Should a Petition Be Started to Clarify our National Championships?

[NoNC4Tubs]

So, to clairfy: Using awbern's definition of National Championships we would have 38, correct?

Seems like a good response to any of them bragging about their nine...

 

[Tideflyer]

I’m not sure we should even be dignifying this with a thread and discussion. But that’s just me.

 

[December05]

I appreciate all of these responses, and they’re pretty much going the way I would expect.

I did want to reiterate two points in the event of it wasn’t made clear in the original post and bring a new one to light:

First, this formal/informal petition would be between the fanbase and the University of Alabama without a care to the world what anyone outside of that would think of it.

Second, this isn’t so much a knee jerk reaction to Auburn as much as something to monitor if other programs of a higher pedigree than Auburn begin searching through and reviewing the veracity of past unclaimed titles to see if they should formally claim more. We certainly have those as well.

Third, we’re looking at these additional years like real people didn’t compete for them. Players from the ‘77 team are still alive. What are their thoughts on being honored or for the ones remaining off the ‘66 team or perhaps the kids/grandkids of the ‘45 team’s players? If I had a connection like that, it would certainly mean something to me if I had a viable claim to a block on the Walk of Champions that isn’t currently there.

In some ways, it’s time gone by that doesn’t affect today at all, but in others, it’s hard to apologize for letting the history of it just mean that much.

So much is being done to take away what once was this game, and having a rival make a mockery of themselves certainly doesn’t help. Once they go to a 28-team playoff format, I guess I’ll just have to put re-runs on and convince myself they’re new games during what will be an entirely meaningless regular season, but those are still the same captains’ prints at the chimes I walked along for four years during my time there. I digress…

 

[BamaNation]

No. Let Awbies have their fun with their champ-grab. They've "earned" it ... they've had to live with being awbies. Have pity and let them grab a natty or 7 using Awbie logic & Awbie math.

As for why Bama claims 18 ... Wayne Atcheson - Bama's SID in 1984 - wanted to recognize pre-Bryant-era teams (and those prior to the "consensus" AP / Coaches voted-on championships) and had previously done a lot of research on who had recognized Bama as #1. So, the last page of the 1984 media guide listed 11 championships while the 1983 guide had only 6. UA never promoted it or released press releases or had media notice much about it until the 1992 season. Again, it was a way of recognizing all the different Bama eras of great teams.

In the pre-hype era 40+ years ago this all made sense as a way to recognize (mostly internally) Bama's greatest teams from years gone by.

In today's environment, grabbing an additional 7 nattys speaks of desperation, insecurity, and inferiority complex. And, as luck would have it, that describes your prototypical awbie in the wild.

JMHO

 

[selmaborntidefan]

Third, we’re looking at these additional years like real people didn’t compete for them. Players from the ‘77 team are still alive. What are their thoughts on being honored or for the ones remaining off the ‘66 team or perhaps the kids/grandkids of the ‘45 team’s players? If I had a connection like that, it would certainly mean something to me if I had a viable claim to a block on the Walk of Champions that isn’t currently there.

I just don't think this is going to work in any sense.

The ring the players chased with all their might was not just a high-priced trinket. It was the proof they all sought, the tangible symbol not only that they had achieved something historic, but also that their incredibly consuming and demanding world ultimately made sense.
“I couldn’t wait to get mine,” recalled fullback David Chatwood.
“I planned to give it to my daddy. I wanted to give him that ring for everything he had done for me.”
Several players stopped by to see the boss to petition him to award rings commemorating the Crimson Tide’s SEC championship, but he explained what the players already knew: Alabama stood for the pursuit of the big prize. Rewarding anything less—even considering the unfairness of the situation—would have undermined the whole program. Telling them no was not the act of a gruff father figure denying his players a reward as some sort of punishment. Instead, it was a symbol of his respect for all the sacrifices they had made to produce a perfect season, and he was not about to water down the accomplishment by trying to diminish their feelings of disappointment, which he saw as a critical part of the whole process, for those players and the athletes yet to come.
Late in the season, when Alabama continued to trail Notre Dame and Michigan State and the players wondered what they could do to change the voters’ minds before it was too late, Bryant said something to a reporter about his players’ attitude that still rang true, even as they discussed the ring that slipped away. “I hope they’re bothered by it,” he said. “I hope they’re bothered a great deal by it.”

