Big Al is the costumed mascot of the
University of AlabamaThe University of Alabama is a public coeducational university located in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, United States....
Crimson Tide in
Tuscaloosa, AlabamaTuscaloosa is a city in and the seat of Tuscaloosa County in west central Alabama . Located on the Black Warrior River, it is the fifth-largest city in Alabama, with a population of 90,468 in 2010...
.
The origin of the mascot dates back to 1930. On October 8, a sportswriter wrote about the previous weekend's Alabama-
Ole MissThe University of Mississippi, also known as Ole Miss, is a public, coeducational research university located in Oxford, Mississippi. Founded in 1844, the school is composed of the main campus in Oxford, four branch campuses located in Booneville, Grenada, Tupelo, and Southaven as well as the...
football game. The writer, using the flair for the dramatic common in sportswriting at the time, wrote that an anonymous fan yelled out "Hold your horses, the
elephantElephants are large land mammals in two extant genera of the family Elephantidae: Elephas and Loxodonta, with the third genus Mammuthus extinct...
s are coming!" upon hearing the rumble of the first team coming on the field. The name stuck throughout what became a national championship season and beyond.
Melford Espey, Jr., then a student, was the first to wear an elephant head costume to portray the Crimson Tide's mascot in the early 1960s. Espey later became a university administrator and Coach
Paul "Bear" BryantPaul William "Bear" Bryant was an American college football player and coach. He was best known as the longtime head coach of the University of Alabama football team. During his 25-year tenure as Alabama's head coach, he amassed six national championships and thirteen conference championships...
asked him to take responsibility when student groups asked to resurrect the costumed mascot in the late 1970s.
The costumed "Big Al" mascot officially debuted at the
1979 Sugar BowlThe 1979 Sugar Bowl was the 45th edition of the Sugar Bowl, which was played on January 1, 1979 in New Orleans, Louisiana at the Louisiana Superdome. The matchup featured the #1–ranked, 11–0 Penn State Nittany Lions and the #2–ranked, 10–1 Alabama Crimson Tide...
, when the Tide beat Penn State University for the national championship. Since then, the mascot has been a fan favorite for the Tide fans. As the Crimson Tide do not have a logo on their helmets or uniforms, Big Al's likeness appears on much team merchandise and such.
Big Al was named by student vote. Various names were put before the student body, who were allowed to complete ballots at the Student Union and "SUPe Store".
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