One thing about being a part of the Tide is that there is no such thing as individuality with respect to the Tide. The word "Tide" is grammatically singular but effectively plural. When referring to the Tide, you never hear someone say "a" Tide. It is always "the" Tide. When referring to the Tide, you are referring to the whole Tide. There are 7 oceans in the world, but they all are referred to as having one Tide. In effect they are all different parts of one big ocean. And as such, all Tides are "The Tide", whether it is on one side of the globe or the other. All are one. The same could be said for all members of the Crimson Tide. No two members of the Tide are the same, yet we are all part of the Tide.
The Crimson Tide cannot ever be characterized by a single person because the Crimson Tide refers to all, not one. Thus, there can never be a 'greatest ever' when referring to the Tide. There cannot be a 'most important' or 'most significant' when referring to the Tide. We are all one and the same. Every part of the Tide is equal. The fans that support the Tide are just as important as the coaches that coach the Tide and the players that play for the Tide and the cheerleaders that cheer for the Tide and the faculty that educate the Tide and on and on. We exist individually, as the drops of water that make up the oceans. But, when we come together as the Tide, we form one of the most powerful forces on Earth. It is this pluralized singularity that makes us who we are. We are one. We are the Crimson Tide!
Alabama, at this moment in history, is still Alabama
by Cecil Hurt
TUSCALOOSA | October 22, 2005
It had to be this way. There are millions of ways in which a football game can end, and there were a dozen different moments in Saturday’s Alabama-Tennessee game where it could have taken a different turn, perhaps arriving at a different result. But it really had to be this way, because this was more than a football game.
This was a moment in history.
It was a chance for closure for Alabama players and coaches and fans that have been longing for such a moment for years now. It’s not that some other kind of win -- a comfortable blowout like the Florida game, for instance – wouldn’t have been fulfilling for the Tide. Obviously, it would have been. But, somehow, it wouldn’t have made the point that needed to be made. It would have missed the point that every Alabama voice has wanted to shout into every Tennessee ear.
“We’re still Alabama.”
That’s why this didn’t need to be just another game. It needed to be the football version of a near-death experience. Alabama had to be teetering on the precipice, looking as if it was about to be pushed headlong into oblivion by an orange-clad hand. After all, that was what the whole NCAA ordeal was really all about: Tennessee wanting to put Alabama away permanently. No one in Bryant-Denny Stadium was thinking of the NCAA when Tennessee drove deep into Alabama territory late in the fourth quarter. Everyone in crimson was just thinking of a way to survive, to weather the storm. But the Volunteers kept driving, deeper and deeper, until they were within 3 yards of the Alabama end zone.
There is a phrase connected with Alabama football, unfortunately, a phrase that needs to die an unnatural death, expunged from everyone’s vocabulary. But it’s the only phrase that fits.
Alabama was looking down the barrel of the gun.
It wasn’t any distant gun, either. It wasn’t one of the leftover Secret Service snipers sitting on a scoreboard. This one was at point-blank range. This time, Phil Fulmer had to be thinking, it won’t miss. The scholarship cuts, and the postseason ban, and the coaching turmoil that the NCAA probation engendered couldn’t do it, but surely his offense, 3 yards away and riding on momentum, could finish the job. But it couldn’t.
It couldn’t because Alabama didn’t quit. It couldn’t because Alabama, showing the same resolve it has shown under Mike Shula’s leadership, refused to die, even when every neutral outside observer thought it should die.
It couldn’t because Alabama is still Alabama.
Instead of accepting the inevitable, Alabama fought. Roman Harper -- a perfect example of the Alabama-bred, Alabama-loving player that has carried the Tide through the probation and back into championship contention -- Roman Harper made the play that will define his career, forcing a fumble that shot through the end zone and gave Alabama the football. It didn’t stop there. Brodie Croyle, hammered hard by the huge Tennessee defensive line in the second half, braved that rush once more on third-and-long, and found DJ Hall. Shula called that “the biggest example” of Croyle’s ability to keep his composure, to forget every missed play or dropped ball or sack that had gone before it and make a play. Then it came down to Jamie Christensen, who, for the second straight Saturday, made the biggest kick of his career.
It would diminish Alabama’s effort to say that the Crimson Tide showed character and Tennessee didn’t. The off-the-field animosity between the two teams has never really been about the players. Tennessee showed a good deal of heart, with special credit going to its defensive unit, which played hard and well even though it must have long since given up hope of getting much offensive support.
But there was something different for Alabama on Saturday. Beating Tennessee in Bryant-Denny Stadium would have been a special win at any time, but this time, it was more. To use Roman Harper’s aptly chosen phrase, it was “supernatural.” After all, this was a program that was supposed to be dead in the water, thanks to the NCAA and all those who aided them. This was a team, given the circumstances with five minutes to play, that should have been buried, beaten again by its oldest rival in particularly painful fashion.
Instead, Alabama refused to die. So, really, it had to be this way. It’s the only way that Tennessee, and everyone else would understand that Alabama -- their old nemesis, their worst nightmare -- is still very much alive and very much Alabama.
Cecil Hurt is sports editor of the Tuscaloosa News.
cecil.hurt@tuscaloosanews.com
