Celebrating Shaun Alexander: NFL MVP and College Icon

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00:00We are very, very pleased on this football Friday on the

00:06early line on Sports Grid to now welcome on Sean Alexander.

00:11Maybe you know him from his days of storming down the field

00:14in Seattle as the 2005 NFL MVP and a three-time pro bowler

00:20with the Seahawks or taken Tuscaloosa by storm during his

00:24college football career at Alabama or you just wanna wish

00:28Sean Alexander a happy birthday. Sean, happy birthday

00:31to you. Thanks for being here with us on your birthday on the

00:34early line. Big, thank you. How you guys doing, man? Thank you

00:38for having me. This is this is great. Love y'all show. We're

00:41very glad to have you here. We're happy to have you here on

00:44your birthday. We're happy to have you here entering the

00:47first full weekend of the 2024 college football season. The

00:51Sean Alexander Freshman of the Year Award. First given out in

00:552018, Trevor Lawrence, a worthy recipient and now Sean becoming

01:00a standard of excellence in college football to the top

01:04true or redshirt freshman around the nation. How did this

01:08award come together? How much fun have you had selecting the

01:11recipients the last few years in college football? Man, you

01:15know, gosh, it's been about 19 years now. Mike Griffith who's

01:20a great reporter for Georgia. He was at Alabama when I was

01:23there. Went on to Tennessee, then to Michigan and then and

01:28then to Georgia. He was a president of the Football

01:31Writers Association and he said, hey, now you're retired.

01:35Love to get you a part of college football. You've been a

01:37great guy, great ambassador for your school and just football

01:40in general. How do we how do I get you a part of that? So I

01:43got to be a part of helping look at some of the nominees for

01:46other awards and and then picking the freshman All

01:49American team and then he said, hey, we're thinking about

01:52naming the award after somebody. We want somebody

01:54whose name is who's young enough. They could be relevant

01:56players could kind of remember them at least their parents

01:58will and and I said, oh, let me think about that. He's like

02:02Sean, it's you like you've been around us. We just wanted to

02:04make sure you know we were and and so it was a great honor and

02:08then we went through picking out the guy. We had four

02:11characteristics that we wanted. No one was talent. You know we

02:14turn on that film. We're like, oh, who's that guy, you know

02:17and whatever position just a dominant performer. The second

02:21one was character and that was just, you know, they always

02:23say Sean, you're young enough that we wouldn't want

02:26somebody's mishaps to mess you up, you know, and so I always

02:29say we don't have to be Mother Teresa. You just can't throw a

02:32drink on her, you know. The number three was ambassador,

02:37which meant that you could speak on behalf of the

02:38university. We just we literally call the schools and

02:40be like, what do you think about this kid and and then the

02:43fourth one was a legend and the NFL always says, you know,

02:46once a player forever a legend and and we just want to say,

02:49man, we think of this guy and he's got NFL type talent and

02:53we've been so proud of the committee with the writers with

02:56the Maxwell Football Club, a part of their awards family,

02:59just picking out some great guys. You know, you know, you

03:02take the last few years, Brock Bowers, Drake May, Caleb Dalles

03:07won it from from last year. Just a lot of fun getting to

03:10know these guys, getting to kind of go through the whole

03:12process with all these guys, even on my birthday, that's

03:14when we do the hot list, hot 37 list and going from those

03:18guys from 18 to 19 year old little boys to grown men by

03:22the time they get out of college and go to the pros,

03:24just a lot of fun walking through the whole process.

03:28Talking to the 2005 NFL MVP and by the way, the MVP of so many

03:33fantasy football teams back in the day, running for yards with

03:36Walter Jones and Steve Hutchinson, but you're the

03:40perfect person to ask you, Sean, going to Alabama as a

03:44freshman, talk to the people out here because you know, going

03:46to a university expected to win national championship, you

03:49show up on campus as a seventeen or eighteen year old

03:52as a freshman, talk about your freshman year at Alabama and

03:55even the redshirt year that got you ready to perform at the

03:58highest level. Yeah, you know, Alabama has always been the

04:02same thing. It's going to be strong competition. You're

04:05going to learn a lot about yourself. Are you willing to go

04:08be the man that that your talent could possibly take you

04:11to be and so my freshman year was a lot of fun. It was a lot

04:15of hard work. You learn a lot about who you are and what you

04:18really got going on inside of you and then, of course, being

04:21redshirted, you know, I was behind my head coach was Gene

04:25Stallings, you know, the legendary coach, Bear Bryant's

04:27favorite assistant, you know what I mean? So, I got all this

04:30history behind it. He didn't play freshman that much, you

04:32know, especially on offense and so I would come off the

04:36bench and you know, put up these staggering numbers, then

04:39go back to the sidelines again and so we had to learn a lot

04:42about humility, about being patient to play at Alabama and

04:46you still knew that you're going to have a shot to win a

04:48championship every year and so that that's the line and so I

04:52think like that's what's really missing with today's football.

