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Alabama sets A-Day date, to honor Wilbur Jackson and John Mitchell
By Keith Farner
Published:
Alabama has set its annual spring game date for April 16, as the A-Day game will be a day of celebrations as the Crimson Tide will also honor Wilbur Jackson and John Mitchell.
The annual A-Day Game is the 15th and final practice of the spring and takes place at Bryant-Denny Stadium. Admission is free.
In 1970, Jackson made history by becoming the first African American scholarship student-athlete on the Crimson Tide football team, and a year later, Mitchell cemented himself in the record books as the first African American to play in a varsity football game for Alabama. Jackson, a native of Ozark, Alabama, went on to earn All-SEC honors and was captain of the 1973 national championship team. He was then drafted ninth overall by San Francisco in the 1974 NFL Draft, playing nine years professionally.
Mitchell transferred to Alabama after an All-American career at Eastern Arizona Junior College. That success continued in the crimson and white for the Mobile, Alabama native with Mitchell becoming All-American, All-SEC and team captain.
A weekend of celebration!
🔗 https://t.co/zWg4hBL3Nc
🗓 A-Day – April 16th#RollTide pic.twitter.com/7sRcGwfUR9— Alabama Football (@AlabamaFTBL) February 11, 2022
Alabama leads the nation in spring game attendance over the last 15 years (14 A-Day Games after 2020 was canceled due to COVID) with a total of 1,068,239 fans for an average of 76,303 fans per game during that period (maximum capacity of 50,000 in 2021). The largest A-Day crowd in school history came in 2011 (92,310). In head coach Nick Saban’s first year of 2007, the stadium was at full capacity prior to expansion (92,138).
A former newspaper veteran, Keith Farner is a news manager for Saturday Down South.
