Norrell settling in as new bowl executive director
Clay Norrell took over as the new executive director of the IS4S Salute To Veterans Bowl after the passing of Johnny Williams. (File Photo)
By TIM GAYLE
It’s been a little more than two months since Clay Norrell was named the executive director of the IS4S Salute to Veterans Bowl but it’s difficult to spot any changes as bowl officials prepare for the 12th annual game in December.
“It’s business as usual for us,” Norrell said. “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it. We want to keep doing the things that we do really well and we want to improve on some things, always, and get better. And then there are some things we may want to tweak, like community engagement.”
Norrell, who played football at Tuscaloosa County High before enrolling at Troy University, interned with the bowl in 2017 and 2018 before graduating with a business management degree from Troy.
“I interned with them the first two years and just kept in touch and moved up here in 2019,” he said. “I just wanted to come up here and work for free. I want to help, see behind the scenes, get the experience. Then (assistant executive director) Will Pope took another job and I guess they saw something in me.
“I’ve been here six and a half years now and it’s crazy to think that (I’ll be in charge). In 2019, 2025 is a long time away. I don’t know if I ever thought I would go this far.”
The bowl was the brainchild of Johnny Williams, who took a college all-star football game in 2013 and attracted the attention of ESPN executives. ESPN launched the Camellia Bowl and Williams’ business, Creative Marketing Management, oversaw the operation of the bowl game with Williams serving as the executive director of the bowl game.
Williams’ ability to “get things done” helped Norrell transform into the director.
“Knowing things had to get done, he had that knack,” he said.. “He was so good to me and he is sorely missed. I thought he was someone larger than life. He had so much experience. He added to this community and I appreciated his work.”
Williams passed away in early February after a year-long bout with cancer, but his wife Robin continues to operate Creative Marketing Management and ESPN officials elected to keep operating the bowl game with Norrell, Williams’ former assistant, in charge of the game.
“It’s not broken,” Williams said. “I don’t see any reason to change. We’ve got a well-oiled machine that’s working.”
The group also oversees the FCS Kickoff, the first college football game of the season, the Red Tails Classic, an HBCU event on Labor Day weekend, and the college bowl game, which was rebranded in 2024 with its new sponsor, IS4S. All three games are played at Cramton Bowl.
The bowl will kick off the 2025 season with its annual free football clinic for participants ages 7-12 at Cramton Bowl on Wednesday morning. Huntingdon College coach Mike Turk and his staff will oversee the clinic, which provides a free lunch to participants at the end of the clinic.
The FCS Kickoff luncheon will be held at the RSA Activity Center in late July, featuring coaches from the FCS Kickoff and the Red Tails Classic. The FCS Kickoff featuring Mercer and UC Davis will be played on Aug. 23 at 6 p.m., while the Red Tails Classic featuring Tuskegee and Winston Salem State will be played on Aug. 31 at 6 p.m.
All three events will be televised by ESPN, “which is unheard of, especially for a community our size,” Norrell noted.
“We want to get more involved, more engaged with the community. We’ve always done the traditional advertising. With our bowl game last year, we spent the most we’ve ever spent on advertising. I want to do different things this year, with the veterans’ care packages or even better things.”
But even with additional advertising, the IS4S Salute to Veterans Bowl has struggled to maintain attendance. Last year, even the addition of South Alabama as one of the participants didn’t boost attendance.
“Game time has a lot to do with that,” Norrell said. “Especially with them being just three hours away, an 8 p.m. kickoff kills all your day-trip folks. Even if it had been at 6 p.m., they’d feel like they could get back at 1 a.m. or 2 a.m.”
The first four bowl games drew more than 20,000 fans, but a lack of attendance from local football fans has resulted in a steady decline that has robbed the game of nearly half its fans.
“I don’t know if a lot of locals are buying tickets,” Norrell said. “I don’t know if it’s just lost that pizzazz or people have lost interest. It’s just something we need to step up and be more involved in the community and have more community engagement.”
Local sponsors still provide valuable support to the game, he added, but individual ticket sales have continued to decline.
“A lot of our sponsorship packages with our local businesses, we’ve built in a lot of tickets for them to give to their employees or to give back to us to donate to charity,” Norrell said. “We work closely with the YMCA Boys Club and Girls Club and have always worked closely with the military, but especially now.
“We’ve got a pretty strong following locally with Regions Bank, Alabama Power and Coke has been a great supporter. WSFA has been a great supporter, promoting our events. A lot of them have been involved since day one. We’re very appreciative of that.”
It’s a fine line that bowl officials walk, balancing strong support from sponsors while trying to encourage non-sponsors in the community to increase their support of the games each year.
“We know we’re not going to sugar coat it when (participating teams) hear they were picked to go to Montgomery,” Norrell said. “But when they get here, they go ‘wow.’ Our big thing is Southern hospitality.
“We’ve had ESPN people tell us they’re in Boca, they’re in Dallas-Fort Worth, they’re in Vegas, they’re in Hawaii, they’re in Boise. There’s no better community than Montgomery that civicli buys in.”
In 2022, the bowl suffered a huge public relations hit when officials struggled with admissions, particularly in the East stands with Georgia Southern fans. The postseason rating for the Camellia Bowl was less than 3.5 (out of a possible 5.0 rating). This past year, the bowl received a rating of 4.7.
“We had kind of gotten stagnant and after that year it was a huge wakeup call,” Norrell said. “Getting our city partners involved and communicating with them more -- the county, the chamber -- it’s been fantastic since then. Our survey results (last year) from the two teams were probably the highest they’ve been in six or seven years.”
Now, working with IS4S, a Huntsville-based defense contractor, Norrell and Williams want to target veterans in their community outreach. Last year, the Salute to Veterans Bowl distributed more than 2,000 free tickets to veterans and military personnel and during the offseason they put together care packages for local veterans. Still, they know community involvement is crucial to increasing the game’s visibility.
“Helping our locals see the great experience that our teams are having, we’re trying to replicate that experience for them,” Norrell said. “We’ve got to figure out a better way to do that.”