As thunderstorms rolled into the Tuscaloosa area one August afternoon in 2007 with Nick Saban just a few days into his first preseason practice as Alabama’s coach, Jeff Allen alerted his boss that the team needed to move to the indoor facility.
Allen had only been on the job as Alabama’s head athletic trainer for a little more than two months and didn’t fully grasp at the time the totality of his job, or more specifically, his jobs.
Within minutes of the team moving indoors, the skies cleared, the sun emerged, and Allen looked at the radar to see that there were only a few showers to the east.
“Coach, it looks great now. We don’t have a lightning warning anymore. Let’s go back out,” Allen told Saban.
So the team moved back outside onto the practice field, with Saban and Allen walking out together, when a lightning bolt came crashing down right over top of Coleman Coliseum, the Alabama basketball arena located a few hundred yards from the practice field.
Saban looked (actually screamed) at Allen: “I sure as hell hope you’re a better trainer than you are a weatherman.”
It was a dubious beginning to an enduring relationship that remains at the core of a college football dynasty that has a chance to further cement its place among the most renowned dynasties in any sport Monday night when Alabama faces Georgia in the College Football Playoff National Championship Presented by AT&T (8 p.m. ET, ESPN/ESPN App).
Allen, 50, has been there every step of the way for the Crimson Tide’s six national championships under Saban and has been a little bit of everything during his time in Tuscaloosa, including hanging onto his job as the Crimson Tide’s de facto weatherman.
“Jeff is the secret recipe of how everything works here,” Alabama junior nose guard DJ Dale said.
Indeed, he’s been an award-winning trainer, accomplished enough that Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, a former Tide star who battled through his share of injuries in college, calls Allen “pretty much a legend at…
Source : espn
