Miracle Moments in Alabama Crimson Tide Football History

Alabama’s Crimson Tide has been the most dominant college football team in America for the past decade, winning five national championships and five conference titles. The team, under coach Nick Saban, has won an astounding ninety percent of its games since 2008, and established a dynasty unparalleled in modern college football.

As impressive as Saban and his teams have been, these are far from the only glory days in Alabama football history, and their great tradition is celebrated in Miracle Moments in Alabama Crimson Tide Football History. Mark Mayfield chronicles Alabama’s colorful football history dating to when their first team won a scrimmage, 56–0, over a group of Birmingham high school players in 1892. Three decades later, Alabama pulled off a stunning 20–19 upset of West Coast powerhouse Washington in the 1926 Rose Bowl, won its first national championship, and took its place among the elite teams in America with seventeen national titles through eras coached by Wallace Wade, Frank Thomas, the legendary Paul “Bear” Bryant, Gene Stallings, and Saban.

Along the way, some of the best players in the nation have been a part of this extraordinary program—from Don Hutson, Harry Gilmer, Joe Namath, Ken Stabler, John Hannah, Lee Roy Jordan, Derrick Thomas, and Cornelius Bennett to Julio Jones, Amari Cooper, Mark Barron, Dont’a Hightower, Minkah Fitzpatrick, Calvin Ridley, and Heisman Trophy winners Mark Ingram Jr. and Derrick Henry. They and so many other remarkable players and coaches are highlighted in Miracle Moments in Alabama Crimson Tide Football History, a must have for all ‘Bama football fans.

Mark Mayfield is the author of Back on Top! The Alabama Crimson Tide’s 2015-16 Championship Football Season, co-author of Crimson Domination: The Process Behind Alabama’s 15th National Championship and author of The Spaceflight Vault: A History of NASA’s Manned Missions. He currently serves as editorial adviser to student media, and adjunct professor of journalism and creative media at The University of Alabama. Mayfield is also a former editor-in-chief of House Beautiful, Traditional Home, and Art & Antiques magazines and, early in his career, spent ten years as a reporter for USA Today. A married father of four, he lives in Tuscaloosa.

“Alabama fans of my generation have been lucky enough to live through two eras of unforgettable triumph thanks to Paul Bryant and Nick Saban. In between, Gene Stallings added another jewel to the crown in 1993. This happily expansive walk-through-history with Mark Mayfield is an indispensable addition to the mandatory Crimson Tide canon of Allen Barra on Bryant, Monte Burke on Saban, and Winston Groom on the legend that binds us all.” —Howell Raines, former Executive Editor of the New York Times
"Anybody who has followed Alabama Football has seen the books since childhood. The first Alabama/Auburn game, the Rose Bowl beginnings and the giant that Bear Bryant built. The difference is that Mark Mayfield puts you there. in places you thought you knew, and in some other places you’ve never been." —John Archibald, columnist for the Alabama Media Group and winner of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in Commentary
“For people who love the Crimson Tide, this is an essential addition to their library. For people who hate the Crimson Tide, this is still a great book because it shows, here and there, there was some divine intervention, and maybe even some luck, in that success. Either way, it’s a great read.” —Rick Bragg, 1996 Pulitzer Prize winner and author of seven books, including the bestsellers All Over but the Shoutin’ and Ava’s Man