University of Alabama traditions

Alabama's first football game was played in Birmingham on Friday afternoon, November 11, 1892, at the old Lakeview Park.

That Saturday, November 12, Alabama played the Birmingham Athletic Club, losing 5-4 when Ross, of B.A.C., kicked a 65-yard field goal.

Early newspaper accounts of the university's football squad simply referred to them as the "varsity" or the "Crimson White".

The game was played in a sea of red mud which stained the Alabama white jerseys crimson.

[clarification needed] There are two stories, perhaps both true, about how Alabama's football squad became associated with the elephant, both dating to the coaching tenure of Wallace Wade (1923–1930).

Owner J. D. Rosenberger, whose son was a student at the university, outfitted the undefeated 1926 team with "good luck" luggage tags for the trip to the 1927 Rose Bowl.

When the football team arrived in Pasadena, the reporters greeting them, including syndicated columnist Grantland Rice, associated their large size with the elephants on their luggage.

Following the October 4 game against Ole Miss, Atlanta Journal sports writer and Hall of Fame former Georgia Tech back Everett Strupper wrote:[3] At the end of the quarter, the earth started to tremble, there was a distant rumble that continued to grow.

It was the first time that I had seen it and the size of the entire eleven nearly knocked me cold, men that I had seen play last year looking like they had nearly doubled in size.Yet, despite the unofficial status as the Crimson Tide's mascot, the elephant was very much part of the school's football traditions by the 1940s.

It was in that decade that a live elephant mascot named "Alamite" was a regular sight on game days in Tuscaloosa.

The "Red Elephants" rolled up 217 points that season, including a 24-0 victory over Washington State in the Rose Bowl.

In the second story, W. C. "Champ" Pickens bestowed the name "Million Dollar Band" after the 1922 football game against Georgia Tech.

Though accounts vary, it is reported that in order for the band to attend the game they had to solicit funds from local businesses.

The lyrics of the alma mater: Alabama, listen, Mother, To our vows of love, To thyself and to each other, Faithful friends we’ll prove.

College days are swiftly fleeting, Soon we’ll leave their halls Ne’er to join another meeting ‘Neath their hallowed walls.

So, farewell, dear Alma Mater May thy name, we pray, Be rev’renced ever, pure, and stainless As it is today.

Following Alabama's 1926 Rose Bowl victory over Washington, a contest was held by The Rammer-Jammer, a student newspaper, for the composition of a fight song with a prize of US$75 (adjusted for inflation, US$1291).

The composer, Ethelred Lundy (Epp) Sykes, a student in the School of Engineering, was the editor of The Rammer-Jammer,[9] and played piano in a jazz ensemble, The Capstone Five.

Georgia Tech ("Yellow Jackets") left the SEC in the early 1960s, and has only infrequently filled one of the non-conference game slots, and The University of the South Tigers (also called Sewanee) withdrew from the SEC in 1940, de-emphasized athletics, and no longer competes at the Division I level.

The trio (no longer played in most occasions):[11] Let the Sewanee Tiger scratch, Let the Yellow Jacket sting, Let the Georgia Bulldog bite, Alabama still is right!

And whether win or lose we smile, For that's Bama's fighting style: You're Dixie's football pride, Crimson Tide!

The cheer is still referred to as "Ole Miss", and today the drum major's signal is still the motioning of one arm in a full circle (an "O").

Author Warren St. John titled his 2004 bestseller about obsessive sports fans Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer[19] after the cheer.

The cheer was most noted during the years of Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant and his head cheerleader Mickey Grigsby.

Dubbed the "Reverse Rammer Jammer," the beat and music are the same, but the words of the chant are changed to, "Hey, Alabama!