In 1973, as in 2016, The Crimson White served The University of Alabama and ran in print on both Mondays and Thursdays – and that is about where the similarities stop. The 43-year time and culture gap is not only vast, but certainly apparent.
Advertisements
The 48-page issue from August 27, 1973, is littered with ads for bellbottom jeans, tweed blazers, platform shoes and other 70s style classics. There is also a large ad for Coca-Cola products – which would no longer fly at our Pepsi university – and one for a movie theater playing Slaughterhouse Five.
Perhaps one of the most shocking advertisements is the full-page Supe Store ad that is far different from their current marketing campaign. The ad features show girls with cleavage and legs galore blowing bubble gum and inviting students to the newly-located “Fergususon” Student Center Supply Store.
“No, it’s not like the Supply Store of the past. It’s the all-new supply store – the store that has it all!” reads the ad trying to get students thinking about more than just textbooks.
Housing News
One of the first stories of the edition focuses on reoccurring problems in housing. The report said rooms had broken furniture and doors, and that double rooms were assigned to three or four people.
“The most serious overcrowding this year occurred in Tutwiler Hall and the men’s side of Mary Burke Hall, as the University housing system worked to situate 120 extra women and 80 extra men,” the report said.
The problem was fixed in the following days, after Housing employees were able to assign students without rooms to rooms with no-shows.
The article reports that men could also be placed because there was an increase in available male rooms. This was because Paty Hall was reopened after being closed for a year and used by the State Department of Mental Health as a “community-type program for the mentally retarded.”
Entertainment
The entertainment section features a story about the arrival of Rod Stewart to the University for a concert in the Coliseum. It aims to convince people there is no reason to worry about the performance.
“… Despite the fact that Rod is consistently mentioned as a pacesetter among rock’s ‘deca-sexual elite’ the dude ain’t no pansy. Though flaunting really key garb, feather boas and the like, Stewart does not exactly cater to the bisexual cults. He’s a former professional football player from England, and is married to one of the more decidedly female-looking women on either side of the Atlantic. So those of you who worried that Stewart’s show would be just another fag-rock extravaganza, rest easy,” the culturally insensitive article says.
Sports
Much to the chagrin of disgruntled students who were unable to purchase football tickets for this season due to a shortage of tickets, students in 1973 had no such problem. For some of the games there were more tickets offered than there were students.
“15,669 tickets will be available for the three Tuscaloosa games … this represents a greater number of student tickets than students for these contests,” the article reads.
The article says that the Student Government Association believes that beyond those three games, there should be enough tickets for every student who wants to go. For games where there are more tickets than students, or for ones that simply don’t sell out, students had the option of buying those extra tickets and using them as guest tickets.
Tickets to the Tuscaloosa games were free of charge, ones in Birmingham’s Legion Field were $1, and out-of-state games were $7.
Greek Life
What would the first fall edition of The Crimson White be without a story on fall recruitment? A total of 635 women rushed in the fall of 1973, which is an impressive amount, but a far cry from the 2,683 women who rushed in 2016. Of those 635 women, 584 received bids from the 15 sororities on campus.
Be sure to come back every Thursday for more CW throwback moments!
