how many fans REALLY follow softball/other Bama sports

[Marshal Dillon]

P.S.
By the way, I'm not too happy with our baseball coach right now.   

Yeah, and I had high hopes for him too.

P.S.  Isn't his season over already?

Everyone was so enthused when he was hired as coach, what has happened? Do you have any info or friends down there? It seems the wheels have come off the program overnight. This has been such a steady program for years and now we can't even make the SEC Tourney.

 

[ricky023]

You know I like this question. I want to give my best answer. I don't live close to T-town but I watch and listen on the radio to as much sports of Alabama that I can, no matter what sport. I love the State of Alabama and I don't reckon we have any other sports teams in Alabama. RTR!

[Catch Prothro]

P.S.
By the way, I'm not too happy with our baseball coach right now.   

Yeah, and I had high hopes for him too.

P.S.  Isn't his season over already?

Everyone was so enthused when he was hired as coach, what has happened? Do you have any info or friends down there? It seems the wheels have come off the program overnight. This has been such a steady program for years and now we can't even make the SEC Tourney.

 

I don't have inside information, but looks like a pitching issue to me, especially relief pitching.

[pmull]

First off. Congrats to the softball team for their championship.  I want all Bama sports to do well and am glad for them that they won.  However, I am wondering how many people actually follow that sport and genuinely care about it?  For that matter any of the other sports besides football at Bama?  I follow football and basketball, but honestly have no desire to follow any of the other sports.  Baseball sucks now and I don't care for that sport much anyway other than watching my own child play.  It seems there is a band wagon element when a non-traditional sport does well in a season and I am seeing that in softball this year.  Again, I'm glad they won and proud for them, but I'm not going to act like I follow the sport and am a diehard fan like I am with football and that I care about softball.

To be honest, one look at your screen name tells me you are not a basketball fan. No good Alabama fan would berate a fromer player and current coach with a name like yours. In hindsight making a coaching change and hiring CAG was a big improvement but you have to support the current coach regardless of the situation. I would say the same thing if your screen name was Shulasucks. JMHO

Have to strongly disagree with you on these two items. He is a huge BB fan who was one of the few who saw that Gottfried was a lousy coach and needed to be fired. I know because him, myself, and a few others were attacked relentlessly on the TideSports forum when we said Gottfried should be fired. This was approximately 3 years before he was actually canned. Also, I am not into blind support for a coach who obviously can't coach, especially in football or basketball, our two biggest sports. Shula was a disaster and it was obvious he was clueless after two seasons. There is a name for someone who blindly supports someone, a sychophant. Pmull, you are way too smart and such an excellent poster to truly believe in such blind, unquestioning, total support.


 

MD, to some degree I agree with your comment. I said you have to support the current coach regardless of the situation. I should have said you have to support the program. There is nothing wrong with second guessing coaching decisions and discussing possible ways to improve a program that is under performing. I don't think you need to say the HC sucks. Sometimes a coaching change is needed. Right now I am very concerned about our baseball program. I don't think CMG did a good job with the team this year. However, I pulled for them up to the last weekend hoping they would make the SEC tourament. Having an intelligent discussion on the job the current coach is doing is one thing. Saying the HC sucks and hope the team loses so the HC will be fired is not a fan of the program IMO.

[Marshal Dillon]

First off. Congrats to the softball team for their championship.  I want all Bama sports to do well and am glad for them that they won.  However, I am wondering how many people actually follow that sport and genuinely care about it?  For that matter any of the other sports besides football at Bama?  I follow football and basketball, but honestly have no desire to follow any of the other sports.  Baseball sucks now and I don't care for that sport much anyway other than watching my own child play.  It seems there is a band wagon element when a non-traditional sport does well in a season and I am seeing that in softball this year.  Again, I'm glad they won and proud for them, but I'm not going to act like I follow the sport and am a diehard fan like I am with football and that I care about softball.

To be honest, one look at your screen name tells me you are not a basketball fan. No good Alabama fan would berate a fromer player and current coach with a name like yours. In hindsight making a coaching change and hiring CAG was a big improvement but you have to support the current coach regardless of the situation. I would say the same thing if your screen name was Shulasucks. JMHO

Have to strongly disagree with you on these two items. He is a huge BB fan who was one of the few who saw that Gottfried was a lousy coach and needed to be fired. I know because him, myself, and a few others were attacked relentlessly on the TideSports forum when we said Gottfried should be fired. This was approximately 3 years before he was actually canned. Also, I am not into blind support for a coach who obviously can't coach, especially in football or basketball, our two biggest sports. Shula was a disaster and it was obvious he was clueless after two seasons. There is a name for someone who blindly supports someone, a sychophant. Pmull, you are way too smart and such an excellent poster to truly believe in such blind, unquestioning, total support.


