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Alabama Football Fan (A Repost of an Earlier Posting) by Dan Hall

Posted by Pete | Posted in Downloads, News | Posted on 09-04-2019

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Big Alabama Football Fan by Dan Hall

Posted by Pete | Posted in News | Posted on 13-01-2016

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Big Alabama Football Fan

I was watching Alabama play in the national championship game Monday night and got to thinking about one of the biggest Alabama football fan I grew up with, Pop loved the Tide. He talked about listening to the 1925 & 1926 Rose Bowl games on the radio & then going to Tuscaloosa to see them get off the train after winning the National Championship games. He talked about listening when Johnny Mack Brown made that great catch in the 1931 Rose Bowl. I guess between him and my uncles Sam & Pete, they are the reasons I love football & especially ALABAMA football so much.
Back in the early 1960’s Alabama football was not on the TV every weekend, maybe once or twice a year. But they were on the radio, and at the time the best radio Pop had was in the car, so he and I would get in and listen ( him letting me start it up very 15 to 20 minutes to keep the battery charged) to the Tide Roll. Now Pop loved Bama winning but he didn’t like for Bama to lose, as none of Bear Bryant’s teams didn’t lose many times. If Alabama did get behind, Pop would get out of the car saying something about Bear Bryant needing to do better. He would be gone about 15 minutes, come by and ask me ” how they doing now ?”, if we were still losing he would leave again, only to come back again in another 15 to 20 minutes. But if they were back ahead or driving for a score, he would get back in the car to listen some more. We talked a lot listening to those games, about many things but mostly football, Alabama Football.  I really enjoyed listening to those games with him, and watching one on TV was great, he would talk to the coaches & players about what he thought they needed to be doing.
He would love it now that they are on TV every week, and the way Coach Saban has them winning games and National Championships.
Pop got to listen to or see the first 12 of Alabama 16 national championships……
He loved football, Pickens County High School football and Alabama football. He saw his brother-in-laws, sons, nephews, and grandson play for the Tornadoes.  I don’t know about the earlier games, but Uncle Pete’s and my games at PCHS, he was always standing by the fence in the north end zone. I bet at the other games he was in that spot.
And yes, Uncle Pete I was young but I remember going to your games at PCHS…”.

 Dan Hall is writing about his Grandpa and my Dad, D. W. Hester and he was a big fan…He did not take Bama losing very well at all. Thanks, Dan, good story….
Posted April 9, 2019  This is one of my favorite articles written by my nephew Dan Hall. I just wanted to share it least one more time…..Alabama just keeps on winning National Championships…I’m pretty sure Dad is watching with a lots of other Alabama fans from Heaven….(well, I don’t really know that,  but if they can, they are…..)
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Comments (8)

Really enjoyed your story about Mr. Hester. I did not know he was that much of an Alabama fan. Thanks Dan for writing this story. I have very fond memories of Mr. Hester.

Thanks, Otis….yes he was a very big fan. It would almost make him sick if Alabama lost. And he was almost that bad with the Miami Dolphins….In his later years I don’t know if he was still a Dolphin fan or not, but back when Shula was coach he certainly was.

