Six decades of thrills and spills with Alabama football

It’s a pretty good bet that at some point during the late Cecil “Hootie” Ingram’s seven-year run as Alabama’s director of athletics, security around the Crimson Tide’s football facilities got an upgrade. That tends to happen following coaching changes, and within a few months of Ingram’s 1989 arrival as Alabama’s AD, he replaced coach Bill Curry with Gene Stallings.

And along with Eddie Conyers, Ingram knew something about security from the break-in side.

Conyers, 97, relaxes on a couch in his home no more than a mile from UA’s practice fields in Tuscaloosa. Sitting beside his wife, Peggy, to whom he’s been married an incredible 76 years, he cracks a sly grin when asked how he first became an Alabama football fan as a teenager in the 1940s.

“Hootie had become fast friends,” Conyers said. “He and I used to slip under a fence to watch Frank Thomas’ teams practice.”

Thomas coached at Alabama from 1931-1946, winning a pair of national championships. Conyers is one of the only men alive who can speak first-hand about Thomas’ Crimson Tide teams. And if you count practices, absolutely nobody alive has seen more Alabama football. A beloved figure around the Mal Moore Athletic Facility, Conyers got his first break as an Alabama practice official from legendary coach Paul W. “Bear” Bryant in 1962, and has been doing the job ever since for more than 60 years.

For 10 head coaches.

For 12 national championship teams.

For thousands of players.

And as a die-hard fan, for the love of the program.

Ingram went on to play at Alabama from 1952-1954, but as athletic director, ultimately made his mark on Alabama football outside the practice-field fence. But once Conyers got under the fence, he stayed inside and never left.

Ref riffs from Eddie Conyers

Sitting in his post-retirement office in the South end of Bryant-Denny Stadium, a smile comes to…

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Publish date : 2025-06-16 09:02:00

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