Let it never be said that the University of Alabama has a sense of humor. Remember that guy who played "Take the Money and Run" and "Son of a Preacher Man" before the Iron Bowl? Yeah, he got canned today:
The University of Alabama terminated an employee Monday who played unauthorized music over the Bryant-Denny Stadium public address system prior to Friday's Iron Bowl.
"Our processes require that all music and videos played in the stadium prior to and during every game be carefully scripted and approved by a senior administrator in the Athletics Department," Lane wrote in an e-mail. "The former staff member deviated from the script that had been approved for the game with Auburn, and the University took steps to immediately terminate his contract."
I consider this outrageous. If this guy made any mistake in my eyes, it was by not finding something more offensive. Personally, I would have put prison bars in the Fail Room along with a nice photoshopped image plastered on the wall, maybe with the Eric Ramsey 60 Minutes interview airing on the jumbotron, and then top it all off with some PSA's during the game on the jumbotron with criminal defense attorneys discussing the relevant portions of federal statutes regarding bribery, racketeering, and money laundering. Some funny church signs would have also been a nice touch, or maybe that picture of Cam Newton ringing a cow bell. We could have asked Bill Bell to play his infamous tapes over the PA during TV timeouts. I would have also given a few of the media guys jackets with "FBI" on the back of them and had them run around trying to ask questions, but that's just me.
Either way, it seems pretty pointless to me. It happened, it's over with, and had we really tried to do something offensive then surely we could have done much worse. This guy was apparently a part-time employee, and I'm willing to bet he probably wasn't getting paid big bucks for this gig, so I doubt it's even a big deal on his end.