Upon his arrival on campus as a freshman, Sammy Smith brought his new school books into the dorm and was putting them away when an upperclassman stopped by.
"What are you going to do with those books?" the upperclassman asked. Smith said, "I’m going to go to school."
"Hell, man, I’ll show you what to do with those books," the upperclassman said.
"Well, I was a kid, a freshman," Smith said. "…and he was an upperclassman… he took me down to some black market store that they knew of, and we sold my books. He said, ‘That’s what you do with your books. Now you know what you’re going to do with your money? Drink some beer, man. Football players drink beer.’ And we drank the money away."
— Former Alabama player Sammy Smith recounting his arrival to the University of Alabama in 1956.
From Tom Stoddard’s book, Turnaround.
