Former Alabama football coach, Gene Stallings named to SEC Legends Class

The SEC has selected Gene Stallings to represent Alabama football in the 2017 SEC Legends class. The Legends class will be honored at the “Weekend of Champions” in Atlanta, during the SEC Championship.

On Tuesday, the SEC announced former Alabama football assistant coach and head coach, Gene Stallings was named to the 2017 SEC Legends Class.

The class is made up of a representative from each SEC school. The conference press release said the 14 men “helped write the rich history of the sport at their respective institutions.” In case of Gene Stallings, full accuracy should have read “at two schools.”

Last week, Bama Hammer was proud to include current and past Stallings stories in multiple posts. On Saturday night in College Station, Stallings 1967 SWC championship team was honored. It is not often when the fans of two SEC opponents hold the same former coach in their collective hearts.

But then, Gene Stallings is an extraordinary man. A man of conviction carved from hard-earned character. A man with love and compassion for others. A fine football coach and a tower of strength. Just days past a serious heart attack, the toughest man who stepped on Kyle Field Saturday night was Gene Stallings.

As every Alabama football fan knows (or should know) Stallings was one of Paul Bryant’s Junction Boys. The Junction training camp stories are many, too numerous to retell in this format. Bryant and Junction ended the careers of many players. It just made Stallings tougher. Saturday he was asked was it harder to handle, Junction or a heart attack. His response was

"“I’d take Junction every time over a heart attack,”"

As reported by al.com, Stallings talked about the Junction training camp experience,

"“I never gave it (quitting) a thought. I did give dying some thought. Dying would be an honorable way out. Never gave quitting a thought. I was on scholarship. I was going to college. My folks couldn’t send me to college. I was glad Junction was over, but, as far as quitting, I never thought of quitting.”"

Stallings’ Alabama Career

Gene Stallings has been blessed with a clear-eyed perspective going back as far those Aggies’ training camps. When Joe Namath broke curfew rules before the Sugar Bowl, every Alabama football assistant coach lobbied Bryant to not suspend Namath for the bowl game. Stallings told the Bear, Namath must be suspended and Bryant agreed.

Gene Stallings was on a list of coaches to succeed Bryant at Alabama. Stallings politely discouraged serious conversation because he felt compelled to honor his contract with the Dallas Cowboys.

When a thoroughly misguided University President and Athletic Director wanted to run Stallings’ Alabama football program, Stallings resigned. He did it with dignity and showed no public bitterness.

The statue of a strong-jawed and strong-willed Gene Stallings will forever stand at the University of Alabama. It honors an Alabama football coach who won four SEC championships and a national championship. A coach whose teams won 28 consecutive games from 1991-1993. A coach who is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame.

Gene Stallings was the head coach for only 87 games in Tuscaloosa. Winning 70 of those games is an extraordinary record. But the record is not near as extraordinary as the man.

Next: A flawed study that concluded Saban is overrated.

How can Alabama football’s greatest coach ever be determined? The men with statues outside Bryant-Denny coached in different eras. Close followers of Alabama football history know all five men are connected to each other through a linkage of relationships that spans almost a century.