Sunday Afternoon Links and Such

Q: When it's all said and done and you're through with your career, what do you want your legacy to be? What do you want people to remember you for?

A: I don't know. I would hope that they would say that the guy did his work with class and dignity and integrity to the principles and values he believed and preached. And that he did a good job of coaching and developing and recruiting players, but that we also helped them as people and they were more successful for having been in the program, and that we always were concerned about their future. How we supported them after they left here. I guess that's how I'd like for it to be.

Q: Do you have any concern about the marketplace in college athletics and what your impact was on that?

A: I don't know how to answer that. I don't know. I mean, if it wasn't worth it, then to me the school shouldn't pay it. I mean really. I can understand where most administrators might think that maybe it shouldn't be that way, all right, but I would be more concerned, like I've always been more concerned about, the player. Why don't we do more for the player? Like I proposed years ago, when they were talking about a playoff system, and all the hoopla going around when Southern Cal, Oklahoma and LSU were all right there for the national championship and Southern Cal didn't get in the game. Everybody said they should play a game now between LSU and Southern Cal. And I said, maybe that would be a really good system to just expand what we do, to have four teams play in the bowl games like they are now and have one more game, like a Super Bowl game the next week between the two teams that won. But all the money that comes from that game should be added to every scholarship student-athlete, male or female, so they have a better quality of life when they're in school.

Q: The folks who have a field day with the sound byte, 'I'm not going to be the Alabama coach,' instinctively believe in their minds that there was something already in the mix with Alabama.

A: That was not true. Everybody has a point of view and everybody's entitled to their opinion. I can't convince the world of anything different, nor am I about to try.

When describing why he took the job, he said, "Alabama is Alabama."

In fact, it might not be so new at all for Wilson. It might be a lot like those days at Hoover when he flawlessly directed the spread offense under Rush Propst.

"You can tell (Wilson) enjoys this offense because it's like he's in control," Hall said. "He can sit there at the line and call what he wants, read the defense and make the adjustments.

"I guess it's what he's used to at Hoover. They kind of put him in control at Hoover and he did what he had to do. When he's out at practice, you can tell he's getting it back."