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TUSCALOOSA, Alabama -- Alabama's Carson Tinker -- a survivor of the April 27 tornado that killed 51 people in and around Tuscaloosa, including his girlfriend -- is the weekly nominee for the 2011 Discover Orange Bowl/FWAA Courage Award.
The winner will be announced in December, and the trophy will be presented at the Orange Bowl.
Tinker, a junior long snapper from Murfreesboro, Tenn., was thrown 100 yards from his destroyed house by the powerful tornado.
His girlfriend, Ashley Harrison, a fellow Alabama student who had huddled with Tinker and two of his roommates in a walk-in closet, did not survive. Her body was found the next day in the same field Tinker in which had landed.
The house was ripped to its foundation. Tinker suffered a concussion, a broken bone in his right wrist and cuts on his head and right ankle.