The University of Alabama's teams were originally called the Varsity or the Crimson and White. As shocking as it may be to the modern reader, their first nickname was really just journalistic trash- talk. Perhaps not the largest team around, Alabama's football players were referred to as the Thin Red Line by reporters in 1906. As the program improved, this nickname no longer worked. According to legend, Hugh Roberts, sports editor of the Birmingham Age-Herald, coined the name Crimson Tide while covering the 1907 Alabama-Auburn game. Played in muddy conditions, Auburn was the overwhelming favorite. Alabama played an incredible game, and they left the mud-pile field in Birmingham with a 6-6 tie. It is believed that the wet conditions and the heroic play inspired the term "Crimson Tide." A second variation of this story has the origin of the term in 1911 during a game against Smith College during a rainstorm. The Alabama players wore their iconic crimson uniforms, and a sports reporter said the players on the field were like a swarming crimson tide.

There are conflicting stories regarding the origin of Alabama's elephant mascot. What I consider the story most likely to be true comes from the 1926 Rose Bowl. Alabama traveled to California to play the University of Washington, and a luggage manufacturer from Birmingham Alabama provided the players luggage with the company’s insignia- an elephant standing on a suitcase. Reporters were there to watch the team as they arrived, and again when they victoriously departed. Reporters compared them to a powerful herd of elephants, and it is my belief that this is how the seed was planted. A second story comes from 1930. Coach Wallace Wade assembled an excellent football team during the 1930 football season. In one account penned by Everett Strupper on October 8, 1930; “that Alabama team of 1930 is a typical Wade machine, powerful, big, tough, fast, aggressive, well-schooled in fundamentals, and the best blocking team for this early in the season that | have ever seen. When those big brutes hit you I mean you go down and stay down, often for an additional two minutes... Surprisingly, the journalist was describing the Alabama's second team which they had start that game! Continuing: “at the end of the quarter, the earth started to tremble, there was a distant rumble that continued to grow. Some excited fan in the stands bellowed, ‘Hold your horses, the elephants are coming,’ and out stamped this Alabama varsity.”Alabama's linemen was referred to as Red Elephants by Strupper, which, if extended, may have led to the creature being selected as the school's mascot.

As a plush mascot, Big Al the elelphant has been a part ofthe University of Alabama sports since the 1960s, thoughthe elephant was only made official via a student vote in 1979.If things are going well, why change them. Well, some efforts have been made to change the mascot to something morecongruent with “the crimson tide.” A wave (or tide) was tried,as was Trident, but Alabama fans are happy with Big Al.