Alabama Football Trivia

On the eve of the Alabama-Notre Dame national championship game, I thought a little Alabama football trivia might be timely and possibly of interest to some football aficionados.  Here it is.

Alabama has won the national football title several times over the decades, but they went for the first time ever as a Southern team to the Rose Bowl in 1926.  They were not only the first Southern team to go to the Rose Bowl, but they won!  Among other plays, the quarterback for Alabama, Allison Thomas (Pooley) Hubert, was able to complete a pass to half-back Johnny Mac Brown for a touchdown and victory in final moments of the game to defeat University of Washington, 20 to 19.  The fans were stunned. It was a tremendous showing for a southern team and the specifics of the game are legend in the annals of Alabama football.

Southern teams may no longer compete in the Rose Bowl, but they can still win and even dominate in national championships as the BCS Bowl has trumped the Rose Bowl.  After that win Pooley Hubert went on to play professional football only briefly, then coached from 1931 to 1936, at Mississippi Southern, then at Virginia Military Academy.  In 1964, Pooley Hubert, Meridian hometown boy and All American, was inducted into the national College Football Hall of Fame. For his part, Johnny Mac Brown went on to star in cowboy movies in Hollywood. Yep, that was him.

Communication in 1926, was not remotely what it is today.  That football game could not be viewed on television, big screen or no.  It could not even be heard on radio.  Radio reception for the game was possible in Jackson at the time, but not in Meridian where Pooley's family lived. His family went to a Cotton Compress Warehouse in Meridian where a telegraph ticker tape somewhat like a 2012 crawler on the screen could be viewed. It was exciting nevertheless, both at the time and at each telling and retelling of the story.

For more information, if interested, go to Wikipedia.com and search for Allison Hubert or Pooley Hubert. He was my father's older brother.