 

MD, to some degree I agree with your comment. I said you have to support the current coach regardless of the situation. I should have said you have to support the program. There is nothing wrong with second guessing coaching decisions and discussing possible ways to improve a program that is under performing. I don't think you need to say the HC sucks. Sometimes a coaching change is needed. Right now I am very concerned about our baseball program. I don't think CMG did a good job with the team this year. However, I pulled for them up to the last weekend hoping they would make the SEC tourament. Having an intelligent discussion on the job the current coach is doing is one thing. Saying the HC sucks and hope the team loses so the HC will be fired is not a fan of the program IMO.

I agree, saying the HC sucks for a moniker is a little over-the-top, but I think the poster was so frustrated that nothing was being done with Gottfried and the program just kept getting worse and no one seemed to care. I think he was using it in a sarcastic way o express his frustrations. The great thing for us, we got rid of Shula and got Saban and we got rid of Gottfried and have Grant. Pretty good step up in both cases. Now, we have to really look at the baseball coach and program, since it is the only one at UA that is in total disarray. I wish a poster who followed the team very closely would chime in with some insights and observations. I am not aware of any key injuries this year, so I assume the coaching was just very poor. By the way, thanks for getting back to me, I enjoy good conversations and & observations.

[pmull]

IMO we have three separate issues with our baseball program. I will address each:

1. Coaching. CMG came in and got us within one game of the world series in his first year. I was pretty excited about that. However we have gone backwards since that year. We need a pitching coach. Coach Wells was the pitching coach. In CMG first year he hired a top notch pitching coach away from Clemson. He did not stay long and I don't know why. CMG moved Dax Norris to the pitching coach position. He was a catcher for Bama and in the pros but his strength had been as the hitting coach. So we have a bunch of talented freshmen pitchers with a first year pitching coach. CMG brings in Andy Phillips as the hitting coach. Andy was a great player at Bama and played in the Yankees organizion for several years. So we also have a first year hitting coach. Our team hit poor all season. Last year we blamed it on the Nike bats. This year we just could not hit. My concern with this staff is our team did not show improvement as the year went on. CMG has to get things turned around. He has to be on the hot seat going into next year.

2. Facilities. I don't know if our facility is the worst in the SEC but it is in the conversation. Coach Wells conplained about this in his last few years. I think we have upgraded our scoreboard. In order to be a successful SEC baseball program we have to have a ballpark and practice facility that matches the top tier programs in the country. At present we do not have that. This one is in CMM's court. I saw an architectural rendering recently of proposed renovations to our facility. I think we may be getting close to doing something but it needs to happen sooner rather than later.

3. Scholarships: Alabama and the barn are at a big disadvantage in baseball. Baseball is allowed 12 scholarships. They are mostly given out 1/2 or 1/3 at a time to make them go further. We have 40 players. Every state in the SEC except Alabama have gambling or lottery money that helps kids go to school if they have a B average in HS. Other schools can give 1/2 scholarship and the other 1/2 is payed by a Hope Scholarship so it turns into a full scholly. It is hard for Alabama and the barn to match that.

That's my two cents worth. I would be interested in hearing what others think. All I know for sure is Alabama is too good of a school to let the baseball team sit at the bottom of the SEC and not do something about it.

[2Stater]

Pmull, 2 things you said come to the forefront. First, Alabama does not have a lottery. If you read the article that Chech posted about the SEC and the schools that have succeeded in winning multiple sport NC's, Florida has cleaned up in the past concerning all sports. Florida has a very active lottery that has a very positive affect on their overall program in general. The second part of this is that if you aren't going to be able to compete scholarship-wise and are limited, you better have a great facility to bring in the recruits. We have neither at this point. Therein lies the problem.

[Leewillie]

I cannot disagree with pmull that the issues with baseball are Coaching, Facilities, and Scholarships, but my emphasis would be strongly on Coaching.

For example, the University of Tennessee has state of the art facilities and the Hope (lottery) scholarships but it's baseball program is right down there withn Bama's.

On the other hand Vandy has woefully inadequate facilities and the Hope scholarship make only a small dent in the cost of schooling there, yet they have established and maintain a very competetive baseball program.

