vanish when your team loses. Say one month for every loss? See you in May.

Now even AA is ripping off hedge.

Incorrect. I don't wish your death, just your extended absence.

The former would ensure the latter...

AlabamAlum wrote:Incorrect. I don't wish your death, just your extended absence.

hedge lite.