No Ordinary Joe

Reflections on my UA experience

An extremely well-respected man in our state recently posted on social media about the impact his college experience had on him, and how that impact lasted and grew the rest of his life through today.

His path was a lot like mine, though mine started at the University of Alabama.

After my freshman year at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, it fell into place for me to transfer to the University where I would finish my undergrad years.

We were not a wealthy family. My stepfather was a big, tough union millwright and my Mom worked all her life as a secretary and office clerk.

So for me to actually leave home for Tuscaloosa took quite a bit of scraping and hard work during summers working in hot warehouses, riding forklifts to load pallets of freight and unload trucks that backed up to the docks.

Welcome Reception

I remember my first night in my first apartment, before my other roommates arrived (who I had also never met). It smelled of paint. The apartment complex may have been an old 1960s motel around a closed courtyard, but the University had apparently bought it as student housing and painted it from roof to floor. That was my lot for being late in transferring.

There was no moving party to usher me into the dorm. There was no caravan from Birmingham that drove to school to drop me off. That never bothered me, because those things generally weren’t done. It only stands in contrast to the wonderful send-offs we would later give our daughters when they went to college.

Later that week, I found myself in Foster Auditorium, on a vast floor of folding tables and chairs filled with people helping students register for classes. I had a (paper) course catalog in my hands, and was going off a list they said I would need to get started on a degree in the College of Communications.

Chime Time

Soon, I found myself on the Quad, walking past Denny Chimes, the iconic University landmark. The chimes – every quarter hour – would be a reassuring serenade the rest of my years on campus. The vastness of the Quad, with stately University buildings encasing its perimeter, overtook me visually.

Suddenly, it came home that I was home. In my mind I was indeed at the Capstone of higher education in Alabama. I was on the very campus where Bear Bryant coached legendary college football teams, the ones I listened to on the radio with my Dad a decade earlier. But also the place where the smartest minds taught, and who could help me get a career in television news.

Oh there were endless days on the Quad, walking from class to class in rain, heat, cold and sometimes even snow. The changing of the seasons showed in every leaf of every ancient tree. At the north end of the Quad was the Gorgas Library, where before the DNA heritage apps I was rifling through shipping passage lists looking for the first Todds who came over from England.

I left the motel dorm my sophomore year for off-campus living at Woodlawn Manor, then my senior year I was at the Stadium Apartments, in shadow of the grandstands at Bryant Denny Stadium. Memories of fall Saturdays in the west Alabama sun remain especially warm now.

One day in a class on Soviet political structure (I had a political science minor), I heard another student doing impersonations. He sounded like a former governor of Alabama, instantly recognizable to anyone who had grown up in the state. He was using words only a Southerner would use – words like “okra.” Alva Lambert and I struck up a friendship that lasts to this day, as well as many other friends I made along the way.

The Bear

I volunteered at the student newspaper, the Crimson White. There, editor Sonny Brasfield – another great friend to this day – gave me a special assignment. It was to interview Coach Paul Bear Bryant himself, in his office. The story was about the impact of Title IX in college athletics. Since Coach Bryant was also UA’s athletic director at the time, it was a legit story. I remember him calling my name. “Bill,” he said, asking me to come in from the waiting area. He had big, strong hands, was taller than I had imagined, and his eyes seemed to stare right through me. He was extremely gracious with his time and gave me a great story that I have to this day.

Don’t Stand So Close To Me

During those years, music was already a steady influence on me, and I can vividly remember on campus radio hearing for the first time some young hot groups like The Police and U2. Nobody had ever heard sounds like these. I remember Rush’s album, Subdivisions, and played it constantly my senior year.

I remember living off of 25-cent macaroni from the Kroger supermarket, holding my breath at Rose Administration to see if I had enough money to cash a check, and turning off the car’s air conditioner to save on gasoline driving home on a weekend. There’s still a bit of frugality in me that won’t go away.

The broadcast news classes I took in the Old Union building, now the pristine, world-class Reese Phifer Hall – with the television studio, the radio cutting room, the cobwebs in the belfry, they’re all still in my memory. The time I went to cover William F. Buckley who was on campus for a lecture but came back with no audio – that was fun. I still passed the class.

Career Kickoff

I remember almost daily knocking on the door of Dr. Melson, who was my closest human contact to the only paid summer TV news internship in Alabama that I knew of – the one at WTVM-TV, Channel 13. I had to get out of the warehouses during the summers and into TV news.

With the help of unexpected sources such as the awesome Channel 13 anchor Pam Huff, I got the internship.

Finally, the day came to graduate. Back to Foster Auditorium, where my Mom and stepdad were on hand to help me cap it off.

Well, here is the end to my little book.

To this day, I still have the sights, sounds, and memories, and the gratitude for the University of Alabama for a lifelong love of career, communications, and commitment.