04:56You got NIL. You got social media and the two things that

04:59really help damage a person's development. It's fame and

05:04money. If you don't handle those things well, you won't

05:06really give yourself a chance to be the fullness of what you

05:09could be and so I run my program, the PLP program, which

05:12I take some of the winners and some of the guys that are

05:15nominated all the way through and some pro guys too. I run

05:18them through that program about can we develop you into being

05:21elite, being excellent and leaving a legacy that matter

05:25and so that for me was a part of it at Alabama was

05:30learning how to go through that state, how to get that back to

05:33college football and pro football. Yeah, it's one of the

05:36big things for the Sean Alexander Freshman of the Year

05:38Award leaving a legacy both at your program on the field and

05:42off the field. Sean, you mentioned the Hot 37 list. It

05:46came out on Wednesday entering this 2024 college football

05:50season. A couple of the names that stand out Cam Coleman, one

05:54of the top wide receivers in the country now going to Auburn

05:57Jeremiah Smith, another wide out at Ohio State and keep an

06:01eye on the new signal caller in Knoxville, Nico Yamalava, who

06:05is the quarterback for the Volunteer Sensational in the

06:08Citrus Bowl against Tennessee. But Sean, as we talk about

06:13Alabama, you know what it's like to be in Tuscaloosa. You

06:16know the pressure that can be on the Crimson Tide football

06:20program and that pressure on the uptick for Kalen DeBoer in

06:25his first year at the helm of the tide trying to fill the

06:28very large shoes of 17 years of excellence that Nick Saban left

06:33behind. What do you expect for your Alabama Crimson Tide in

06:362024? Well, you know, I expect Kalen coach DeBoer to be the

06:42great leader that he is and I expect Alabama to be Alabama.

06:45You know, it's just because Saban was there for for 17

06:49years. People forget that they were winning with Gene Solis

06:53before him and then you know and the same thing would happen

06:56with with you at Bear Bryant. Now, they were going this in the

06:5860s and the 70s. Six national championships in those two

07:02decades with Bear Bryant. We get six more with those two

07:06decades with Nick Saban. It just happens but Alabama is

07:09going to still be Alabama. I think that Bama hired a great

07:12coach because he knows how to win and he's the total opposite

07:16of Nick Saban and it's because you don't want a coach to not

07:20be the leader of the program and so you gotta have somebody

07:23that's a little bit different from what they're used to but

07:25still know how to win. So, it's a great hire. You know, I tell

07:29people all the stories. You got Saban who was no nonsense, no

07:33music at practice. You got Deborah smiling. Music's

07:37blasting. They're running to death. You know what I mean?

07:39And so, you got coach Saban, four-letter words which starts

07:43with love you and you got coach Deborah, no four-letter words.

07:46You know, it's just they're just defensive coordinator,

07:49offensive coordinator. You know, like they're totally

07:52different but they both knew how to win and what's going to

07:55be similar that Crimson Jersey, a support group that's going to

07:59love them to death and great recruiting and and so they're

08:02going to hold those two things similar but they're going to

08:04win in a different kind of way and I think it's going to be

08:07great for our university. By the way, Sean, you take a look

08:10at the six winners of this award and keep in mind, these

08:12are freshmen. So, it's like, okay, maybe they won't go on to

08:15have great college careers. I don't know what formula you

08:17guys are using to lay this out but it is working. Trevor

08:20Lawrence, Kenneth Gainwell, Will Anderson Jr., Brock Bowers,

08:23Drake May and Caleb Downs. It does it. That reads as a who's

08:27who right now, Sean. Yeah, we we've been proud. You know, we

08:31get them, you know, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen and you

08:34know, we we we pick them hard and I I stay in touch with them

08:37so I get to go love on them and encourage them to go be great.

08:40The excellent on and off the field to you know, turn on that

08:43film, something that you can be proud of and we've had one

08:47first one, one pick overall and one overall, two number three

08:50overalls. You know, Brock would have been a do you know but

08:57there was COVID years so he sat out his whole sophomore year

09:00and we think Caleb Towns is going to be a superstar. So

09:02yeah, we're very proud. We're excited for this year. Great

09:04group of kids. It's going to be awesome. An illustrious list,

09:09an illustrious running back in the history of football and a

09:13happy birthday once again to Sean Alexander. Sean, we

09:16appreciate the time. Enjoy the rest of the B-Day, my man. More

09:20on the early ride next.

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