The University of Alabama's Response to Collier's Magazine

On Jan. 4, 1941 Collier's magazine published an expose of the Alabama football program titled, "How to Keep Football Stars in College." The article was penned by a University of Alabama alumnus, William Bradford Huie, who claimed to have worked in the school's athletic department and witnessed firsthand many of the incidents he reported.

The Collier's story alleged the university used local high schools as a recruiting pool and when athletes arrived on campus they would be put in "sham" courses to maintain eligibility. Once the athletes were no longer able to play they were discarded, physically crippled and educationally bereft.

On Feb. 15 a report prepared by a University of Alabama faculty committee examining the allegations in the Huie article was released. The 14-page report broke down almost every detail of the story published by Collier's and concluded it was an almost complete fabrication. Moreover, the committee found that Huie had used unethical methods of reporting the article, deceiving the subjects of his intent to write a hit piece on the Crimson Tide program.

"The findings of the committee constitute an absolute and complete repudiation of Mr. Huie's claims and charges. These findings properly brand them as wholly false," wrote UA President Richard Foster in the report's introduction.

Collier's sent associate editor Kyle Crichton to Tuscaloosa to meet with university officials and investigate the charges against the magazine and its author. In the face of such overwhelming evidence Collier's published a full retraction of Huie's article and an apology to the university in its April 5, 1941 issue.

Freddie Russell, the sports editor of the Nashville Banner and Ed Danforth, the sports editor of the Atlanta Journal, interviewed Huie in Cullman, Alabama soon after the Collier's story was debunked. They reported that Huie confessed he had fabricated the tale in order to sell it to the magazine.

"They like to buy any stories that picture Southerns as illiterate or stupid," Huie said. "Look at 'Tobacco Road.' Then there would be no market for a story telling what fine manhood football at Alabama built. If there had been a market, I could have written one on that idea."

The full report issued by the University of Alabama's faculty committee on the matter can be found after the jump.

William Bradford Huie's "How To Keep Football Stars in College"

On Jan. 4, 1941 William Bradford Huie's first story in a major magazine was published and it immediately set off a firestorm of criticism. The University of Alabama graduate's piece in Collier's: The National Weekly magazine, "How to Keep Football Stars in College," accused the Crimson Tide football program of a litany of abuses.

Using a lively and colorful manner that became his hallmark, Huie alleged Alabama engaged in a regular practice of paying players,  used local high schools to process ineligible players from out-of-state and a relentless purging of players who were unable to perform on the football field. Huie even claimed to have been hired by the school as a tutor charged with keeping academically inept athletes qualified scholastically so they could play.

"I guess I'm trying to kid myself into believing there is more good than bad in the collegiate football system," he wrote.

A university faculty committee issued an exhaustive report a month later finding all the accusations in the article baseless. Three months later, Collier's retracted the story and offered apology to the school for publishing it:

Huie would go onto a long and distinguished career as a muckraking journalist, screenwriter and author, including numerous groundbreaking works on the civil rights movement. He was inducted into the University of Alabama's College of Communication and Information Sciences Hall of Fame in 1998.