QB CLUB: Former Tide star Shealy speaks on obstacles, faith, injuries during successful journey
Former Alabama quarterback spoke to the River Region Quarterback Club on Tuesday. (Tim Gayle)
By TIM GAYLE
Former University of Alabama quarterback Steadman Shealy was the featured speaker at Tuesday’s River Region Quarterback Club meeting, mixing in a religious theme as he recounted his days with the Crimson Tide in the late 1970s.
The former Dothan High standout remains one of the most overlooked quarterbacks in Crimson Tide history, leading the team to a 12-0 record and the national championship in his only year as a starter (1979) while finishing 10th in Heisman Trophy voting.
To get there, Shealy endured a lot of obstacles, starting with his own path to Tuscaloosa.
“When I was in high school, I was being recruited by Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Mississippi State,” Shealy told the Quarterback Club members. “That summer, I had gone to a football camp at Mississippi State and gotten to know all the coaches. They seemed to like me. That’s where I was leaning.
“Alabama had signed the top five quarterbacks in the state the year before and everybody told me if you go to Alabama, you’ll never play.”
Shealy said prayer would help make his decision.
“I don’t know if you’ve ever had a situation where you’re in conflict,” Shealy said. “I wanted to go to Mississippi State. But God wanted me to go to Alabama. But I didn’t want to listen to God. It just didn’t look like the best deal. But thank the Lord, I went to Alabama.”
In his second day on campus, coach Paul “Bear” Bryant moved him to free safety. He had played almost exclusively at quarterback throughout his career, but thought he had made the transition to defense a seamless one.
“I’m pretty good,” Shealy said. “In shorts.”
In his first day in pads, he was introduced to fullback Johnny Davis.
“As he ran over me and went on to the end zone, literally they carried me off the field,” Shealy said in recounting a conversation he had with his parents. “I was going to come home and play baseball at Wallace (Community College).”
He later went to look up his name on the printed list at Memorial Coliseum to discover his position and place on the depth chart “hand written with the quarterbacks. I went from No. 2 free safety to No. 9 quarterback in one week. And they were all scholarship.”
By the spring of his sophomore year, he had worked his way up to fourth string behind starter Jack O’Rear and backup Jeff Rutledge. When O’Rear went down with a season-ending knee injury, he was third and rushed for 279 yards on 58 carries in the wishbone that fall.
Soon, however, he would suffer the same fate as O’Rear, suffering a knee injury that would threaten his career. He would lose 30 pounds after the surgery and subsequent staph infection but returned to the practice field in five weeks, missing only the opening game against Nebraska.
“I felt like something big was going to happen,” Shealy said, “and I felt like the Lord wanted me to be a part of it.”
He took the field that day in Columbia, Mo., despite the objections of his position coach, Mal Moore.
“Coach Bryant goes, ‘Mal, I’m going to put Steadman in,’” Shealy recalled. “I’m standing right there and he goes, ‘Coach, you don’t want to do that.’ This is your coach saying that.”
The 1978 media guide notes that “if he comes back from the knee operation (he) may be super.” As the backup to Rutledge, he helped the Crimson Tide to an 11-1 record and the 1978 national championship, rushing for 323 yards and four touchdowns.
The following season, he rushed for a team-high 791 yards and passed for 717 more, including a 190-yard rushing perforamnce against Mississippi State. He is best remembered for his 8-yard run in the final moments of a 25-18 win over Auburn and a Sugar Bowl win over Arkansas capped a 12-0 season.
In three years, Shealy helped the Tide compile a 34-2 record, never losing a Southeastern Conference game. He went on to become a graduate assistant coach under Bryant in 1982 and replaced Charlie Thornton as Bryant’s sidekick on The Bear Bryant Show that season, Bryant’s last.
“God has a plan for all of us,” Shealy said. “It doesn’t matter where you are, how old you are, how young you are, it doesn’t matter. God wants to be a part of all of it because He has a plan for us. And I think all the time, what would have happened if I had done what I wanted to do, which is go to Mississippi State?”