Until very recently, Alabama fans in Seattle never really inspired the sort of trash talk that, say, Oregon or Washington State fans might attract when strutting their school-spirit gear in public.
The Washington Huskies and Alabama Crimson Tide are not traditional rivals.
Throughout their illustrious football histories, the two teams have played each other only four times (Alabama leads the series 4-0) and haven’t met since 1986.
So, until recently, Alabama fans in Seattle never really inspired the sort of trash talk that, say, Oregon or Washington State fans might attract when strutting their school-spirit gear in public.
Saturday
Peach Bowl, CFP semifinal, No. 4 Washington vs. No. 1 Alabama, noon, ESPN
But as Seattle-based Alabama fans have realized in recent weeks, things are a bit different now that the hometown Huskies and the maddeningly perfect Crimson Tide are on a collision course toward a national-semifinal game in the Peach Bowl on Dec. 31.
As someone who got her law degree from UW, but her undergraduate degree from Alabama, Jessica Kuperberg has ties to both sides, but is rooting staunchly for Alabama.
“That’s my heart and soul,” Kuperberg said. “I think for a lot of people, their undergrad career defines their football alliances.”
It has been fun, however, to stoke the flames of a budding rivalry among the streets of Seattle, says Kuperberg, who’s the vice president of the Seattle chapter of the University of Alabama Alumni Association.
Kuperberg was at Pike Place the weekend of Dec. 10 when she spotted a stranger wearing an Alabama beanie.
Instinctively, she yelled, “Roll Tide!”
“Three people around me yelled, ‘Bow down,’ ” Kuperberg said, laughing. “The interesting thing in Seattle has been, until this point, it hasn’t meant anything to anyone here that I’m an Alabama fan.”
Marti McCaleb, president and founder of the local Alabama Alumni Association chapter, can relate.
The day bowl matchups were announced, McCaleb, who got both her undergraduate and masters degrees from Alabama, recalls being in the stands at CenturyLink Field watching the Seahawks destroy Carolina when her cellphone, wrapped in its Crimson Tide-themed protective case, was swiftly plucked from her hands.
“My heart dropped through my chest. This guy behind me, a Husky fan, reaches and grabs my phone and pantomimes dropping it down the stadium,” McCaleb said. “But he didn’t let go. Just pantomimed it. We ended up chatting and I ended up exchanging numbers with the people behind me and beside me.
“Now, I’m texting this group of Husky fans who are going to Atlanta with recommendations of things to do there.”
There are more Alabama fans in Seattle than most Husky fans might think, and, in line with the Crimson Tide’s football fortunes, that presence has grown exponentially in the past five years.
When McCaleb moved to Seattle for a job in 2011, she was surprised to find her new city did not have an Alabama alumni chapter.
So, she put out a message on Facebook asking Tide fans to gather for football games. Initially, the group barhopped because it couldn’t find a bar that would let them watch Alabama games on its televisions.
“We’d be at a bar with 25 TVs, and they’d have every one of them on the Husky game and refuse to change it for us,” McCaleb recalled. “It was very difficult finding somewhere that would let us watch the games.”
But during the 2012 football season, the group found a permanent home at the Belltown Pub on 1st Avenue.
“It was a boyfriend’s local bar,” McCaleb said. “He lived across the street. I was there regularly, I met the owner, they had a lot of TVs and were one of the few places who would turn on a TV for a non-Husky game.”
Establishing a home base helped tremendously. In the five years since McCaleb’s arrival in Seattle, the informal gathering of four Alabama fans she rallied has become officially recognized as an Alabama Alumni Association chapter, and McCaleb says there are at least 500 members in the Seattle area.
Nowadays, anywhere from 30 to 100 people come to their football-watching parties at the Belltown Pub, where Alabama decorations adorn the interior, and the Tide fans’ favorite server comes to work on football Saturdays wearing Alabama spirit gear.
“It feels like home,” said Kuperberg, who moved from Tuscaloosa, Ala., to Seattle in 2012 to begin law school at UW. “At a time when I moved to a new place and didn’t know anyone, it was great to get to spend time with people who understand why I like sweet tea, at a bar that would make Yellow Hammers for everyone.”
A Yellow Hammer, by the way, is a rum, vodka, pineapple juice and amaretto cocktail that was created by the storied Tuscaloosa dive bar, Gillette’s, and has become a tailgating staple for all Alabama fans.
Belltown Pub has recreated that signature drink for its Crimson Tide faithful, and its menu incudes a Big Al burger for Alabama fans. It also has customized menu items to cater to the other alumni groups such as Wisconsin and Purdue that consider the Belltown Pub their home in Seattle.
McCaleb says all the alumni groups share their space well, and there’s a collegial atmosphere on most football weekends.
“It’s a fun crowd,” McCaleb said. “It’s a longtime relationship now. We know them, they know us, and it’s easy to root for the other teams that go to that bar because we don’t have a conference rival in that bar.”
The Belltown Pub will hold the Peach Bowl watch party for the Seattle chapter of the Alabama Alumni Association, and McCaleb expects a large turnout.
But she won’t be there. She’s headed to Atlanta to take in the Peach Bowl in person.
“We’re sending a traveling contingent of about 20 people. We have tickets through the alumni association,” said McCaleb, an attorney. “I wouldn’t have gone this year if not for the uniqueness of the Alabama vs. Washington game. But it’s a fun rivalry in my office and it’ll be a fun story to be part of — my home team vs. my adopted hometown’s team.”