Death Threats Follow Selection of Curry

The president of the University of Alabama said Monday he has received some death threats over the choice of a new football coach.

“It gives you some sense of the insanity that exists at certain levels of intercollegiate sports,” said Joab Thomas, who on Sunday had introduced Bill Curry as the successor to Ray Perkins.

Thomas had said that if Crimson Tide people “will give this man the chance, they’ll understand just what a good choice we made.”

The people who are unhappy about Curry apparently based their feeling on his record at Georgia Tech (31-43-4) and his lack of any Alabama background.

Thomas said at least eight candidates for Perkins’ job had support among Alabama fans.

“I expected a negative response no matter who we would have selected,” he said. “However, the response was a little more negative and a little more irrational than I expected. The kinds of things said to my children on the telephone they shouldn’t have to hear.”

Perkins, who also was Alabama’s athletic director, was hired last week to coach the Tampa Bay Buccaneers of the National Football League.

Thomas divided the two jobs. A former Alabama quarterback and the coach at Duke, Steve Sloan, is the new athletic director.

Thomas, who has supported increased emphasis on academics and integrity in college athletics, said Alabama made a “statement” in picking Curry, but that he expects Curry to maintain Alabama’s winning tradition.

“I want to win,” the university president said. “By God, I can’t stand to lose. I’m one of the poorest losers in the world.

“If I had any thoughts that we would not have a winning program, we would have made a different choice.”

Curry, a former player at Georgia Tech and in the NFL, is the first non-Alabama graduate to be the Tide coach since Red Drew in 1953.