Glynn Wilson

Y’all are not going to believe this, but between dinner time and 8 p.m., we got another total ground covering of snow Monday night.

The National Weather Service has posted another Winter Storm Advisory for snow on Monday night for the cities of Oneonta, Gasden, Anniston, Centre, Carrollton, Tuscaloosa, Birmingham, Hoover, Pell City and Moody.

An area of light to moderate snow will move across North Central Alabama this evening. One-quarter to one-half inch of snow accumulation is possible. Temperatures will fall below freezing, so there may be some travel hazards.

Eric Clapton

Legendary bluesman and folk rock guitar player, singer-songwriter Eric Clapton is coming to Birmingham, Alabama and will perform on Sunday, Feb. 28 in the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex arena.

Clapton will be performing solo in the U.S. for a headlining tour in a string of concerts to feature vocalist Roger Daltrey of the British rock band Who as the opening act.

To check the availability and purchase tickets, go to this ticketmaster link.

Meanwhile, here’s a video I found of Clapton performing one of my favorite blues numbers to play on the drums, Little Wing by Jimi Hendrix.

This features Sheryl Crow on vocals and David Sanborn in a saxophone solo.

Guest Column
by Phil Fleming

Bob Riley must explain to the people of Alabama why he received a specific $500,000 campaign contribution from disgraced lobbyists Jack Abramoff and Michael Scanlon in his 2002 campaign for governor.

Abramoff and Scanlon sent the funds to the Republican Governor’s Association, which then added an additional $100,000 dollars. That $600,000 amount was deposited directly to Riley’s campaign account.

Let’s review the facts, all easily found posted online.

Abramoff and Scanlon received a total of $66 million dollars from six Indian tribes. Among the recipients of this money included Riley, former National Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed and Texas Congressman Tom Delay.

The Abramoff/Scanlon agenda during that election year was to block gambling in Texas and Alabama, which benefited the Louisiana Coushatta Tribe and the Mississippi Choctaw Tribe. They were successful.

Abramoff and Scanlon pleaded guilty to corruption conspiracies, Delay has been in legal limbo with pending criminal charges and a lot of hot air gets floated about who is supporting gambling and who isn’t.

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Agricultural Commissioner Ron Sparks, the Fort Payne Democrat running for governor, came out swinging on the gambling issue this week against Gov. Bob Riley, and his opponent in the Democratic Party primary, Rep. Artur Davis.

Sparks said in a press release he recently ask governor Riley if he were going to stop the people of Alabama from crossing the state line into Mississippi to gamble. Then the Commander of the Governor’s Task Force on Illegal Gambling, David Barber, resigned, admitting he won thousands of dollars gambling at a Mississippi casino.

“This just proves the hypocrisy of those who want to kill Alabama jobs and rob our children and seniors of important revenue. We have a Governor who takes Mississippi gambling money while his anti-gambling czar gambles in Mississippi,” Sparks said. “David Barber takes his Alabama money and goes to Mississippi to help educate Mississippi children and help create jobs for Mississippi workers. That money needs to stay in Alabama and help us, not them.”

Sparks pledged if the people of the state elect him governor, he will bring an education lottery to Alabama, protect Alabama jobs, and finally make gaming pay its fair share of taxes.

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From the economy to the environment, success depends on commitment…

The Big Picture
by Glynn Wilson

Now that Alabama’s achieved the ultimate success by winning the national football championship, and everybody by now should be aware of coach Nick Saban’s famous mission statement about “excellence” that made it possible, don’t you wonder what it would take to translate that lesson into other aspects of life in this state and country?

How about our stumbling economy? Our bumbling political system? Our ineffective energy and environmental policies?

Tom Campbell

A Saban Hoodoo Wink?

Since there’s no good place available on the Web through Google to find a full text version of Saban’s mission statement for the Crimson Tide, and in case any of our readers who are not football fans missed it, I’ve grabbed it from here and retyped it to post below so anybody in the world can find it.

“Our mission statement here is to create an atmosphere and environment for everyone to be able to succeed, first of all as a person. We want players to be more successful in life because they were involved in our program, by the principles and values that we’re able to develop with them so that they can be successful relative to the character and attitude they have as a football player here at this institution.

“The second thing is we want to be successful as students. I always tell players in recruiting, there’s two things that we want you to do here, you’ve got two careers: one on the field, one off the field. The one off the field means you got to graduate from college. That’s the one that’s going to have the greatest impact on the quality of your life forever. We want to have a great academic support program. We want our players to succeed as students.

“The third is this. We want them to be the best football player they can be. We want every guy to reach their full potential as a football player, play together as a team, know how important it is to be a part of a team and fulfilling your role to that team.

“The last thing is to use all the resources this institution has to help everyone launch their career when they have represented this institution, when they leave this institution, so they can be the most successful in their life because of their association with this university and the people that have made this university great.”

Saban didn’t come up with this philosophy over night. In 2004, he wrote a book called How Good Do You Want to Be?

