‘Bama should end its cigar celebration

Dear editor:

On Oct. 16, 2019, I mailed Alabama head football Coach Nick Saban a certified letter with copies to the UA School of Public Health Chairwoman, the Southeastern Conference Commissioner, and the NCAA President, asking all to remove the unhealthy tradition of “cigar celebration” after Bama’s Tennessee victories. Regretfully, no reply. My young years as an Alabama mayor (1984-88) taught me about “political silence.”

Now, SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey and his commissioners have imposed a $250K fined on the University of Tennessee fans for tossing trash on the field during the Ole Miss game. Sankey’s statement, “The disruption of Saturday night’s game is unacceptable and cannot be repeated on any SEC campus.” With tobacco fatally sacking 480K Americans annually, should the Tide’s cigar celebration be accepted?

Does Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of NIAID, understand when a head football coach gets fired for refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccination with the Tide’s cigar celebration rolling on?

No one knows the celebration’s impact and influence the Tide players, fans, and coaches will have on innocent eyes seeking a role model. One must hope the Manila street children aren’t watching the game.

Emphysema caused by smoking left me fatherless in 1964. No portable oxygen back then, only homebound in a $20-a-month rental house with constant cries to breathe through the cracked walls that gave us sunrise. I had rather my WWII veteran dad gotten hit by an upset UT Vols fan’s golf ball than his decades of smoking deadly tobacco.

Coach Saban after his recent Texas A&M loss declared, “Obviously, this is a very disappointing loss for us. I think that everybody needs to remember how they feel and not forget.”

As a former UA student (1974, attempted to get into the UA Graduate School of Public Health) and sharing the same birthday with Alabama’s Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant (Sept. 11) it’s hard to root for the big favorite Bama to defeat the Vols.

Even Alabama’s suited-up No. 44 Forrest Gump didn’t smoke but stated that the hooker tasted like cigarettes.

I will never forget the early morning, Jan. 13, 1964, door knock by my dad’s hospital bedside-sitter-friend, “Mr. Sawyer just died.” A game loss vs. a life loss? Go Vols!

Mike Sawyer

Denver

Mike Sawyer has been a child advocate and activist since 1986 and has had more than an estimated 1,000 letters published.