The Alabama football team has made numerous contributions in the recovery efforts of Tuscaloosa in the aftermath of the April 27 tornado.

Immediately following the tornado, many of the football players volunteered throughout the community to help those affected by the storm. Marcell Dareus, a day after he was chosen as the third overall pick in the NFL Draft, visited Tuscaloosa to survey the city and make a donation.

Brothers Harrison and Barrett Jones volunteered around the community in the immediate aftermath of the tornado alongside Brandon Gibson and John Fulton. Numerous other players made countless similar contributions in the months after the tornado. Alabama head coach Nick Saban and his wife Terry have also made many personal contributions, including getting involved in many community outreach programs, as well as helping through fundraisers and giving back through Nick’s Kids. In the weeks following the tornado, the athletic department made an initial donation of $1 million to the UA Acts of Kindness Fund, which was established by the University to assist students, faculty and staff who were impacted by the April 27 tornado. But, perhaps one of the most significant contributions the football team was able to make came almost eight months later, in January, when the football team beat the LSU Tigers 21-0 en route to win its 14th national championship and second under Nick Saban in three years. “There’s no question there’s still a lot of people that have a lot to overcome in terms of what they lost,” Saban said after the 2012 A-Day Game. “And our efforts continue to try to support those people. I think what our team accomplished, at least psychologically, probably benefited in a way that it made a lot of people happy.” After the national championship game, senior defensive lineman Josh Chapman said the team played with the express intent of winning for the city of Tuscaloosa. “It’s not just for us, it’s for the entire state, the organization and the city of Tuscaloosa,” Chapman said. “This is something for the people in Tuscaloosa to feed off of and hang their hats on.”

Trent Richardson shared Chapman’s sentiments after the game. “A lot of people were affected by the tornado, and we just wanted to put the city on our back and let them know we cared,” Richardson said. Joshua McCoy, a Tuscaloosa native and a sophomore majoring in theater at Alabama, said he believes the football team has made a huge impact in the city by winning the national championship. McCoy lives in Windsong, a neighborhood the April 27 tornado spared. Still, McCoy said he knew people who were greatly affected by the tornado, and has seen improvement from people as time has passed. McCoy said he believes the football team played a direct part in that improvement. “After the tornado the city was at a loss,” McCoy said. “They didn’t have any direction, they weren’t sure where to go. It was just so much happening all at once. And for the football season being one of the biggest moments of the year for Tuscaloosa, it kind of brought everybody together, not just to celebrate the team, but to celebrate the fact that we’ve been through this, and we’re taking it, and we’re using it to make us stronger.” Mike Burger is one of those people. A resident of Skyland Park and former special education teacher at University Place Elementary School, Burger’s house was damaged during the April 15 tornado last year. He also saw the effects of the April 27 tornado when his former school was laid to waste. “The school that I worked at for 29 years, University Place Elementary School, was 60 percent destroyed by the tornado,” Burger said. “And, one of the tasks that the teachers had was to bring normalcy back to the students whose lives were disrupted.” Burger said amid all the recovery efforts Tuscaloosa is still going through, the fact that the football team won another championship meant a lot for him. “Oh, it’s just cool,” Burger said. “It brings back some normalcy. And I think that getting back to the football season and things going on here on campus, and the guys actually working out in the community is important and helped restore some normalcy to the community.”

Saban said he wants his team to continue having a role in helping the community recover, at least from a psychological standpoint. “We certainly want to play our game in a way that everybody can have pride in the way we do that,” Saban said. “And if that is helpful to healing our community, that’s certainly a way that we’d like to be responsible to help it and continue to do it on a personal, day-to-day level as well.” Still, Saban said that only through time will the city completely recover. “I think that as time goes on, every time there’s a football game, every time there’s a graduation, every time we have an A-Day, it brings us closer and closer to being normal,” Saban said. “At least for how people approach their life.”