COLUMN: Brookwood High's Commitment To Losing

*This is an opinion column*

BROOKWOOD, AL — Plenty of things in life don't make sense.

Menus without prices.

Ralph Macchio's illegal Crane Kick in 1984's "The Karate Kid."

The Bermuda Triangle most of us were unjustly terrified of as children.

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But few moments have left me angrily scratching my bald head quite like the news that Mike Bramblett had been let go as the head football coach at Brookwood High School. Indeed, the news went public Tuesday evening by way of WVUA 23's Gary Harris, but was something we had all known for at least of couple of weeks.

I could never prove it, but I'd wager it's because most of us have far too much reverence for Bramblett to rush to be the first to write a story about him being fired.

"I'm very thankful for the five years I spent at Brookwood and the number of relationships built and I just want to thank the players, the parents that supported us and the people in the community that supported us and worked hard," Bramblett told me during a brief phone interview Tuesday night.

Maybe this is just my frustrated bias. Or maybe there's something I'm missing here, though I seriously doubt it.

It's surreal, in fact, especially considering how much Bramblett has done in such a short time for the historically struggling program.

It's no secret Brookwood High isn't a spot most up-and-coming coaches with promising futures look to when thinking about where to invest the rest of their lives and this no-doubt made life difficult for a program-builder like Bramblett over five years of leading a coaching staff while also serving, at times, as the varsity baseball coach for the school.

He was celebrated in the time I covered him, though, with the man making an earnest effort to truly establish a program, despite its historic failures and the odds against its success on the field.

But for those with their heads in the sand and unaware of the dynamics of the county, Brookwood is far and away our most blue-collar community.

A coal mining town that is home to the headquarters and major operations of Warrior Met Coal, formerly Walter Energy, Brookwood has plenty of nice families and plenty of well-behaved kids to put on the field. For whatever reason, though, they have never been any good at football.

It doesn't take an expert to note the fact that the school has historically lacked the socioeconomic and racial diversity that can be found at some of the more successful athletic programs in schools across America, even in Tuscaloosa County. It's a sentiment so many lament when remembering the halcyon days of "Super Central," before one of the greatest and most diverse high schools in this country's history was broken up in an act many dubbed as "resegregation."

If you don't believe me about Brookwood, though, let's take a look back through history:

According to the Alabama High School Football Historical Society — a priceless legacy resource I swear by — the Brookwood High Panthers football team has a dismal all-time record of 305-548-20.

Even the late Tuscaloosa News scribe Tommy Stevenson, a legendary wordsmith, saw it in the 1980s when Bo Jackson and the McAdory Yellowjackets made the short trip to Brookwood for a region game, commenting that Jackson did "everything but haul a load of coal" as he ran roughshod over the thin, scared Panthers.

Brookwood doesn't have a Bo Jackson in the annals of its football lore, though, so its gridiron greatness is relegated almost exclusively to footnotes for the greatness of others.

The program has never won a state title and claims only three region championships, all of which came in the same stretch, with the last in 1990 — just over a year after the author of this op-ed was born.

Think about that.

I'm not being cheeky or bitter in my criticisms of the culture of Brookwood High football, either. And if anyone is willing to argue the program's merits with me, I'll gladly refer them to the history books.

For instance: The last coach to leave Brookwood with a winning record was Jack Cook, who coached the Panthers from 1969 to 1971, before bowing out with a light, but comparatively commendable record of 19-11. Cook returned to Brookwood as head football coach over a quarter of a century later, only to post a comically lopsided 2-28 record over three seasons.

As one of my high school football coaches would holler when someone was scared to tackle: "THE MEEK SHALL INHERIT THE EARTH."

The next coach after Cook to depart from Brookwood with a winning record was Cecil "Hootie" Ingram — an Alabama football great who a little more than a decade later became the head football coach at Clemson and eventually the athletic director at his alma mater.

Ingram posted a 5-2-1 record in his lone season leading the Panthers, placing him on the pantheon of the school's greatest coaches, regardless of his later feats.

At 90, Ingram was also one of the two grand marshals for the 2023 West Alabama Christmas Parade held earlier this month, but I digress.

Still, with the news that Bramblett was forced out, I immediately worked myself into a lather over the school's history of gross underperformance, while reflecting on the sweat equity invested by Bramblett over his five seasons.

And sure, Bramblett's record wasn't quite what you'd advertise on a community water tower: 12-38 over five seasons, with his best individual campaign coming in 2022 when he led the Panthers to a relatively impressive 4-6 record.

Just looking at the win-loss column for a place like Brookwood, though, ignores so much important context.

Keep in mind, Bramblett is the 31st head football coach in the school's documented history of coaches with losing records, with the program winning a total of 13 football games from its start in 1931 until the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941.

So, what are we even talking about?

What should be discussed are Bramblett's contributions off the field, especially given that Brookwood has never had high expectations for success on it.

In this Tuscaloosa County native's opinion, it's a job that is about building a program and developing young men for life after sports — traits that Bramblett has excelled at in his dedication to the community through small acts like helmet stickers to honor miners during the massive, lengthy strike at Warrior Met Coal.

Bramblett still managed to buck that history, too, for his part in developing an offensive lineman that's headed to Alabama to play for Nick Saban — Will Sanders — who represents the first Power Five -caliber talent I've seen come out of that school in my lifetime.

This man also fought tooth and nail for a new stadium for the Panthers, while at the same time advocating to preserve the history of the venue by keeping the Billy Joe Young Field name.

In an interview with Patch, Bramblett then expressed pride in bringing back the retired No. 3 worn by Young — a 15-year-old freshman running back who was injured during a football game in 1951 and subsequently paralyzed.

Like so many of the undersized, undervalued kids playing 6A football for Brookwood, Young's memory embodies the culture of the scrappy community and Bramblett made a point to promote it.

"It was very important because we were trying to bring some of the history back," Bramblett told me on Tuesday. "All those things may seem small to some people, but it's a big deal to folks in our community. We fought our butts off for several years [for the new stadium]."

But instead of the powers that be focusing on the longstanding, consistent turnover in staffing and the historically Spartan amenities for the football program, the premium seems to now be placed on winning football games.

And to that, I say, best of luck.

I don't know who Brookwood High will get to replace Mike Bramblett. And maybe it will be that special kind of athletic alchemist who holds the secret to squeezing a diamond out of a lump of coal.

But this reporter will argue that whoever Brookwood hires will have a tall task ahead to match the character and sincerity shown by the one man who seemed born for the job.

Ryan Phillips is an award-winning journalist, editor and opinion columnist. He is also the founder and field editor of Tuscaloosa Patch. The opinions expressed in this column are in no way a reflection of our parent company or sponsors. Email news tips to ryan.phillips@patch.com.