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Athletic training students complete five semesters of hands-on clinical experience as part of the limited enrollment, CAATE-accredited Athletic Training Education Program at The University of Alabama.  Each student completes a rotation with an upper extremity dominant sport, a lower extremity dominant sport, an equipment intensive sport, a team sport and an individual sport.  Student spend a minimum of two semesters in the on-campus athletic training facilities and a minimum of one semester off-campus at a local high school and physical therapy clinic.  Athletic training students must maintain a GPA of at least 2.50.

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Red Elephant

Alabama's red elephant
By Alex Laracy
ABC Sports Online
It is understandable for one to feel confused when catching a glimpse at the red elephant mascot at the University of Alabama. With a nickname like the "Crimson Tide," one can't help but conjure up images of a more aquatic, perhaps crustaceous creature as opposed to a 5-ton circus animal to represent the school's athletic spirit.

 
  Much mystery surrounds the origin of the Tide's red elephant. So why does a red elephant prance up and down the Tide sidelines, revving up the Tuscaloosa faithful on game day? Well, no one can really say for sure. School historians verify that the red elephants have been associated with 'Bama football since 1930, however, theories on the tradition's origin have varied over the years.

One account of the mascot's derivation began in 1930, when Rosenberger's Birmingham Trunk Company, whose trademark is a red elephant standing on a trunk to signify the luggage's durability, presented red elephant good luck charms to members of Rose Bowl-bound Alabama.

When the team, composed of predominantly large men, emerged from the train in Pasadena with red elephant trinkets suspending from their luggage, reporters were awed by the players' mass and quickly seized upon the insignias on their baggage. Thus, the connection was born.

But perhaps the most widely recognized story of the red elephants' origin at Bama is that of the field official and part-time sports columnist for the Atlanta Journal, Everett Strupper.

This adaptation also goes back to the 1930 season when Tide head coach Wallace Wade had assembled a powerhouse of a football team that would eventually post an overall 10-0 record, win the Rose Bowl and the National Championship.

On Oct. 8 of that year, Strupper wrote a story on the Alabama-Mississippi game he had witnessed in Tuscaloosa four days earlier. In that article, Strupper marveled over the sheer mass and power of the Bama juggernaut:

"That Alabama team of 1930 is a typical Wade machine, powerful, big, tough, fast, aggressive, well-schooled in fundamentals, and the best blocking team for this early in the season that I have ever seen. When those big brutes hit you I mean you go down and stay down, often for an additional two minutes.

"Coach Wade started his second team that was plenty big and they went right to their knitting scoring a touchdown in the first quarter against one of the best fighting small lines that I have seen. For Ole Miss was truly battling the big boys for every inch of ground.

"At the end of the quarter, the earth started to tremble, there was a distant rumble that continued to grow. Some excited fan in the stands bellowed, 'Hold your horses, the elephants are coming,' and out stamped this Alabama varsity.

"It was the first time that I had seen it and the size of the entire eleven nearly knocked me cold, men that I had seen play last year looking like they had nearly doubled in size."

Strupper and other Atlanta newspapers grasped onto the term, and continued to refer to the Alabama linemen as "red elephants," the color referring to the crimson jerseys.

In following years, various fight song lyrics and fan chants featured the reference to the red elephants. While attempts to establish other team mascots such as the mythical god, Trident, and a giant wave crashed miserably, the mysterious elephant fetish somehow stuck firmly.

The school still refused, however, to acknowledge the elephant as an official mascot. In order to clear up the Bama faculty and staff's curiosity over the origin of the ever-present pachyderm, director emeritus of alumni affairs at the time, Jefferson Coleman, wrote a memo to legendary head coach Paul "Bear" Bryant in 1977. In that memo, Coleman confirmed the authenticity of the "recently uncovered documentation" that supported the Strupper theory.

Hence, in 1979, the Alabama Student Government Association asked the University to legitimatize the elephant as an official school mascot and give him a name. Thus was born Big Al, the instantly recognizable sideline icon of the Crimson Tide.

Coleman has since maintained his obsession with the "Strupper Commission," most recently in June of 1993, when he "uncovered" that Strupper was actually an "insurance agent-salesman" who only "wrote one story a week about the football game he had officiated in during the past Saturday." Coleman also insists that it was a man named Borden Burr, who was holding the chain for Alabama, and not fans, who yelled, "Hold your horses, here comes the elephants."

While the elephant lore that has surrounded Crimson Tide football has generated a little more controversy than it has deserved over the years, it has certainly provided Bama faithful with an amusing anecdote about the mysterious land creature that has symbolized a team with an aquatic moniker.

