Carson Tinker’s new book, “A Season to Remember,” wasn’t easy for him to write, going back through the afternoon of April 27, 2011, and how that EF-4 tornado ripped through his house and livelihood. But it was necessary for the readers, he said.
“It was definitely hard,” Tinker said. “It was something at first I didn’t know if I really wanted to do or not, but then I realized it was an opportunity to help people. Going back through everything and reliving some of the stuff was definitely hard, but it was something I knew I had to put in there.”
The book – which was co-written by Tommy Ford and features a foreword by Nick Saban, his coach at Alabama from 2008-12 – focuses not only on the tornado outbreak but his rise from those circumstances.
Fifty-three people were killed by the tornado in Tuscaloosa. One of them was Ashley Harrison, Tinker’s girlfriend. He himself was thrown 75 yards into a field, which was open save for the crude debris strewn about by the storm’s violent winds.
(See also “Ashley Harrison“)
Tinker said that sometime in the 2011 season, the idea was presented to him about putting his experience on paper.
“It was kind of an opportunity that just presented itself,” he said. “Before we finished the 2011 season, I didn’t even know if I wanted to write it. I never thought I’d be an author or anything like that. I just realized it was an opportunity for me to help people. I felt God had given me a platform to do that, so I really wanted to take advantage of it.”
Tinker said it took him around six months to nail down the idea for the book, which carries a different theme for each chapter. It then took around a year and a half of weekly meetings between him and Ford to complete.
(See also “Tinker faces NFL training camp, publication“)
“Tommy did a great job of taking these pretty much random thoughts and putting them together and making them make sense,” Tinker said.
As per the title, the book is about more than just Tinker’s loss and hardships suffered that April. It also extensively covers the Crimson Tide’s 2011 championship season, a season that earned Tinker an athletic scholarship for his senior year.
“I wanted people to realize the darkest hour of my life and how God used that for good,” he said. “It was hard to write that, but at the same time it was kind of therapeutic to go back, because I thought I had learned everything, but when I went back through and talked about all the stuff I had learned, it was really therapeutic to reflect on everything.”
Since the book was released, Tinker has done the rounds on sports media and even made an appearance in Tuscaloosa during A-Day weekend to sign copies before and after the game.
(See also “Carson Tinker: a symbol of hope“)
“People are tweeting at me now, speaking up to me saying that it really helped them with what they were going through. I just think that being able to help people with what they have going on is really cool, and that’s the reason I wanted to write the book so it’s really neat,” Tinker said.
His new teammates in Jacksonville, Fla., where he plays for the NFL’s Jaguars, are due 50 copies too, he said.
“My mantra since the tornado has been that people ask for blessings, but I want to be a blessing,” he said.
