Thank you for everything.

Dear fellow Alabama classmates, alumni, friends, and fans, I would like to start off by saying that I appreciate each and every single one of you for signing, supporting, and spreading the word on this petition. It was never my intent for it to blow up like it did. I am just a senior that wanted my favorite Alabama gameday song reinstated before my fellow seniors and I graduated. For all of your signatures, messages of support, and encouragement I've been shown I can never repay y'all for helping me create the splash that this petition had. I also felt like I should put a spotlight on some things that I experienced during this journey with this petition. I am utterly disgusted with the leadership in the administration of this university. I have paid full tuition here for four years along with many of you who pay much more than my in-state and many of you alumni/fans who donate to the school post-grad. The administration has chosen to ignore the contributions we have all made to this school and did nothing but give all of us the silent treatment which I hope all of you perceive this for the slap in the face that it is. We received no answer after everything that we contribute to this school. I didn't receive any response from Dr. Stuart Bell, Bill Battle, or even students in the SGA who wouldn't help due to the fear of being ostracized by the people in the administration. This raises the question, does the administration care about the thoughts of the students and alumni or do they only care about the commas in their bank account? It would seem that as long as they get their money at the end of the day then that is all that matters. I repeatedly tried to contact President Bell and Bill Battle. The either chose not to take my call or blatantly ignored all of my attempted correspondence. Athletic Director Battle is a harder person to get in contact with than the President of our university. What does that say to me? It says that as long as people are on the field in crimson jerseys making hundreds of millions dollars for the school and the booster money keeps rolling in they don't care about what the regular people think. I don't think I have ever experienced this type of disrespect from something I love and cherish as much as the University of Alabama and the athletic department. A simple yes or no answer with a detailed explanation as to why it wasn't played would have sufficed but instead they chose to give us radio silence. This is unacceptable and I hope you will all help me hold them accountable. This goes farther than five minute and twenty-two second song. This is about them not caring about what the people think. The very people who keep this school running. I would also like to mention something to everyone at the game that sat near the band this past weekend. Did you notice during the break between the 3rd quarter going into the 4th after they played Basket Case by Green Day which then is followed by the usual time slot for DD that after we started to sing it a capella that the band blatantly started playing in two different instances to cover up our singing? I know that someone would have had to tell them to do that. I strongly encourage all of you to call President Bell (205-348-5103) or email (President@ua.edu) and let him know what you think as well as Bill Battle (wrbattle@bama.ua.edu) (205-348-3600). This is how we enact change by letting them know en masse how feel about this gross encroachment of our traditions. Thank y'all so much for everything. Together we can right this wrong. It has been my pleasure being your classmate and I hope that the underclassmen continue to fight to bring back this awesome tradition. In the words of the great Winston Churchill, “This is not the end, this is not even the beginning of the end, this is just perhaps the end of the beginning.” Roll Tide, Jon Adams