The Missing Ring Quotes

“In practice, whenever Stabler rolled down the line on the option and tossed some wild pitch at precisely the right time, the Bear often clicked on his bullhorn and yelled down from the tower: “Stabler, you’re luckier than a shit-house rat!” The big man also liked to remind him, in front of the team, “I’ve never trusted left-handed crap shooters or left-handed quarterbacks.”
― Keith Dunnavant, The Missing Ring: How Bear Bryant and the 1966 Alabama Crimson Tide Were Denied College Football's Most Elusive Prize

“In 1966, when the median household income was $7,254 and only 34 percent of women worked outside the home, you could buy a three-bedroom house in Alabama for $10,000, a gallon of regular gas for 32 cents, a bottle of Coca-Cola for a nickel, and a pack of cigarettes for 30 cents. Cigarette advertising still could be seen all over network television. After the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 13 decision in Miranda v. Arizona, law enforcement officers were suddenly required to advise accused criminals of their Constitutional rights.”
― Keith Dunnavant, The Missing Ring: How Bear Bryant and the 1966 Alabama Crimson Tide Were Denied College Football's Most Elusive Prize

“At the urging of the tennis coach, Bryant, Alabama’s athletic director, helped push a rule change through the conference to allow women to compete on men’s teams in noncontact sports. Several coaches and players at rival schools resisted, some to the point of forfeiting matches to avoid facing a woman on the court. “Some people just weren’t ready for women athletes in those days,” said Allison, who played for the Crimson Tide a decade before Title IX led to the creation of broad-based women’s sports programs across the country.”
― Keith Dunnavant, The Missing Ring: How Bear Bryant and the 1966 Alabama Crimson Tide Were Denied College Football's Most Elusive Prize

“Women’s intercollegiate athletics were nonexistent in the Southeastern Conference in those days, and when Alabama signed Alexander City tennis phenom Roberta Allison to play on the men’s team in 1962, no one fully appreciated the significance of the event. “I didn’t go into it wanting to be a pioneer,” said Allison, the first female to earn an athletic scholarship to Alabama. “I just wanted to play tennis.”
― Keith Dunnavant, The Missing Ring: How Bear Bryant and the 1966 Alabama Crimson Tide Were Denied College Football's Most Elusive Prize