PASADENA, Calif. - The houndstooth hat is a memory — the Snake, Joe Willie and Bart Starr replaced by guys named Julio, Javier and Mount Cody.

Alabama football, though, is alive and well, thanks to a defense that would have made the Bear smile.

That defense knocked Texas quarterback Colt McCoy out of the BCS title game early Thursday night, then made a big play to save the win late and restore glory to Bear Bryant’s football factory with a 37-21 victory for the Crimson Tide’s first national title since 1992.

The Tide was the unanimous No. 1 in The Associated Press poll.

“We back,” said Heisman Trophy winner Mark Ingram, the offensive MVP.

Hanging onto a three-point lead and with momentum on the other side, linebacker Eryk Anders preserved the victory, forcing a fumble on his blindside sack of Texas backup quarterback Garrett Gilbert with 3:02 left.

Ingram scored three plays later to give the top-ranked Tide (14-0) breathing room, then Trent Richardson added a late touchdown to make it look like a blowout it really wasn’t.

McCoy, injured on the Texas offense’s fifth play, watched most of it from the sideline with an injured throwing shoulder.“I would have given anything to be out there, because it would have been different,” he said.

It wasn’t, though, and Nick Saban, in just his third year at Tuscaloosa, helped Alabama earn its eighth title since the polls began in the 1930s, and its seventh AP title.

Tide quarterback Greg McElroy took a knee to end the game, popped up to his feet, raised the ball high in one hand and hugged a teammate. The celebration on the floor of the Rose Bowl — not normally the Tide’s territory — was on.

“It feels good going down in history,” Terrence Cody said. “It’s hard to do, but we won.”

It was a tough game dominated by big-play defense.

Marcell Dareus will join Ingram, Cody, receiver Julio Jones, defensive back Javier Arenas and the rest in Crimson Tide lore after knocking McCoy down and out, 4:06 into the game.

“I just heard a thump when I hit him,” Dareus said. “I did lay it down pretty hard. I didn’t try to, but it felt great.”

A bit later, Dareus picked off Gilbert’s shovel pass and returned it 28 yards for a TD and a 24-6 lead late in the second quarter.

But this game was far from over.

“It was like we’d won the game at halftime,” Saban said. “But you can’t accept being average. You’re playing a team in the national championship game that knows how to win.”

The second half turned out to be anything but a laugher with Gilbert in the game — a highly recruited freshman who was Texas’ “quarterback of the future” but had thrown only 26 college passes coming into this game.

He threw two touchdown passes to All-American Jordan Shipley to trim the deficit to 24-21 with 6:15 left, and after an Alabama punt, he had the ball at the 7-yard line, 93 yards away from one of the most improbable comeback stories in the history of the game.

But after an Alabama holding penalty moved the ball to the 17, Gilbert dropped back to pass and got rocked by Anders, a senior who plays in the shadow of Cody and fellow All-American Rolando McClain. The ball went flying and Courtney Upshaw recovered.

Three plays later, Ingram surged into the end zone from the 1 for a 10-point lead. A few minutes later, after Gilbert’s third interception of the night, Richardson scored his second touchdown to make it 37-21.

Ingram finished with 116 yards rushing and two touchdowns, and Richardson had 109 yards and two scores as Alabama beat Texas for the first time in nine meetings between two of college football’s most successful teams. It also was the fourth straight national title for the Southeastern Conference.

Before Ingram brought the first Heisman back to Alabama, the Tide used to point to all its championships and say those were better than winning Heismans (Remember, Auburn?).

Now, Alabama has both.

“I don’t think anybody in the country worked harder than us,” Ingram said. “We played a great game today.”

Dareus finished with one tackle, one interception and one touchdown, but all were game-changers.

Seeking its second national title in five years, second-ranked Texas (13-1) got to the game on the back of McCoy, its All-America quarterback, who often looked like a one-man show in leading the Longhorns to 13 straight wins.

After the injury, McCoy was asking to go back in to finish his last college game. His dad, interviewed on ABC, said the injury wasn’t that bad.

But Texas coach Mack Brown decided to err on the side of caution, and McCoy spent the second half wearing a headset on the sideline, trying to encourage his teammates.

The Longhorns defense, ranked third in the country in yards allowed, kept things close while Gilbert got his feet underneath him.

And, boy, did he.

He led the Longhorns on a five-play, 59-yard drive to make it 24-13, then 60 yards for the second score, and suddenly, the Tide was falling apart, not rolling. The 2-point conversion made it 24-21.

“It’s a hard learning curve but he learned fast,” Brown said. “At one point, I thought he was going to win the ballgame.”

The Tide, however, hung on and Saban became the first coach since the polls began in 1936 to win national titles with two schools. He won the 2003 BCS championship with LSU.

