Back on June 29, the Alabama Crimson Tide with Coach Nick Saban made a video supporting BLM. An Alabama Mayor resigned after dissing it.
Today, the same Crimson Tide football team marched on campus for social justice, this time coach Saban wasn’t just a participant — He led the march.
Alabama’s arch-rival is Auburn, whose former coach, Tommy Tuberville is running against Doug Jones for Senate. Here’s what he said about BLM:
“I had a group ask me today, ‘Coach, what do you think the problem is?’ Education and jobs. We don’t have a middle class anymore,” Tuberville stated. “There are people out there that don’t have the opportunity to advance in this country like they want to. This is not a black issue. This is not a white issue. This is an American issue. We shipped our jobs to China, bottom line.
Sorry Tommy, you might as well say “All Lives Matter.” And you enthusiastically accepted the support of Donald Trump, who has called Black Lives Matter “a symbol of hate” and reportedly called his condemnation of white supremacists at Charlottesville in 2017 the “biggest fucking mistake I’ve made.”
Of course, he’s not looking for any African-American voters.
But Doug Jones could sure use great turnout from Black voters and a lot of white voters.
In 2017, I undertook a campaign to get Coach Nick to support Doug Jones over Roy Moore, writing here:
Dear Coach Saban: Please do the Right Thing for Alabama, Your Players and Decent People Everywhere; and
Last Chance for Coach Nick Saban to Save Alabama from Shame and Disgrace
For some reason he didn’t listen to me, but Jones won anyway. I hope the Tide players who got Nick to do the video and march can get him to endorse Doug Jones. Leading this protest is a step in the right direction for Saban. Sure, it would be pretty unprecedented for a tootball coach to endorse a Democratic Senate candidate, in Alabama.
But it was also unprecedented for NBA teams to strike for social justice in the playoffs.
Nick knows which Senate candidate will help his players more — now and for the rest of their lives.
