A Historic Day for Alabama Sports: Roll Call, May 26, 2024

Alabama men’s tennis’ No. 29-ranked Filip Planinsek took down Columbia’s No. 23-ranked Michael Zheng in three sets of the NCAA Singles Championship to claim the first title in Crimson Tide history.

“I mean, just all that thanks to the coaches, the staff, Katie (Wheeler – athletic trainer), just amazing,” Planinsek said after the match. “I mean, I can’t thank them enough. My family, I’m just thrilled.”

Nevertheless, this was a hard-fought victory, as Planinsek started on the wrong side of the scoreboard. Planinsek opened the first set with a 5-3 lead, but Zheng came back to win 7-6 after a 7-4 tiebreaker.

“I just felt that I can win the next two sets,” Planinsek said when asked about dropping the opening set in a tiebreaker. “I was confident of that, and I broke quite early in the second set and then momentum started building. I started building my game. I started being more aggressive.”

Alabama head coach George Husack couldn’t have been more proud of Planinsek as he took a moment before answering a question about the national champion during the post-match press conference.

“So incredibly proud of and happy for Filip,” Husack said. “What a week and one that he took ownership of the minute we returned from Duke. He created his own plan for the coaches and support staff to follow and kept moving forward. Filip became such a better competitor during this month because of how he pushed himself in practice, how he executed under pressure, how he took advantage of opportunities, how he kept his cool in both challenging and frustrating moments, and ultimately how he never stopped leading himself. He played for himself, his family and the University of Alabama. We are so proud of him and this historic first for our program. There ain’t no mountain high enough and Filip will continue climbing.”

While one historic moment is more than enough for a school in one day, the Crimson Tide had two more sports reach the record books on Saturday in softball and track and field.

97 days

May 26, 1964: Peter Finney reports in the New Orleans paper from the SEC spring meeting in Mobile that Alabama coach Paul Bryant is looking much healthier than a year ago when the Bama coach was in the midst of his battle with The Saturday Evening Post Finney reports Bryant has settled out of court for $300,000 tax free. The publication is still in appeals trying to reduce the money it owes to Wally Butts who was awarded $10 million.

May 26, 1965: Future Crimson Tide baseball coach Mitch Gaspard was born in Port Arthur, Texas.

May 26, 1983: Former Alabama defensive lineman Mark Anderson was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

May 26, 1988: William Vlachos was born.

May 26, 2019: Legendary quarterback Bart Starr died in Birmingham. He was 85.

“Show class, have pride and display character. If you do, winning takes care of itself.” — Paul W. “Bear” Bryant