In the how-to memoir, Saban shares his winning philosophy for creating and inspiring success, revealing things that would help anybody succeed at work and in life. He says “excellence” doesn’t happen overnight. It comes from hard work, consistency, the drive to be the best and a passion for what you do.

Some of the insights include:

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Alabama’s agricultural commissioner Ron Sparks, who is vying to win the Democratic nomination for governor in 2010, lambasted Gov. Bob Riley’s Tuesday night state of the state speech in a statement released by the campaign on Wednesday.

“Last night’s performance by Bob Riley was shameful,” Sparks said. “At a time when our working families are struggling under the weight of an 11 percent unemployment rate, he says he’s created thousands of new jobs. At a time when teacher layoffs are a possibility and our kids bring toilet paper to school to help out, Bob Riley says he has plenty of money for education. And at a time when our seniors and children wonder if they will still have health care next year, Bob Riley says, ‘Don’t worry. Be happy.’”

“Folks, we don’t just have a budget crisis, we have a leadership crisis,” Sparks said. “I am the only candidate for governor with a plan to increase revenue. We need an education lottery and we need to make legal gaming establishments finally pay their share of taxes, just like Alabama families do. We need action, not slogans or sound bites.”

That’s the kind of governor we need, Sparks said, “not one that hides his head in the sand or tells us how sunny it is while the rain pours.”

by Glynn Wilson

While most of the country and the states of Alabama and Texas were taking a break Thursday from the mundane affairs of business and government to revel in the national championship between the Crimson Tide and the Longhorns, a Tuscaloosa businessman with a vendetta against Bob Riley used the Rose Bowl as an unlikely setting to attack the Republican governor.

A banner with the words “Impeach Corrupt Alabama Governor Bob Ri­ley” was towed through the air over the Rose Bowl before the game (see photo above).

Officials with a banner-tow­ing company told the AP they were hired for about $3,000 to fly over the Rose Bowl stadium for about four hours before the game. A longtime Riley critic, Tus­caloosa businessman Stan Pate, took credit for the sign, saying he wanted everybody to see that “Bob Riley is a phony.”

Riley flew to Pasadena for the game ostensibly on an industry-re­cruiting trip to California, according to the AP, although it was not reported whether he took the state plane or flew commercial.

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Did the Media Know, and Keep It Quiet?

by Glynn Wilson

There’s much talk on the radio and the Web about the hit that knocked Texas Quarterback Colt McCoy out of the national championship game, but very little mention of the fact that Alabama Quarterback Greg McElroy was playing with two broken ribs.

“I cracked my ribs in the third quarter against Florida,” McElroy said outside the locker room in Pasadena, according to ESPN. “Two of them — the ninth and the 10th. Left side. It’s bad. I got it numbed up before the game and it was killing me at halftime.”

Which brings up an interesting question about the relationship between the media in Alabama and the team’s need for secrecy. For two days, the ABC affiliate in Birmingham, the station with the broadcast rights to the game, ran packages asking “what if?” one of the teams’ quarterbacks were injured and had to leave the playing field.

Did the sports broadcasters in Alabama know McElroy had cracked ribs? This injury was never revealed in any news story before the game. What if they knew and kept it quiet?

McElroy certainly didn’t look like the same quarterback who went 12-for-18 for 239 yards in the SEC championship game victory over the Florida Gators in Atlanta.

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Glynn Wilson

There’s an empty spot on the walk of fame at Alabama for Nick Saban, who brought Alabama back to the national championship in the Rose Bowl and coached the university’s first Heisman Trophy winner, Mark Ingram

by Glynn Wilson

The University of Alabama Crimson Tide is back on top of the football world, hanging on to prevail over the Texas Longhorns in a game of unexpected twists and turns, including the early hit by Marcel Dareus that knocked Quarterback Colt McCoy out of the national championship game in the first quarter.

Dareus later scored on a 28-yard interception return just before halftime, earning him the award for defensive player of the game.

“I was thinking about grabbing the guy with the ball, but then I said, `Let me just grab this football.’ I wasn’t even thinking about the highlight,” Dareus, a native of Birmingham who played at Huffman High School, said after the game. “I was so excited. My legs were weak, my muscles were crazy, and I made it.”

This Alabama team will go down in football history for going through 14 games undefeated and for Mark Ingram’s Heisman trophy, Alabama’s first. Ingram earned offensive player of the game honors for running for 116 yards and two touchdowns. His roommate, Trent Richardson, ran for 109 yards and two touchdowns.

The No. 1 Crimson Tide held off a rally by second-ranked Texas and beat the Longhorns 37-21 on Thursday night in the BCS title game with help from a late fumble recovery by Courtney Upshaw at the Texas 3-yard line. Ingram scored a clinching touchdown from 1 yard out with just about two minutes left in the game.

The victory makes Alabama head coach Nick Saban, now called Saint Nick in Alabama, the first coach to win BCS titles at two universities, Alabama and LSU.