Marcy Measels: Alabama Fan

Here at Roll Bama Roll we spend a lot of time admiring the exploits of the players who go out on the field each Saturday in the fall. But, sometimes, it's important to admire the accomplishments of some of the amazing people who are sitting in the stands as well. 

Over the past few years Robin Measels - who her friends all knew as "Marcy" - was a regular at Alabama football games. During the season, she and her husband Michael made it to Bryant-Denny Stadium every chance they could. How much did she love Alabama football? Enough to name her dog after former Alabama running back Kenneth Darby.

Marcy passed away earlier this month at her home in Huntsville after a 13-year battle with cancer. She was 33.

In an obituary published today in the Huntsville Times her husband said Marcy was never defined by the disease she struggled against for so long but, instead, showed others through her own example that you could have cancer and still have a life.

And she certainly did. The picture that emerges of Marcy is of a woman with an active interest in the world around her. She volunteered for work at the Huntsville Botanical Gardens as well as the Republican Party headquarters. She harbored plans to return to school and become an ophthalmologist. And she was an Alabama fan.

Very often our fandom is defined by our differences with our rivals and not our bond with each other. Our love for Alabama football is an aspect of our lives we share with a larger group. It should be a bridge for us to learn about each other's lives but, too often, it's the extent of our interaction. Learning about Marcy's life in the wake of her passing  shows how much we are missing when we pass up this opportunity.

But more important is the lesson we can learn from our devotion to the game that Marcy's life demonstrates. Each and every time the team takes the field we are all asking the players to do something extraordinary for us - reveling when they do and suffering when they do not. We admire Coach Saban for holding the team to a high degree of excellence but far too often we don't hold ourselves to that same standard.

Marcy Measles did. And so can you.