The biggest difference in these two programs is the Coaching.  Coach Corbin at Vandy is an excellent recruiter and great developer of his players.  The coach at UT...nor so much.

I think there also might be some misunderstanding about the Hope Scholarships.  I don't know how it is in other states, but the Hope scholarship in Tennessee  is only available to residents of Tennessee and has amounted to $4,000 a year for the B students.  Vandy recruits nationwide, and actually has few Tenn. residents on its team.

That brings me to what I think is the most significant Problem at Bama- Coaching.  Although we had a relatively young team this year, we never played with any consistency or intensity.  During the first part of the season we looked like we were just out of sync.  Couldn't get the bunt down, Couldn't throw out a base stealer at second, couldn't get a timey hit, left too many runners on base, and couldn't hold a lead in the late innings.  You expect some of this from a young team, but I really never got better as the season went along.  And that is a coaching issue.

I don't know if CMG can turn it around or not.  I didn't see much this year that gave me any encouragement.  I think only time will tell and time is running out.

In conclusion, I would like to say that I blindly, unquestioningly, and totally support the University of Alabama and it's athletic programs and in the words of my old friend Lakemann, "if they pull on the crimson jersey, I'm rooting for them".

[Jamos]

Well said Lee and I totally agree with you. 

[pmull]

I cannot disagree with pmull that the issues with baseball are Coaching, Facilities, and Scholarships, but my emphasis would be strongly on Coaching.

For example, the University of Tennessee has state of the art facilities and the Hope (lottery) scholarships but it's baseball program is right down there withn Bama's.

On the other hand Vandy has woefully inadequate facilities and the Hope scholarship make only a small dent in the cost of schooling there, yet they have established and maintain a very competetive baseball program.

The biggest difference in these two programs is the Coaching.  Coach Corbin at Vandy is an excellent recruiter and great developer of his players.  The coach at UT...nor so much.

I think there also might be some misunderstanding about the Hope Scholarships.  I don't know how it is in other states, but the Hope scholarship in Tennessee  is only available to residents of Tennessee and has amounted to $4,000 a year for the B students.  Vandy recruits nationwide, and actually has few Tenn. residents on its team.

That brings me to what I think is the most significant Problem at Bama- Coaching.  Although we had a relatively young team this year, we never played with any consistency or intensity.  During the first part of the season we looked like we were just out of sync.  Couldn't get the bunt down, Couldn't throw out a base stealer at second, couldn't get a timey hit, left too many runners on base, and couldn't hold a lead in the late innings.  You expect some of this from a young team, but I really never got better as the season went along.  And that is a coaching issue.

I don't know if CMG can turn it around or not.  I didn't see much this year that gave me any encouragement.  I think only time will tell and time is running out.

In conclusion, I would like to say that I blindly, unquestioningly, and totally support the University of Alabama and it's athletic programs and in the words of my old friend Lakemann, "if they pull on the crimson jersey, I'm rooting for them".

Well said Lee. I agree with everything you said.

[Marshal Dillon]

I cannot disagree with pmull that the issues with baseball are Coaching, Facilities, and Scholarships, but my emphasis would be strongly on Coaching.

For example, the University of Tennessee has state of the art facilities and the Hope (lottery) scholarships but it's baseball program is right down there withn Bama's.

On the other hand Vandy has woefully inadequate facilities and the Hope scholarship make only a small dent in the cost of schooling there, yet they have established and maintain a very competetive baseball program.

The biggest difference in these two programs is the Coaching.  Coach Corbin at Vandy is an excellent recruiter and great developer of his players.  The coach at UT...nor so much.

I think there also might be some misunderstanding about the Hope Scholarships.  I don't know how it is in other states, but the Hope scholarship in Tennessee  is only available to residents of Tennessee and has amounted to $4,000 a year for the B students.  Vandy recruits nationwide, and actually has few Tenn. residents on its team.

That brings me to what I think is the most significant Problem at Bama- Coaching.  Although we had a relatively young team this year, we never played with any consistency or intensity.  During the first part of the season we looked like we were just out of sync.  Couldn't get the bunt down, Couldn't throw out a base stealer at second, couldn't get a timey hit, left too many runners on base, and couldn't hold a lead in the late innings.  You expect some of this from a young team, but I really never got better as the season went along.  And that is a coaching issue.