Instead of lowering Alabama’s standards by recognizing the SEC title in such a way—or simply declaring themselves the national champion, as some Tide fans no doubt wanted—Bryant was communicating to his players and the entire Alabama nation a respect for the goal and the process, which, under the circumstances, was as incredibly mature act. “The fact that he thought we were the best team in the country was beside the point,” said defensive end Wayne Owen. “Losing the national championship in that way, as frustrating as it was, taught us all a lesson: The world is not always just.”

Indeed, the classy way Bryant dealt with the situation struck a powerful chord with his team and Alabama fans everywhere. He was deeply hurt by the whole affair, which he took as a personal assault on everything he stood for, but he did not rant or rave or wage a public relations battle through the media. He took it like a man.

Keith Dunnavant, "The Missing Ring," 2006: 388-9

 

[selmaborntidefan]

As for why Bama claims 18 ... Wayne Atcheson - Bama's SID in 1984 - wanted to recognize pre-Bryant-era teams (and those prior to the "consensus" AP / Coaches voted-on championships) and had previously done a lot of research on who had recognized Bama as #1. So, the last page of the 1984 media guide listed 11 championships while the 1983 guide had only 6. UA never promoted it or released press releases or had media notice much about it until the 1992 season. Again, it was a way of recognizing all the different Bama eras of great teams.

That whole thing, though, was a venture into stupid, too.

He probably would have gotten away with it too....had he had the public relations acumen to realize, "Defending a 2-loss non-conference champion isn't going to work" and spared us the focusing on 1941 by critics.

 

[BamaNation]

That whole thing, though, was a venture into stupid, too.

He probably would have gotten away with it too....had he had the public relations acumen to realize, "Defending a 2-loss non-conference champion isn't going to work" and spared us the focusing on 1941 by critics.

We should say "Ok, world, we're conceding 1941. But we're taking 1966 (arguably the best Bama team ever and undefeated after winning previous two championships ), 1945 ( boot stomped USC in jan 1, 1946 rose bowl and went undefeated) and potentially 1977 (barely lost at Nebraska in 2nd game of season and boot stomped everybody else including #9 Ohio St in Sugar Bowl) So, you get your 1941 and we now have 20!

 

[BamaMoon]

Barners gonna barn...but it would be so hilarious if the bigger news for them this year is that they had to fire another coach.

My only fear with them imploding is that they'll accidentally find a decent one.

 

[dayhiker]

First, this formal/informal petition would be between the fanbase and the University of Alabama without a care to the world what anyone outside of that would think of it.

That makes it worse. What's UA supposed to do with this petition? Don't people normally petition entities that have the authority to do something with the petition?

Think how this plays in the media. Irate UA fanbase petitions their own school in protest of their rival claiming more NC's than is normally accepted. This same fan base made the same adjustment to their own totals 40 years ago.

 

[DzynKingRTR]

We should say "Ok, world, we're conceding 1941. But we're taking 1966 (arguably the best Bama team ever and undefeated after winning previous two championships ), 1945 ( boot stomped USC in jan 1, 1946 rose bowl and went undefeated) and potentially 1977 (barely lost at Nebraska in 2nd game of season and boot stomped everybody else including #9 Ohio St in Sugar Bowl) So, you get your 1941 and we now have 20!

I am for this. We have a tidefans member that needs a name change if we do this.

 

[arthurdawg]

So, to clairfy: Using awbern's definition of National Championships we would have 38, correct?

Seems like a good response to any of them bragging about their nine...

Indeed we are pushing 40 years with at least one selection marker or undefeated record.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

That makes it worse. What's UA supposed to do with this petition? Don't people normally petition entities that have the authority to do something with the petition?

Well, sometimes it can go way off the rails.....

