Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne returned to Tucson Saturday to watch the Crimson Tide take on Arizona. Byrne strolled the McKale Center hallways, soaking in his former place of work, and it was as if nothing changed.
Except, maybe, for the bright red pants.
Byrne shook hands and talked with fans, boosters and McKale Center employees.
“Tucson’s a great place and we still have a lot of great friends here and wonderful memories,” Byrne said.
Alabama is one of the perennial powers in college football — the Crimson Tide are part of the College Football playoff — but Byrne remembers his roots. He said he caught Arizona games after work all season.
“One of the nice things about being in the Central time zone is I get home from the (Alabama) games and watch Arizona kick off. I bet you I watched about nine or 10 of the games, even some of the road trips where we got home in time to watch a little Pac-12 after dark,” Byrne said. “A couple nights, it was so hard to stay awake, because the games were so dang late.”
Saturday’s game between the Cats and the Crimson Tide marked the first time this season that two schools involved in the ongoing federal investigation into college basketball corruption played against each other. Alabama performed an internal investigation of the program and assistant coach Kobie Baker was forced to resign. UA assistant Book Richardson remains on paid leave as he faces federal charges.
Byrne said he’s “limited” in what he could say but is taking the investigation seriously.
“Obviously, you’re talking about the integrity of the sport and it’s something that you take very seriously. … I know here at Arizona and at Alabama as well, we take it very seriously and we have to,” he said.
Here's the full interview from The Wildcaster Facebook page:
