Why an NFL reporter believes he deserves some credit for Alabama’s dominance
By Andrew Olson
Published:
Today, if Alabama fans recognize the name Ian Rapoport, they might know him as a source of breaking NFL news on Twitter and the NFL Network.
Ten years ago, however, he was a beat writer for the Birmingham News breaking a bombshell story about the coach who would succeed Mike Shula. No, not Nick Saban – Rich Rodriguez.
In AL.com’s look back on the events of December 2006, Rapoport recounts breaking the story that Rodriguez would be the next coach of the Crimson Tide. It didn’t work out, as Rodriguez chose to stay at West Virginia. Rapoport, however, thinks he played a key role in Alabama history.
“I know that reporting it that night gave West Virginia boosters an opportunity to raise money and get Rich Rodriguez a new contract,” Rapoport told AL.com. “If I stayed quiet and he just went to tell his team the next day, my guess is he’d probably still be Alabama’s coach.”
Since his breaking news story led to Rodriguez staying in West Virginia, which ultimately led to Alabama hiring Saban, Rapoport jokingly believes he deserves some credit for the Crimson Tide’s recent run of success.
“I tell people that whenever it comes up, and everyone is like, ‘Yeah, whatever.'”
The full feature, which details what went wrong with Rodriguez and how Alabama wound up with Saban, can be found here.
Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaigns of Fred Taylor and Andruw Jones.
