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The parking lot fills early at Baumhower’s Victory Grille.
There’s a buzz inside the restaurant ahead of Alabama football’s critical game against LSU, and applause fills the room as coach Kalen DeBoer arrives for his weekly one-hour appearance. He shakes a few hands and takes his seat beside Crimson Tide Sports Network host Chris Stewart for the “Hey Coach” radio show.
At Alabama, traditions die hard if they die at all, and that often means eschewing things fresh and unique. But “Hey Coach,” for now, is still hanging onto one tradition that has made it very much an outlier: It still takes live, on-air phone calls from listeners.
Doing so creates unpredictability for any coach’s radio show, which can occasionally make for some fun moments. But it can also make for some very terse ones if the caller blasts the coach or his team with unhinged criticism. Most coaches can handle a little heat, and sometimes it’s deserved. But when a caller’s anger needle redlines, it can make for an awfully awkward situation, and one that the vast majority of coaches don’t care to deal with.
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A coaching transition often triggers the end of live calls for the coach’s radio show at any given school. Lose a coach who took live calls, hire one who won’t, and − poof − they’re gone. Former Georgia coach Mark Richt took calls on his show, but when ex-Alabama defensive coordinator Kirby Smart replaced him, live call-ins vanished in Athens.
But there are cases where a particular call causes the format to be dumped. That happened rather infamously at Clemson last year after Tigers coach Dabo Swinney was berated by a “Tyler from Spartanburg” who angrily…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/alabama-football-fans-still-call-155901850.html
Author : The Tuscaloosa News
Publish date : 2024-11-14 15:59:01
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