The Professor (McMurtrie and Drake Legal Thrillers #1)(107)

Even after Coach Bryant’s death in 1982, players from the ’61 team have continued to have a dramatic impact on the University. Mal Moore, backup quarterback and defensive back on the ’61 team, became athletic director in 1999 and held the position until 2013. In 2007, Coach Moore probably made the most significant coaching hire at Alabama since Bryant, luring Nick Saban away from the Miami Dolphins. After Moore’s death in March 2013, Alabama suddenly had to replace the best athletic director in the country. It seems only appropriate that the University turned to Bill Battle, Moore’s friend and teammate on the ’61 team, to be his replacement.

Finally, the lasting legacy of the ’61 team was its dominant defense. Even Coach Bryant, not prone to overstatement or hyperbole, proclaimed of the ’61 defense: “We weren’t just a good defensive team. We were a great defensive team.” The ’61 defense recorded six shutouts and allowed only three touchdowns to be scored against them. Indeed, opponents scored just 25 points against Alabama the entire ’61 season.

The legend of the ’61 team endures today. On January 8, 2012, I sat with my parents in the Superdome in New Orleans as Alabama won its fourteenth national championship, defeating LSU 21-0. The 2011 team was led by a defense that was first in every statistical defensive category. There were three NFL first round draft choices on the 2011 defense and one second rounder. But when I declared to my father that the 2011 defense had to be the greatest of all time, he just shook his head and, with misty eyes, said, “Not like ’61. Hell, son, that team only gave up 25 points…the whole year.”