EDITOR’S NOTE: Every day until Aug. 29, Creg Stephenson is counting down significant numbers in Alabama football history, both in the lead-up to the 2025 football season and in commemoration of the Crimson Tide’s first national championship 100 years ago. The number could be attached to a year, a uniform number or even a football-specific statistic. We hope you enjoy.
Rare is the man who is able to achieve Hall-of-Fame status in football, both on and off the field.
Steve Spurrier is one, a Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback and national championship coach at Florida. Mike Ditka is another, a Hall-of-Fame tight end at Pittsburgh and with the Chicago Bears who later won a Super Bowl as coach of the Bears.
And then there is Ozzie Newsome, who has achieved Hall-of-Fame worthiness on three levels. He was an All-America split end under coach Paul “Bear” Bryant at Alabama in the late 1970s, playing on three SEC championship teams and narrowly missing a national title as a senior in 1977.
Despite playing in a wishbone offense that rarely threw the ball more than 10 times per game, Newcome totaled 102 receptions, 2,070 yards and 16 receiving touchdowns — averaging a whopping 20.3 yards per catch — in his Alabama career. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1994.
Newsome — who wore No. 82 — then spent 13 seasons as a tight end with the NFL’s Cleveland Browns, retiring as the league’s all-time leader in receptions and yards at the position. A six-time All-Pro and three-time Pro Bowler, he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1999.
In the last 30 years, however, the now 69-year-old Newsome has arguably become more accomplished and respected after moving into an executive role. First with Cleveland and then with the Baltimore Ravens after the franchise changed cities in 1996, he has served as a scout, director of pro personnel, general manager and executive vice-president.
Newsome helped build two Super Bowl winners in Baltimore, scouting and drafting such stars (and Hall-of-Famers or future Hall-of-Famers) as Jonathan Ogden, Ray Lewis, Ed Reed, Marshal Yanda, Terrell Suggs and Haloti Ngata. Ogden and Lewis were both selected in the first round of the 1996 draft, Newsome’s first running the personnel department in Baltimore.
People can be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame only once, so Newsome isn’t eligible to receiver a second gold jacket and bust in Canton for his work as an NFL executive. However, it’s likely that had he never played a down of football in the league, his front-office tenure would merit induction.
Newsome’s senior Alabama season of 1977 ended in controversy, after the third-ranked Crimson Tide crushed Ohio State 35-6 in the Sugar Bowl to finish 11-1. However, fifth-ranked Notre Dame vaulted to No. 1 in the final polls after routing top-ranked Texas in the Cotton Bowl (No. 2 Oklahoma and No. 4 Michigan also lost that day).
“There was a lot of bitterness, a lot of hurt that that happened,” Newsome recalled in a 2021 interview. “But it was out of our control. At that point, in our minds there was no doubt that we were the best team in the nation that year. … (Alabama) won the back-to-back national championships in 1978 and 1979, so that ’77 team was the impetus. It should have been three straight national championships, but it ended up being two.
“I did not get the national championship that I went there to get, but a lot of victories, three SEC championships, four bowl games. I learned under Coach Bryant how to be a man, how to be a good football player. All of those lessons I learned there have helped me throughout my playing career and my career as a GM.”
Over the years, Newsome’s name has come up as a possible candidate to be Alabama’s athletics director when that position has become open. Newsome has always dismissed such talk, and said only once did he ever seriously consider returning to Tuscaloosa.
That was in 1990, when Gene Stallings was hired as Alabama’s head coach. He offered Newsome the position of wide receivers coach, but Newsome elected to play one more year with the Browns before retiring.
“That was the only time in any official capacity that I’ve entertained the opportunity to come back to the University,” Newsome said in 2021. “I know it was always talked about, but in having discussion with (Alabama athletics directors) Bill Battle and Greg Byrne, they say they go to bed worrying about what (several) hundred athletes are doing. It’s one thing when you’ve got 53 athletes (in the NFL), but they’re talking about hundreds. That has never been something that I have ever sought after. I’m more of a hands-in-the-dirt guy. It was never a consideration for me.”
Instead, Alabama fans will have to settle for Newsome enhancing and spreading the good name of his alma mater from afar.
Coming Tuesday, our countdown to kickoff continues with No. 81, a milestone win for a legendary coach
