University of Alabama football's million dollar band in accident

photo by bradimarteat sxc.hu

According the AP in Atlanta, the University of Alabama’s band has been involved in a traffic accident. The fourty-seven band members were not injured. The driver of the car was injured.

The Georgia State Patrol says the bus hit the car at an intersection. The Alabama bus was heading to the Superdome in Atlanta for a ball game.

Gordy Wright, a spokesman for the Georgia Patrol said only the man in the car was hurt when the last in a line of buses "t-boned" his car. Reportedly, none of the 47 band members on the bus were hurt.

The Crimson Tide was in town to play its football season opener against Virginia Tech Saturday evening.

Wright said the bus driver said his bus had gotten separated from the seven university buses ahead and the light was still yellow when he pulled into the intersection. The car driver said he had a green light when he pulled in front of the bus. No one was charged.

The Million Dollar Band began in 1913 with only 14 members. In 1917 it was a military band led by students until 1927. The name was bestrode on the band in 1922 by WC “Champ” Pickens. According to the band's website:

Accounts of how the name evolved vary. In the 1948 Alabama football media guide, it was described this way:

"At the time the band was named (1922), it was having a hard struggle. The only way they could get to Georgia Tech for a game was by soliciting funds from the merchants. They usually had to ride all night in a day coach, and we thought it was swell when we finally got a tourist sleeper and put two to a lower and two to an upper berth."

Thus, because of the band's fund raising prowess, Pickens called it the "Million Dollar Band." During that same Georgia Tech game in 1922 (won 33-7 by the Tech Yellow Jackets), an Atlanta sportswriter commented to Pickens, "You don't have much of a team; what do you have at Alabama?" Pickens replied, "A Million Dollar Band."