In just over a week, it will be the 10-year anniversary of the 2011 tornado that tore through Tuscaloosa. It destroyed the city, took lives and left a community in distress.
ESPN’s Alex Scarbrough details what that day was like for Alabama football head coach Nick Saban, as well as his relief efforts after the storm settled.
A large portion of the city was destroyed and numerous lives were lost. There were community members who wanted to help, but were unsure how to. Saban then stepped up to be the much-needed leader.
“They headed for a relief effort at the Ferguson Student Center only to find more than 100 people looking at one another, lost. There was a leadership vacuum. Saban felt a familiar tug. ‘People need direction,’ he recalled a decade later.
“Saban climbed on top of a bench and began speaking. When something bad happens, he told the crowd, it’s an opportunity ‘for all of us to pitch in and help and do everything we can.'”
The full story by Scarbrough explains what the Saban family did for the community and details the long-lasting impact they have had on the city of Tuscaloosa.