I don't know if CMG can turn it around or not.  I didn't see much this year that gave me any encouragement.  I think only time will tell and time is running out.

In conclusion, I would like to say that I blindly, unquestioningly, and totally support the University of Alabama and it's athletic programs and in the words of my old friend Lakemann, "if they pull on the crimson jersey, I'm rooting for them".

You and pmull have given some good insights on the baseball program. I too, am leaning towards a problem in coaching. Pmull made the best observation about the lack of a pitching coach & hitting coach. In all honesty, if we have the same type of year next year, then I will be calling for the firing of the BB coach. There has to be major improvement, this year was an embarassment.


 

[gottfriedsucks]

First off. Congrats to the softball team for their championship.  I want all Bama sports to do well and am glad for them that they won.  However, I am wondering how many people actually follow that sport and genuinely care about it?  For that matter any of the other sports besides football at Bama?  I follow football and basketball, but honestly have no desire to follow any of the other sports.  Baseball sucks now and I don't care for that sport much anyway other than watching my own child play.  It seems there is a band wagon element when a non-traditional sport does well in a season and I am seeing that in softball this year.  Again, I'm glad they won and proud for them, but I'm not going to act like I follow the sport and am a diehard fan like I am with football and that I care about softball.

To be honest, one look at your screen name tells me you are not a basketball fan. No good Alabama fan would berate a fromer player and current coach with a name like yours. In hindsight making a coaching change and hiring CAG was a big improvement but you have to support the current coach regardless of the situation. I would say the same thing if your screen name was Shulasucks. JMHO

Have to strongly disagree with you on these two items. He is a huge BB fan who was one of the few who saw that Gottfried was a lousy coach and needed to be fired. I know because him, myself, and a few others were attacked relentlessly on the TideSports forum when we said Gottfried should be fired. This was approximately 3 years before he was actually canned. Also, I am not into blind support for a coach who obviously can't coach, especially in football or basketball, our two biggest sports. Shula was a disaster and it was obvious he was clueless after two seasons. There is a name for someone who blindly supports someone, a sychophant. Pmull, you are way too smart and such an excellent poster to truly believe in such blind, unquestioning, total support.


 

MD, to some degree I agree with your comment. I said you have to support the current coach regardless of the situation. I should have said you have to support the program. There is nothing wrong with second guessing coaching decisions and discussing possible ways to improve a program that is under performing. I don't think you need to say the HC sucks. Sometimes a coaching change is needed. Right now I am very concerned about our baseball program. I don't think CMG did a good job with the team this year. However, I pulled for them up to the last weekend hoping they would make the SEC tourament. Having an intelligent discussion on the job the current coach is doing is one thing. Saying the HC sucks and hope the team loses so the HC will be fired is not a fan of the program IMO.

I agree, saying the HC sucks for a moniker is a little over-the-top, but I think the poster was so frustrated that nothing was being done with Gottfried and the program just kept getting worse and no one seemed to care. I think he was using it in a sarcastic way o express his frustrations. The great thing for us, we got rid of Shula and got Saban and we got rid of Gottfried and have Grant. Pretty good step up in both cases. Now, we have to really look at the baseball coach and program, since it is the only one at UA that is in total disarray. I wish a poster who followed the team very closely would chime in with some insights and observations. I am not aware of any key injuries this year, so I assume the coaching was just very poor. By the way, thanks for getting back to me, I enjoy good conversations and & observations.

you are pretty close to accurate on the use of the screen name.  when I first got on tidesports I made some kind of comment about how gottfried needed to go because he was scum as a person and a bum of a coach.  so many people got all up in arms about it I thought it would be funny to use a screen name that dogged the coach just to piss off those blind supporters of that douche bag.  I just kept the name for on here so that peole I knew from tidesports would know who I was ....oh and he still sucks and nc state is dumb as hell for hiring him.

[XBAMA]

you are pretty close to accurate on the use of the screen name.  when I first got on tidesports I made some kind of comment about how gottfried needed to go because he was scum as a person and a bum of a coach.  so many people got all up in arms about it I thought it would be funny to use a screen name that dogged the coach just to piss off those blind supporters of that douche bag.  I just kept the name for on here so that peole I knew from tidesports would know who I was ....oh and he still sucks and nc state is dumb as hell for hiring him.

I loved the screen name ...
at the time I had the unfortunate pleasure of
being around several of the Gottfrieds including him ...
I use to leave TS up on my computer screen just so the nosy
bastages would  see it  


   

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