Roy Exum
It came to pass that Tennessee was playing in the Sugar Bowl one year, and a day or two before the Oakland Raiders were in New Orleans to, yes, slaughter the Saints in the Dome. So a fistful of us college writers thought it would be great fun to just to watch the game, enjoy a great spread of food in the press box while drinking beer, and languish in a wonderful afternoon. And it truly was.
After the game a few of us wandered down to the Raiders’ locker room to speak to Kenny Stabler, who some of us were lucky enough to have enjoyed in a social sort of way for a couple of years before, and “Snake” grinned broadly, reached down in a bucket to hand some cans of beer around to the surprise of some of those NFL media types.
Kenny, who just died of colon cancer at age 69, was like that. He was as laid back a champion as I have ever known and that day he was his ever-humble self, laughing with us about a couple of great passes he’d just thrown. Right about then Marvin West, who was the sports editor in Knoxville for years, rushed up and, with his note book in hand and pencil at the ready, blurted out, “I was in Birmingham the day you threw it out of bounds on fourth down … do you ever think about that?”
As Snake looked at Marvin you could see Kenny’s eyes grow into slits and for an extra moment he didn’t say a word, checking himself. Then he answered in his high-pitched but slow Alabama drawl, “No more than I do the national championships or the Super Bowl we just won … now why don’t you just run along?”
The moment was Kenny personified. He was the most affable, tender-hearted and genuinely nice guy you'd ever meet, but when “the game was on,” nobody wanted to get in a tussle with Stabler because, as he proved all of his life, he could beat anybody at anything until Stage IV cancer came around back in February. They tell me he died with his daughters gathered close, all the while listening to his favorite songs, like Lynyrd Skynyrd's “Sweet Home Alabama” and Van Morrison’s “Leaves Falling Down.”
What my friend Marvin was talking about, of course, was when Stabler, easily one of the greatest quarterbacks at Alabama or anywhere else, famously threw the ball out of bounds during the 1965 slugfest against Tennessee in Birmingham. The game tied, 7-7, the play was meant to stop the clock – just six seconds were left -- and set up a “for certain” field goal.
Stabler thought Alabama had earned a first down on the previous play and, had it been the third down, it would have been a textbook play. Instead it became the biggest mistake ever on the Third Saturday of October. Tennessee took possession on downs and the game ended in a tie. Minutes after the final whistle, Bear Bryant literally kicked the locker room door down.
When Stabler came off the field after the grievous error, Bryant grabbed him and had quite a conversation, and “Bear” was to cuss words what Stabler was to late-night beers. Stabler took Bryant’s wrath, every word, and then – when most players would be forever scarred -- Stabler promptly forgot the whole thing, leading his teammates to five straight victories.
Seriously, with the heart of a champion he shrugged it off and the records prove it. He didn’t give much of a rip about anything so Coach Bryant stayed on him hard all four years in Tuscaloosa, blurting, “You can’t trust left-handed crap shooters or left-handed quarterbacks.” Kenny would just laugh but the deep truth was Stabler would do anything to earn Bryant’s grin.
One night when some of us were sitting he talked about growing up in Foley, where he once out dueled Don Sutton from Jacksonville in a dynamic baseball battle. He could easily have played major-league baseball, too, but his friends knew his high school years were hard.
His dad, Slim, left for World War II and became a machine gunner and had deep emotional scars after the war ended. He became an alcoholic and Kenny, at the age of 16, had to wrestle a shotgun away from his drunken dad one night when was threatening to shoot the family. “When you’ve had a shotgun pointed in your face, third-and-20 doesn’t sound so bad,” he later half-joked.
At Alabama Stabler was a legend, even while he was a student. He was constantly testing the boundaries. Once when he and roomate Denis Holman slipped out after curfew and came back well-lubricated, they were sneaking into Bryant Hall when Stabler grabbed a fire extinguisher and gleefully threatened Holman with it. Right about them an assistant coach blocked the door, a cigarette dangling from his lips. Stabler promptly “extinguished” the coach’s smoke, adding another chapter to his ceaseless infamy.
At Alabama miscreants were sentenced to early-morning wind sprints and Kenny once reflected, “I’ve spent more time on the practice field at 5 a.m. than I have at 5 p.m.!” And Bryant even threw him off the team before his senior year, explaining Stabler’s cut classes and endless partying as “non-conformity.”
Coach Bryant allowed the repentant Stabler back on the team shortly before his senior year and Kenny’s famous “Run in the Mud” later that year in the 7-3 victory over Auburn proved Bryant’s hunch was a good one. How good was Stabler “really?” His record as a starter at Alabama was 28–3–2; that’s how good he was.
In the pros he was even better, this despite the widespread belief he studied the playbook by the lights of the jukebox in some all-night bar. The best question asked at the Pro Hall of Fame is why Stabler isn’t there yet. Oh, he will be – soon I expect – but it is sad that the one often referred to as John Madden’s favorite “gun-slinger” didn’t get enshrined when he could have enjoyed it.
I haven’t seen Kenny in years, not since my days as a sports writer ended, but I have never had any doubt that if I walked into the Flora-Bama Lounge and Package Store down in Perdido Key, Snake would shake that white mane of hair, cut me a grin and surely kick a chair my way.
The biggest legends are like that. They are just as oblivious to their fame as they are when they throw a ball out of bounds on fourth down. Anyone who knew Snake will tell you that’s just who he was. Big deal, you know? Big deal …
royexum@aol.com