Hey Ya’ll! everybody in Alabama in the Fifties were Alabama football fans. One had to be if only out of self defense. Of course, there was an old, sorry team somewhere down south, somewhere on the Plains that tried to act like “Tigers”, but everybody knew that they were only “Paper Tigers”. As I sat in my chemistry classes at PCHS, I remember hearing more football than I did the interworkings of how the world was made by chemistry, but that is not surprising, as my chemistry course was taught by the football coach, Mr. Batchelor. It was a great time, but sometime I wish that football would just blow away in that great tornadic wind and let me re-make the world in peace. Then, one day I dropped into a place called Georgia Tech, and I found myself better prepared to be a “Yellow Jacket” than to compete in the chemistry marathon up on “Tech Hill”. I loved sporting around campus with my slide rule dangling from my belt. I loved that slide rule almost as much as some avid football fans loved Alabama football and even than PiCoHi football fans love the Tornados, although I am not sure that is possible. I shouldn’t have expected any better coming from a school with a football coach for a chemistry teacher in a school with football dominating the curriculum. Don’t get me wrong. I was always both a PiCoHi, as well as an Alabama football fan, but sometimes I just wished football would just blow away in that infamous “Tornado” coming out of Reform, Alabama and swept away by that infamous red Tide flowing out of Tuscaloosa. Then, I got to Atlanta and suffered defeat after defeat by that infamous Red Tide from Tuscaloosa and even by those “Plains” people from way down south in a place called Auburn. Reform is a great place if only by being a good neighbor to a place called Coal Fire and one huge family that did so much and made such a great splash in the world that almost rivals the splash that Alabama and PiCoHi football has made. I just wonder if one splash would have been possible without the other.

I’m very glad we had both types….intelligent and athletic….that made for a well rounded school. And it probably would have helped
me a lot to have had lots more chemistry and a little less sports. But, I enjoyed my time at PCHS and I’m happy for all the
memories and friends. I’ll bet you are also…Thanks, Errol

Yes, Pete! A little more chemistry would have helped you make better potash later down in a place called Carlsbad. My Dad, who was also a great Alabama football fan, would say that a big win in football was only good during the course of the actual game because, after the game, the losers were already plotting there own revenge win the next time around, but winning is always better than losing. I admired my Dad so much, but he is the reason that I elected not to play football in high school. There was no way that a talentless person like me could measure up to his standards, so I elected to compete in another forum. Since making that decision, I’ve seen many sorry, talentless football players who did their level best to accomplish a win. Some measured up and some didn’t, but they did their level best, which is the next best thing that is enabled by football and is another saying that my father made famous, at least in my memory. If I had my life to live over, yes, I would play football and apply all the unworthiness that I could muster to the game. I remember an altercation that my Dad had with my brother Cecil after a particularly hard fought game against York at York. This was the game that Cecil and Bobby Moss, playing double safety, caught many high, short fourth down punts, one after another, and immediately being racked up by the York defenders practically in their tracks, but Cecil and Bobby saved the game. After Cecil left the dressing room at the end of the game and was riding back home with us in the back seat of Dad’s ’50 model Chevy, I could sense his frustration of not being given the chance to do more by the York defenders, but neither he nor Bobby fumbled the ball or suffered from a fumbled punt recovery not once. This was the first time that I saw my brother actually cry, yet it was the night where my respect for him peaked to its highest point. By the way, the Tornadoes and York played to a tie game that night, but it was a win as far as most people were concerned, and I think it was a win as far as Cecil was concerned too, but he only realized that later, certainly not that night.

A good story, Errol. I did not know that about Cecil. And yes, Uncle Dee could be hard on you and Cecil but
I’m sure it was his wanting the best for the two of you. I don’t know about you playing football, studying took you
much further than football ever did, but it does have some good points. Thanks for the post..

Yes! Pete! I probably accomplished more on Mr. Batchelor’s Chemistry Brigade than I ever would on his football team. I did often wonder why I couldn’t have been given the Friday night recognition that members of the football team received; but, I guess I did. The chemistry recognition just came later. My Dad once told me that he couldn’t help me with my math problems any more because I had advanced further than he in math. In a way, that made me feel isolated and alone; but, later, I realized that I may have advanced further in book knowledge, but Dad had more practical knowledge of math, used on the farm and in making fine lumber from sawlogs, than I could imagine. Again, my failure was my failure to turn into reality much of my book knowledge that I had worked so hard to acquire.

I’m sure your Dad is very proud of you. Of course, your Dad had a different kind of training
than you, but then he would have been lost trying to handle your job as you would have his.
I’m glad that it turned out as it did and you have succeeded far beyond his expectations I would imagine.
You did good…….

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