Texas Tech fans already knew Tommy Tuberville was a coach in senator’s clothing
Along with a Belk Bowl Runner’s Up ring, Ticket City Bowl title and winning a U.S. senatorial seat in Alabama, a forgotten accomplishment in Tommy Tuberville’s career is that he forced Barack Obama to reveal the secret documents that no one else could.
President Donald J. Trump takes credit for the narrative that former President Obama was not born in the United States, but the man who actually forced Obama to prove it was then Texas Tech football coach Tommy Tuberville.
On April 26, 2011, Tuberville was a guest on Fox News’ pundit Sean Hannity’s show, and said, “I don’t know why he wouldn’t just step up and say, you know, ‘Here it is.’ Obviously there’s gotta be something on there that he doesn’t want anybody to see.”
That should have earned Tommy a Presidential Medal of Freedom.
The next morning, the White House released a statement and Obama provided his U.S. birth certificate during a press conference.
When I asked Tuberville a few months later about it, he smiled, gracious and nonchalant. Never mind the fact that narrative was equal parts insulting, preposterous and dangerous.
But in that conversation with Tuberville I was struck by his personality. He has that easy, college ball coaches’ charm, which is a 24 oz. cup of empty calories.
You just don’t realize it until he’s gone. Instead, you feel fat without the satisfaction, but all of the guilt for having been dumb enough to drink it.
Tuberville is just another college ball coach turned politician who suckered in some new customers, only this time he’s not running your favorite ball team straight into irrelevance.
He is a sitting U.S. senator. Now he can do some real damage.
Other than sound and look good in a suit, he is the ball coach whose sideline headset isn’t plugged into the coaching booth. But he sure can crush an interview.
As the mob crashed into our Capitol on Wednesday, Tuberville was one of the few remaining senators to object to the formal certification of Joe Biden as our next president.
Along with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Tuberville joined four other senators to object to Arizona’s election results.
While you may agree with the objection, do not confuse this stance from Tommy Tuberville as a result of education, conviction or principles.
After winning his election, he Tweeted, “I’m going to wake up every day with one mission – to speak for the people of Alabama.”
Son, you aren’t Nick Saban.
The national audience that is so aghast at Tuberville’s words and actions since winning a senate seat is unaware of his coaching career at Ole Miss, Auburn, Texas Tech and Cincinnati.
Both as a politician and football coach, Tuberville is a brilliant used car salesman, provided you don’t actually bother to inspect the automobile you’re buying.
Ask the good people in Lubbock and Red Raider nation how they feel about Sen. Tuberville. None of what the nation sees now surprises them.
Around Lubbock, he was known as “Catfish.” Because he liked to swim at the bottom.
This is the guy who famously left a dinner at the 50 Yard Line steakhouse in Lubbock, while he and members of his staff were entertaining a group of recruits, to accept the job at Cincinnati.
He owed Texas Tech for bringing to life a dead career, and he ghosted the entire school and fan base.
This the guy who as the head coach at Cincinnati, while leaving the field after a 20-3 home loss to BYU on Nov. 5, 2016, told a heckling fan, “Go to hell,” and “get a job.”
He likely has a point, but the head coach has to know to keep his mouth shut.
This is the guy who while as the head coach at Ole Miss in 1998, amid speculation that he was going to leave for Auburn, told a local radio show, “They’ll have to carry me out of here in a pine box. I love this place.”
Two days later, he was named the head coach at Auburn.
While campaigning in the fall, he declared the reason that the start of the 2020 college football season was delayed because “You have a lot of these states deciding, ‘Oh, we’re not going to play football,’” he told Fox Business.
Tuberville was an FBS coach from 1995 to 2016, and apparently he did not know that the universities and the conferences are the ones that make those decisions.
After winning election, Tuberville confused why the U.S and its allies fought in World War II. He thought the Allies in 1944 liberated Paris from “from socialism and communism,” two ideologies which have remained a point of sale during various election campaigns for about the last 100 years.
The University of Southern Arkansas, Tuberville’s alma mater, would like its degree back.
Tommy’s dad was a decorated soldier who landed on the beaches of Normandy in World War II. Surely, Tommy knows it was Hitler’s fascism that the Allies were fighting, and they were briefly allied with a communist nation to win this war.
Know this, while Tommy took the oath of office to serve as senator, Tuberville would quit today if a Power Five, or even a Group of 5, school wanted him to be its head coach.
You may side with his political stances, but Tommy Tuberville is the junior senator from Alabama wearing an unplugged headset, who would rather be back on the field looking for his next coaching job.
This story was originally published January 8, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