Crimson Tide

Why 'Crimson Tide'?
The Origin of "Crimson Tide"
In early newspaper accounts of Alabama football, the team was simply listed as the "varsity" or the "Crimson White" after the school colors.
The first nickname to become popular and used by headline writers was the "Thin Red Line." The nickname was used until 1906.
The name "Crimson Tide" is supposed to have first been used by Hugh Roberts, former sports editor of the Birmingham Age-Herald. He used "Crimson Tide" in describing an Alabama-Auburn game played in Birmingham in 1907, the last football contest between the two schools until 1948 when the series was resumed. The game was played in a sea of mud and Auburn was a heavy favorite to win.
But, evidently, the "Thin Red Line" played a great game in the red mud and held Auburn to a 6-6 tie, thus gaining the name "Crimson Tide." Zipp Newman, former sports editor of the Birmingham News, probably popularized the name more than any other writer.

Alabama Football

What Is Alabama Football
In case people have forgotten, do not know or just want a reminder, this is what Alabama football is: Author Derek Camp

It is Wallace Wade. It is Bear Bryant. It is not Bill Curry.
It is the Rose Bowl.
It is hearing Keith Jackson call an Alabama game.
It is watching George Teague running down Lamar Thomas in the 1993 Sugar Bowl then rewinding it and watching it again.
It is hearing the first notes of Sweet Home Alabama.
It is the desire to beat Auburn at any competitive event that exists.
It is a houndstooth hat.
It is having enough pride to fight for your school but having enough class not to.
It is cheering the same amount for a first down on second and 6 as on fourth and 1.
It is watching Cornelius Bennett give Notre Dame quarterback Steve Beuerlein a concussion on that October day in Birmingham in 1986.
It is determining who you are going to date & marry by which team they swear allegiance to.
It is watching The Bear on the jumbotron before a game in Bryant-Denny Stadium and almost seeing him leaning against the goalpost in the end zone.
It is spending a day at The Bryant Museum and still not seeing everything.
It is cool crisp autumn Saturdays where you can smell football in the air and feel it whenever there is a slight breeze.
It is watching The Bear get number 315 against Auburn.
It is watching The Bear get number 323 against Illinois.
It is hearing Paul Kennedy do the play-by-play when Van Tiffin kicked the 52-yard field goal against Auburn in 1985.
It is knowing how many days until the start of a season year around.
It is driving down Colonial Drive to see Bryant-Denny Stadium not the sorority girls.
It is getting chills up and down your entire body whenever you hear anything about the 1993 Sugar Bowl and the pride you feel because that night tradition ruled.
It is hearing The Bear's voice and having all the hair on the back of your neck stand straight up because you know no matter what he said, it was something special.
It is hearing The Million Dollar Band play "Yea Alabama" and knowing it
just does not get any better.
It is imagining hearing Penn State Quarterback Chuck Fusina ask Alabama linebacker Barry Krauss "How close is it?" and hearing Krauss say "About an inch, you'd better pass" right before fourth down during The Goal Line Stand in the 1979 Sugar Bowl.
It is almost coming to tears whenever Alabama loses to Auburn or Tennessee.
It is The Kick. It is The Goal Line Stand. It is The Desperation Block.
It is purposely not wearing any clothes with the colors orange and blue.
It is the Third Saturday in October.
It is not needing an alarm clock on game days, you sit bolt upright in the bed long before the alarm goes off because you know that it is a gameday, you can sleep after the bowl game.
It is walking into a stadium and knowing Alabama will win the game no matter who they are playing because is just the way it is supposed to be.
It is the saying "Offense wins games, Defense wins national titles."
It is the Bear Bryant 'A'.
It is getting to the stadium hours before the game just to be there.
It is walking into another team's stadium and having those fans hate you
because you are from Alabama.
It is the pride that a father has when he brings his children to a game
so they may cherish the tradition.
It is beating LSU in Baton Rouge.
It is hearing the crunch as a linebacker dressed in crimson and white hits a running back dressed in orange and blue.
It is the pride you take in being every team's rival.
It is pulling for any team that is playing Auburn.
It is pulling for any team that is playing Tennessee.
It is hoping for the stadium to blow up when Auburn plays Tennessee.
It is knowing that the SEC Championship is a birthright.
It is being respected and feared at the same time.
It is holding up four fingers at the end of the third quarter.
It is knowing what "Mama Called" means.
It is having 21 Southeastern Conference Titles.
It is having 12 National Titles.
It is more than I can ever mentioned in this article.
It is class.
It is tradition.
It is Alabama Football.

First Year Class

1st Year AT Shoes!

Eleven!

One thousand more years, before this happens again.  

TN 2011

TN Win!

Swimming / Diving

My first sport for ATEP - Swimming and Diving. 

I had to be at the Aquatic Center each morning by 5:30 - 6:00 am. This was really not the sport I chose for myself, but I am so glad that I got the opportunity to start in a sport a little slower paced than most.  I learned so much from Aaron Doss, graduate assistant trainer.

Clinical Coordinator ATEP

       Dr. Jeri Zemke is assistant professor and clinical coordinator for the Athletic Training Education Program.

San Antonio TX