Three men. A classics scholar from Virginia, highly regarded in academic circles for his deep appreciation for the subtleties of Latin grammar. A son of the grinding poverty of the rural South who escaped a life of depression-era misery through a career in college athletics. And a soft-spoken, even courtly gentleman, from a farming family in Dozier, Alabama whose career took him to a position where every decision was dissected by the public as soon as it was made; a pressure-cooker of a job that had left more than a few of his predecessors discredited and unemployed.
These three men are separated by an equal number of generations. The first, from 1912 to 1936 was responsible for putting Alabama onto the national stage. He laid the foundation and was the supervising architect for building Crimson Tide football-and by extension all of Southern football-into a national power. The second, between 1958 and 1983, salvaged the University's reputation from inexcusable mismanagement, restored the football program to its former national status and took it to an unprecedented level of dynastic proportions. The third man, in many ways an amalgam of the first two, inherited a program in 1999 that was rocked by scandal and riven with internecine divisions. Although the path of his success was not always smooth, his body of work, which came to an end on March 20, 2013, leaves Tide athletics as the envy of lesser programs around the country.
Three men-Dr. George H. Denny, Paul W. Bryant and Mal M. Moore-without whom the University of Alabama athletics program in general, and the football team in particular, would not be the dominating national power that it is today.
Is it too soon to place Moore along side Denny and Bryant in the pantheon of Crimson Tide Football? Should such an assessment await a more sober analysis from the perspective of a later time? I don't think so.
Certainly, Mal Moore had his detractors. You could compile a book out of newspaper columns critical of Moore as a coach and administrator. His personnel moves, which involve hiring no fewer than four different head football coaches in the span of seven years, were among some of the most fiercely debated and, at times, ridiculed decisions of any official in the State of Alabama. Media criticism, thank goodness, is not the measure of a person's success.
When he was named athletics director in 1999, the first dumpster fire Moore had to put out was Mike Dubose's tenure as head football coach. The Alabama program was still reeling from Dubose's vehement-denial-turned-mawkish-confession of an extra-marital affair with a University employee. A record of 9-2 and winning the SEC Championship secured Dubose a reprieve which he obligingly squandered the following year by turning a pre-season number three ranking into only three regular season wins.
Not long after Moore replaced Dubose with Dennis Franchione, the Memphis recruiting scandal erupted. Logan Young became the personification of rogue boosterism as the NCAA descended on the Alabama program with a white-hot ferocity, aided and abetted by secret witnesses and coaches at other SEC schools, most notably UT's Philip Fulmer. With draconian sanctions pending, Franchione left his players "holding the rope" and Moore holding the bag as he skipped town in the comfort of Texas A&M's private jet.
Moving quickly, Moore secured the services of Mike Price to replace the inconstant Franchione. But before so much as a single down of competitive football could be played under his watch, Price's tenure at the Capstone collapsed and a lighted sign proclaiming itself "Home Of The $10 Million Lap Dace" was installed in the parking lot of a Pensacola naked dancing establishment.
For the second time in less than five months, Moore was on the market for a head football coach. His choice-Mike Shula-brought many of the attributes missing from his three predecessors: integrity, dedication, moral propriety. What he did not bring was the ability to manage the complexities of being Alabama's head football coach. In 2006, when Shula lost to Sylvester Croom's Mississippi State Bulldogs at Bryant-Denny Stadium, Moore was once again faced with the task of replacing the head coach for the University's flagship sport.
Everyone who follows college football knows the narrative from this point. Moore flew to Miami and persuaded Nick Saban to leave the NFL and return to coaching college football. Three BCS Championships, two SEC Championships, and home game attendance numbers in six figures provide all the evidence you need to argue that Moore's last football coaching hire was an unqualified success.
No one should overlook what Moore accomplished in capital improvements to Alabama's athletics programs. Training facilities, practice fields, and administrative offices were modernized, expanded and built within budgets. The jewel in the crown of this building program, of course, is the expansion of Bryant-Denny Stadium. A member of the Football Committee from the Tournament of Roses once described to me his impression upon seeing BDS for the first time: "It is a cathedral."
As a player, coach and chief administrative officer, Mal Moore was directly involved in winning ten national championships in football. Add to his ten football championships, however, the eight additional titles achieved on his watch in gymnastics, softball and women's golf and you have a measure of a life in college athletics that will never be broken.
Dr. Denny put Alabama on the map. Coach Bryant picked the football program off its back and restored it to national greatness. Mal Moore provided the stewardship to lead the football program through a crucible that threatened it with extinction, and brought it to the dizzying heights of national dominance. Three men of different eras with different gifts and talents. But three men whose lives were devoted to a single institution. People who love the Capstone should be forever grateful that George Denny, Paul Bryant and Mal Moore were each an Alabama Man!
The Commissioner
