Color Me Crimson: Can Football Unite Alabama?

July 2024 ยท 1 minute read

What are some things that Alabama is known for?

Hank Williams Junior? Maybe Harper Lee, the author of To Kill a Mockingbird? The civil rights movement? Or Taylor Hicks, who won Season Five of "American Idol?"

But there's another thing that seems to bring lots of Alabamians together: football.

Specifically, the University of Alabama Crimson Tide. They've been a top five team in the Southeastern Conference for the last decade. Last weekend, they lost to the Louisiana State University Tigers for the first time in eight years.

What does that mean for Alabama's football legacy and the team's ability to unite fans across cultural lines?

To answer these questions, we talked to Ben Flanagan, entertainment and sports producer for AL.com and host of the "Bammers" podcast about Alabama football fan culture; Erin Tarver, an associate professor of philosophy at Emory University and the author of The I in Team: Sports Fandom and the Reproduction of Identity; and Hannah Stephens, analyst and contributor for Roll Tide Wire and University of Alabama's "Sign Girl."

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