Petition · Demand the Kansas City Chiefs to Dismiss Harrison Butker for Discriminatory Remarks - United States · Change.org

Or even before that...


Petition · NFL team signing Colin Kaepernick - United States · Change.org

 

[Valley View]

The barn is going to be the barn. No doubt after this season they will have more NC's than us. Let little sister have their fantasy.

 

[J4Bama]

No!

 

[December05]

We should say "Ok, world, we're conceding 1941. But we're taking 1966 (arguably the best Bama team ever and undefeated after winning previous two championships ), 1945 ( boot stomped USC in jan 1, 1946 rose bowl and went undefeated) and potentially 1977 (barely lost at Nebraska in 2nd game of season and boot stomped everybody else including #9 Ohio St in Sugar Bowl) So, you get your 1941 and we now have 20!

This was sort of precisely my point even though I know this is said in jest, only properly with University backing and if other programs begin claiming championships much less legitimate than these.

When you really dive past the five non-AP/UPI championships that we already claim (four of which were before those polls existed), there is a common theme. They were all either mathematician or computer based (mostly mathematician) by people not local or affiliated to Alabama or even the South that Alabama didn’t even instigate. They were awarded these championships by outside parties who deemed them so.

These additional years that aren’t claimed were awarded in the same manner by some of the services as those we do. I’m not just talking out of my rear end. For instance, Berryman (known as QPRS back in the early days) who was still used as one of the computer models as part of the BCS system - and Sagarin who awarded us in 1930 and ‘34, awarded ‘66. College Football Research who awarded us in ‘30, awarded ‘77. NCF (National Collegiate Football) who along with the Helms was the eminent coalition that retroactively declared all champions between 1869 and 1935 named us ‘45. My point is there are legitimate grounds to do so if the University ever feels lead using the same justification that is already used for seasons already acknowledged for decades.

 

[NoNC4Tubs]

To answer the OP: No! Why would we need to?

 

[December05]

To answer the OP: No! Why would we need to?

Speaking as a fan, it just depends on how important it is to you - which can be anywhere between passionate and silly. However, and I can’t speak for these people, but I can only feel what I’d feel if I were in their shoes. If I were Harry Gilmer’s granchildren or a surviving member of the ‘66 team, I would’ve known or lived with the fact that myself, or someone close to me, was a champion and never got to be recognized as such by unjust means, and that would mean a ton to me. It could be catharsis beyond words for instance if those members were finally presented a ring, a flag and a plaque 60 years too late at a game next year and the recognition of 100,000 fans.

Borrowing from Selma’s reply with The Missing Ring excerpt, it’s totally understandable how that was the only thing Bryant and the University could have and should have done at that time, but it’s also not the same world that we necessarily live in now.

It’s true that I wouldn’t even broach this subject if Auburn hadn’t auburn-ed all over themselves last week to a proportion impressive even for them, but it does raise a larger question going forward that I don’t want to let wander into “non-sports” territory, but keep it right at, if we’re leaving a culture where a central authority dictated these kinds of records that everyone tried to stay true to and enter a time when basically any program can write their history as they see fit using whatever arguments they deem relevant, and if there becomes growing indication that it is happening on a larger scale, how wouldn’t we want do preserve ours in the same way?

And regarding the poster who brought up outside public ridicule about a petition, and I’m using petition as a stand-in word for any kind of request that the university consider this, which is it? Do we care or not care what anyone from the outside thinks about our championships? We’ve always faced that as it is. They’re convinced in their denialistic minds that we’ve only truly, certainly, without-a-doubt won two or three and obviously cheated to get those through a mixture of paying players more than anyone else can with our vast resources, steroids, presidential blackmail, etc.

 

[cdub55]

I'll petition making it mandatory for workplaces to give nap times. I'm not petitioning this...

 

[NoNC4Tubs]

Simply ignoring them probably bothers them more than anything...

 

[MikeInBama]

Let's see, last championship was 5,344 days ago. Last championship game appearance was 4,252 days ago. If I were them I'd be more concerned about now rather than 20+ years ago.