Had the opportunity to head to T-town for the softball Fan appreciation day today.  Met up with Jamos (always a good time) and with him and my daughter that plays softball we got to tour the incredible indoor practice facility.  Did I mention that it is incredible?  Coach Murphy was our tour guide and you could just hear the excitement in his voice as he spoke with us.  We then got to meet & greet the entire roster of players, take pics and get autographs.  Each and every one of them was as nice and professional as you might expect.  They seemed to be genuinely interested in us (mainly my daughter) and they were very thankful for everyone showing up on such a cold blustery day.  The team divided up into "Crimson" and "Gray" and had a 5 inning scrimmage game.  Littlejohn pitched the entire game for the gray team and she was outstanding.  She actually reminded me of Traina her first two years playing for Bama.  Jury was the starting pitcher for the Crimson team and did well for a couple of innings.  She walked one batter in the second.  J-Train came in to pitch in the 3rd.  Our hitting was really good too.  In the third inning J. Patterson beat the brakes off of J-Train.  Coach had her bat in the 3rd, 4th, and 5th innings (obvious to me that he wanted her to go to the plate to see how strong her bat was.  She got good hits in the 3rd and 4th but Jackie finally got the best of her in the 5th.  Jackie had a pretty rough 3rd giving up 6 runs.  I am still not sure if she is still a bit off her game or if our hitters are just that much better this year.  I'm betting on the latter.  Should be fun to watch them again this year.  I have no doubts that they won't make it back to the WCWS.  Wouldn't surprise me to see them win it again...  Yeah, I think they are that good.

Coach Saban does not miss a chance to promote our program and the success of former players in the NFL.

Jesse will be on the sidelines cheering them on in the Superbowl and surely will be playing in it this time next year! 

Humor is one thing but outrageous humor is another. Tonight Eddie Conyers, the longtime practice referee at Alabama spoke to the REC and what an evening it was. This man has more stories about his past years than you can imagine, and most of them are very very funny.

Eddie started officiating the practices for Bama in 1961 and is still there doing what he does best. He is 86 years old but you would never guess it, the energy he has is not the average for an 86 year old. I hope that a writer will get with Eddie before his time is up and write a book about all that he has to share about his life at Bama, it would be a book that I would love to give to my kids.

I have known Eddie for many years as he used to play in the Gene Stallings Golf Tournament for RISE each year and he and I shared many laughs together. Talk about some wild stories, many of the past coaches would attend the golf tournament and they would all gather with Eddie and it was a contest of which of them could tell the best story on that day. It was a time that I will never forget and even tonight, Eddie and I had a chance to sit and talk a bit and share some of those wonderful moments of the past once more. Hopefully I will get another chance to hear him speak again at some time because I never get tired of hearing those stories, they just get a little funnier each time I hear them.

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I attended a meeting at the softball complex tonight and it was very entertaining. The compliance director at Bama filled us all in on the dos and don'ts that we all need to know about.

We got to chat with the players for a short period of time but CPM got them out of there in a hurry to do their studying. All of the players have 3.0 GPA or better and 5 of them have a 4.0., that's not too shabby.

CPM and Stephanie VanBrakle gave us a breakdown of where the team is right now and they seemed very excited. Bama's goal this year is to lead the nation in doubles. He has advised the batters to be selective in what they swing at and choose the pitch that can get them a double. I can see where he is going with this in trying to get the players to extend the inning. Some folks say a homerun is a rally killer.

VanBrakle sounded very excited about her pitching staff. She stated that JTrain is healthy and ready to go but Leslie Jury is a changed pitcher and has really looked sharp. She said that Littlejohn is a different pitcher than JTrain and Jury as she has a tremendous spin on the ball. CPM said that if Littlejohn can get 12-15 wins it will really set up the tandem of JTrain and Jury as their arms should stay pretty rested.

There is also some friendly competition going on in batting practice. The players are competing against each other in who hits the ball more solid during their times at bat. The winner gets a tee shirt and it has become very competitive.

There will be a fan appreciation day on January 25th. This will include some snacks and drinks and a intersquad game. This all begins at 11:00 am.

Check this link for more softball news and info.

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It didn't take CNS long to initiate his plans for getting Bama football back to where he wants it, celebrating national championships. After blowing a game to Auburn, which Bama had victory in it's grasp and then the disaster in the Sugar Bowl, the coach started looking for answers as to why this team finshed the season on such a downhill slide.

A couple of weeks ago it was announced that Lane Kiffen would come on campus as a consultant to help with the woes of the offense and that caught everyone's eye. How could Lane Kiffen ever be invited to this campus as a consultant for Bama football problems and some laughed it off as nothing to it. This invite turned out to be much more than an invite to do some consulting, it opened the door for some major changes in the Bama program.

Nick Saban is a genius as a manager of things, he knows when there are problems long before they expose themselves to anyone. This is what helps him so much in staying ahead of the competition as he senses a problem and reacts immediatly, not sometime later on. He didn't bring Kiffen on campus as a consultant, he had already made a plan for this team and now was looking for the right coaches to implement it.

With the changes in the coaches ranks that has begun, that only brings on the speculation of changes in how Bama plays football. The fast tempo offensive has certaintly caught everyone's eye as Auburn gave Bama a reason to notice when they ran up big chunks of yardage against a pretty good Bama defense and passed for big yardage as well. When I saw Mason just chew up Bama's defense, I could only think of how great Yeldon, Henry, and Drake would be running in an offense of that sort and don't forget about the passing game with our receivers.

How many more coaching changes will happen in the coming weeks or will there be any more changes to the staff? There are lots of questions now that the OC position is changing but I think the big question now is will the offense get a major overhaul and who will be the quarterback. There are lots of questions to be answered in the upcoming weeks and it should get to be very interesting.