We Want Bama

A Season of Hope and the Making of Nick Saban's "Ultimate Team"

By: Joseph Goodman

Narrated by: Adam Verner

A lively chronicle of how the 2020 Crimson Tide became Nick Saban’s “ultimate team”.

Was Alabama’s Crimson Tide in 2020 the greatest team of all time? The squad went 13-0 in a pandemic year, scored a combined 107 points against SEC powerhouses LSU and Florida, crushed Ohio State in a National Championship Game 52-24 in a contest that wasn’t even that close, and followed it up with another top-rated signing class.

Nick Saban called his boys the “ultimate team,” but it wasn’t just because they kicked the ever-living hell out of everyone on the football field. It was because the team leveraged a power and influence born of Southern pride to push back against a hateful legacy of racism that a populist president was exploiting to divide the nation. At a time when Americans needed real leaders in the face of so much hate, the sports world answered the call and fought back for the soul of the country.

In the summer of 2020, the Tide players left their training facility and, led by their celebrated coach, marched to a campus doorway made infamous 60years earlier by another political demagogue and showed what people can accomplish when they fight together for a just cause in the name of unity. The most powerful force in a state crazy for college football had chosen to make a stand and replace George Wallace’s “Segregation forever!” with a different message, written by one of the players: “All lives can’t matter until Black lives matter.”

There have been some great football teams through the years, and they all deserve respect. But here’s what we know for sure: They all would have been appreciative of what this Alabama team represented, and proud of what it accomplished. The Crimson Tide in 2020 captured something special that moved it beyond the conversation of best ever, and into the place reserved for most important of all time.

©2021 Joseph Goodman (P)2021 Grand Central Publishing

Critic reviews

"Alabama football might be a larger unifying force than Jesus in some parts of the south. For three hours on a Saturday the state stops spinning. Joseph flawlessly dissects the people and the catalysts for this phenomenon and flawlessly walks us through the one thing that unifies every fall in Alabama. Win or lose, football is religion. On Sundays we pray to Jesus, on Saturdays it's Nick Saban." (Roy Wood Jr., The Daily Show with Trevor Noah)

"Joseph Goodman on Alabama's best season ever - and all that went with it - is exactly what I'd expect from him. It's smart, it's funny, and it's a bit out there. If you're an Alabama fan, a college football fan, or someone who wants to enjoy an unconventional approach to a sports book, you'll love this." (Pat Forde, national college football columnist for Sports Illustrated)

"We Want Bama isn’t just a story about a great college football team - this is also Joe Goodman’s love song to the state of Alabama: its flaws, its charms, and its wonders. With an unflinching, biting, and humorous style, Goodman shares the economic, political, social, and historical factors that converged for the Crimson Tide to thrive through an unforgiving and unforgettable 2020 season. A must-read for every college football fan - but especially Alabama lovers and haters - who wants to understand what’s required for excellence." (Michael Lee, The Washington Post)

political hyperbole

I thought I wanted to listen to a book about Alabama football. Instead, the author tricks you with the title and description and then berates Alabama as a whole. This book is clearly an attempt at getting his socialist, democratic, anti-Alabama ideology a place to be read or heard. This loser of what is called an author here should be criminally charged for bastardizing Alabama football in the name of communism. I want my credit back!!!
Absolute horse shit!

Awful!

Early on, the author insults ordinary Alabamians, effecting a condescending, superior tone, implying over and over that we are primitive and racist. As the book proceeds, his scorn doesn't stop.
Mr. Goodman has a gift for the kind of enjoyable, breezy, glib writing style that is now scarce in sports writing, and it shows, with good effect. That stuff is fun to read. But then who wants to read a piece that slaps them every third paragraph?
This guy is an Alabama native, and he formed his career in the community of journalists who admire the snobby elites who know what's best for the rest of us. I believe he wants them to see his disdain for ordinary folks.
He sprinkles gross vulgarities into his writing. What style calls for that?
NARRATION: I feel a need to under-rate the narrator, who is excellent, and who deserves five stars.

Oh! There's VERY LITTLE FOOTBALL in here.

We Want...Our Money Back

How do you go about getting a refund if you only listened to 25 minutes? This book should be in the politics section, not sports. I should have read the other reviews prior to considering this title. Definitely felt like a bait and switch. Many other books much more focused on the athletic endeavors of college football that would be better than this thinly veiled SJW screed. Very dissatisfied.

Major disappointment

Not about football, actually a racist rant directed at the State of Alabama and Donald Trump.

Not about football

I thought this book would be about football. It was about social Justice and politics. It was laced with unnecessary profanity. I was very disappointed.