Daily Dose of Crimson Tide: Billy Neighbors

Need your fix of Alabama sports? BamaCentral has you covered with the legendary Billy Neighbors

Special to BamaCentral, but was originally by the Associated Press

Lineman Billy Neighbors was a freshman on the Capstone when he and all of the other football players were suddenly called to a meeting with the new coach of the Crimson Tide, Paul W. “Bear” Bryant.

“Coach [J.B. ‘Ears’] Whitworth was the coach when I was being recruited, although Pat James was the coach who actually recruited me,” Neighbors told sportswriter Tommy Hicks for the Alabama version of the “Game of my Life” book series. “In that meeting, he told us that if we all stayed there and did what he told us to do, we would win a national championship.

“We thought he was crazy.”

Actually, they had good reason to think that. Alabama had won just 14 games the previous five seasons combined, which prompted school officials to lure Bryant away from Texas A&M.

Neighbors had grown up in Tuscaloosa and in addition to idolizing the Crimson Tide, his older brother, Sidney, was on the team as well, so his recruitment from Tuscaloosa County High School had been extremely easy for the previous coaching staff. But even he needed a wake-up call.

“I wasn’t doing too well in school my freshman year, and my second semester, matter of fact, I wasn’t doing anything,” Neighbors said. “I was cutting classes. So Coach Bryant asked me to eat lunch with him, and man, I was scared to death because I knew I had a problem, but I didn’t know why he was mad. To tell you the truth I didn't think he knew what kind of grades I was making. He had the dean of the school with him, and I went and sat down with them. He introduced me to the dean, and we started talking. He pulled out my IQ and pulled out how many classes I’d cut, and boy, I didn’t look up, I just kept my head down. Coach Bryant said, ‘Look up at me, boy, I’m talking to you.’ So I looked up, and he said to the dean, ‘Now this boy right here can help us win, but if he doesn’t start getting better grades, he isn’t going to be here.’ The dean started talking about the classes I’d taken, what I should take, and all this stuff, and Coach Bryant said, ‘Well, I’m going to give him one more semester. I’m going to move him into my house with me, and I’m going to do him like I do Paul, Jr., when he comes home with a C, I’ll beat him with a damn dictionary.’ So, I got straightened out real fast.”

Although Sidney Neighbors didn’t last, Billy did and was one of just nine freshman out of the 108 players who did “stick it out.” Not only did he become Alabama’s first All-American since 1954, but Bryant proved to be correct when Alabama won the national title in 1961.

Neighbors was a key cog in the championship season, when the defense yielded a total of just 25 points, never gave up more than seven points in a game, and shut out six opponents. His career concluded with the Crimson Tide having finished in the top 10 nationally all three years, and he was named both the top lineman in the Southeastern Conference and the most valuable in the Senior Bowl

As an offensive lineman in the National Football League, Neighbors played eight seasons with the Patriots and Dolphins, and in the 1963 Pro Bowl.

Some of this post originated from "100 Things Crimson tide Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die," published by Triumph Books