Friday, October 22, 1999

'Bama fan goes to great lengths

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BY JOHN JOHNSTON
The Cincinnati Enquirer

        It's not easy being a University of Alabama football fan in Cincinnati. First, there's the drive to games — at least 1,000 miles, round-trip.

        Then, there are the people who question the sanity of anyone who would go to such lengths.

Everyone has a story worth telling. At least, that's the theory. To test it, Tempo is throwing darts at the phone book. When a dart hits a name, a reporter dials the phone number and asks if someone in the home will be interviewed. Stories appear on Fridays.

        “I catch a lot of grief,” Bob Stewart says.

        Some people, it seems, just don't understand. So let Mr. Stewart, a 48-year-old Albertville, Ala., native now living in Deerfield Township, explain:

        “Typically, in the state of Alabama ... by the age of 4 or 5 you declare your intentions,” he says with an accent unmistakably Southern. “It's either Auburn or Alabama. Period. That's the way you grow up, either in an Auburn family or an Alabama family.”

        Mr. Stewart sided with the Alabama folks.

        “I've seen it split families,” he says. “I've seen it split churches. I've seen fights over it. I've seen divorces over it. It's amazing. The roots run very, very deep.”

        They have burrowed right into Mr. Stewart's soul. He was 14 when he attended his first Crimson Tide football game at Birmingham's Legion Field. 'Bama beat Louisiana State that day, 17 to 6. Bob Stewart's life had taken a turn. There was no looking back.

        Now, “I'm thoroughly entrenched in University of Alabama. The colors. The flags. The yell. The band's CD; I play it as we're going to the ballgames.”

        He doesn't play it, though, if he is driving to the Alabama-Tennessee game and his wife, Nan, is in the car. Nan, you see, is a native of Franklin, Tenn. She is a Tennessee Volunteers fan.

        “There was a period there when (Alabama) beat them 18 years in a row,” Mr. Stewart boasts. “She was so tired of Tennessee getting trounced every year in both Knoxville and Birmingham, she almost became an Alabama fan.”

        “Couldn't quite do it,” says Nan, who had plenty of reasons to be proud of her Volunteers last year when they won the national championship.

        She admits that her husband's allegiance to Alabama is a stronger than hers is to Tennessee.

        Mr. Stewart did, after all, attend the University of Alabama. “Like many freshmen, I majored in Crimson Tide and I minored in fraternity. Sometimes, that'll get you in trouble,” he says.

        “And it did,” Nan adds.

        He transferred to Jacksonville State and earned a degree there.

        Today, he is a dealer operations manager for Infiniti, Nissan Motor Co.'s luxury division. He would drive a crimson car, but Infiniti doesn't make one.

        Instead, he has fashioned his home office into a shrine to Alabama football. Books. Commemorative Coke bottles. Flags. And framed photos of great moments in Alabama football history, including one signed by a late, great Alabama coaching legend.

        “To Bobby,” it reads. “Best regards, Paul "Bear' Bryant.”

        “I've been offered $1,500 for that,” Mr. Stewart says. “It's not for sale.”

        So now maybe you understand. You can take Bob Stewart out of Crimson Tide country, but you can't take the Crimson Tide out of Bob Stewart. Or something like that.

        “You can't go through your life without being passionate about something,” Mr. Stewart says. “I've got a lot of (passions). This is a release valve for me.”

        Sometimes his fervor comes back to haunt him.

        Last year, after 'Bama lost to the University of Kentucky, the Infiniti dealers in Lexington and Louisville were waiting to rub it in when Mr. Stewart drove onto their lots. He exited his vehicle, smiled at them, and said, “Guys, I can live with this once every 75 years,” which was how long it had been since UK defeated the Crimson Tide.

        “He always has a comeback,” says Nan, a former teacher now between jobs.

        Not surprisingly, she says her husband is more fun to be around when Alabama wins. After a loss, “You just don't bother him.”

        Used to be, “With a loss, I was sick for a week, just literally sick,” Mr. Stewart says. “I kind of get over it pretty quickly now. When you stop to think about it, that is a whole bunch of 18- and 19-year-olds out there running around, playing ball, making stupid mistakes.”

        But he dearly hopes Alabama (5-1, No.10 in the AP Top 25) makes no stupid mistakes in Tuscaloosa Saturday, when the opponent is Tennessee (4-1, No.5).

        The Stewarts are there now. Bob is likely tending to some chicken for tonight's tailgate party. He and his 'Bama buddies probably are listening to the Alabama fight song.

        Nan won't spoil her husband's pregame revelry. What would be the point? After all, she knows the words that hang on her husband's office wall are true: “You can tell a 'Bama fan, but you can't tell 'em much.”

        Except this: Roll Tide.

       

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