The program was grounded, of course, in the hardscrabble work-ethic brought to Tuscaloosa in the 1960s by The Bear, who roamed the sideline in his houndstooth hat and painted the quintessential portrait of a football coach in those days.

His legacy still permeates almost everything at Alabama. But it was Saban, who took over a program decimated by scandals, bad decisions and NCAA troubles over the past decade, who convinced the Tide faithful they had to let go of the past if they were ever going to enjoy the present.

It took him just three short years, and now ’Bama is back.

“Everybody has made a great team and that’s why this team is good,” Saban said. “It’s not just because of me. I’m proud of the team and proud of the way they played today and I’m really proud of the state of Alabama.”

Source (article): MSNBC

Source (picture): AMESPHOTOS

On this day in 1887, Anne Sullivan begins teaching six-year-old Helen Keller, who lost her sight and hearing after a severe illness at the age of 19 months. Under Sullivan’s tutelage, including her pioneering “touch teaching” techniques, the previously uncontrollable Keller flourished, eventually graduating from college and becoming an international lecturer and activist. Sullivan, later dubbed “the miracle worker,” remained Keller’s interpreter and constant companion until the older woman’s death in 1936.

Sullivan, born in Massachusetts in 1866, had firsthand experience with being handicapped: As a child, an infection impaired her vision. She then attended the Perkins Institution for the Blind where she learned the manual alphabet in order to communicate with a classmate who was deaf and blind. Eventually, Sullivan had several operations that improved her weakened eyesight.

Helen Adams Keller was born on June 27, 1880, to Arthur Keller, a former Confederate army officer and newspaper publisher, and his wife Kate, of Tuscumbia, Alabama. As a baby, a brief illness, possibly scarlet fever, left Helen unable to see, hear or speak. She was considered a bright but spoiled and strong-willed child. Her parents eventually sought the advice of Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone and an authority on the deaf. He suggested the Kellers contact the Perkins Institution, which in turn recommended Anne Sullivan as a teacher.

Sullivan, age 20, arrived at Ivy Green, the Keller family estate, in 1887 and began working to socialize her wild, stubborn student and teach her by spelling out words in Keller’s hand. Initially, the finger spelling meant nothing to Keller. However, a breakthrough occurred one day when Sullivan held one of Keller’s hands under water from a pump and spelled out “w-a-t-e-r” in Keller’s palm. Keller went on to learn how to read, write and speak. With Sullivan’s assistance, Keller attended Radcliffe College and graduated with honors in 1904.

Helen Keller became a public speaker and author; her first book, “The Story of My Life” was published in 1902. She was also a fund raiser for the American Foundation for the Blind and an advocate for racial and sexual equality, as well as socialism. From 1920 to 1924, Sullivan and Keller even formed a vaudeville act to educate the public and earn money. Helen Keller died on June 1, 1968, at her home in Westport, Connecticut, at age 87, leaving her mark on the world by helping to alter perceptions about the disabled.

HISTORY.COM
Date: 2009-03-03

On this day in 1971, pitcher Leroy “Satchel” Paige becomes the first Negro League veteran to be nominated for the Baseball Hall of Fame. In August of that year, Paige, a pitching legend known for his fastball, showmanship and the longevity of his playing career, which spanned five decades, was inducted. Joe DiMaggio once called Paige “the best and fastest pitcher I’ve ever faced.”

Paige was born in Mobile, Alabama, most likely on July 7, 1906, although the exact date remains a mystery. He earned his nickname, Satchel, as a boy when he earned money carrying passengers’ bags at train stations. Baseball was segregated when Paige started playing baseball professionally in the 1920s, so he spent most of his career pitching for Negro League teams around the United States. During the winter season, he pitched for teams in the Caribbean and Central and South America. As a barnstorming player who traveled thousands of miles each season and played for whichever team met his asking price, he pitched an estimated 2,500 games, had 300 shut-outs and 55 no-hitters. In one month in 1935, he reportedly pitched 29 consecutive games.

In 1947, Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier and became the first African American to play in the Major Leagues when he joined the Brooklyn Dodgers. The following year, Paige also entered the majors, signing with the Cleveland Indians and becoming, at age 42, baseball’s oldest rookie. He helped the Indians win the pennant that year and later played for the St. Louis Browns and Kansas City A’s.

Paige retired from the majors in 1953, but returned in 1965 to pitch three innings for the Kansas City A’s. He was 59 at the time, making him the oldest person ever to play in the Major Leagues. In addition to being famous for his talent and longevity, Paige was also well-known for his sense of humor and colorful observations on life, including: “Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you” and “Age is a question of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”

He died June 8, 1982, in Kansas City, Missouri.

HISTORY.COM
Date: 2009-02-09