Every day until Aug. 29, Creg Stephenson is counting down significant numbers in Alabama football history, both in the lead-up to the 2025 football season and in commemoration of the Crimson Tide’s first national championship 100 years ago. The number could be attached to a year, a uniform number or even a football-specific statistic. We hope you enjoy. It’s difficult to imagine a time when there was no Alabama football, but the university existed for more than 60 years without the game that now forms a significant portion of its national identity.
Founded in 1831 as a military school, Alabama played its first college football game on Nov. 11, 1892. The Cadets (as they were then known) had no trouble beating a thrown-together collection of Birmingham high school students, 56-0, at Lakeview Park in Birmingham.
The first college football game in history took place in 1869 between Princeton and Rutgers, and the sport remained a mostly northeastern enterprise (as with most American sports) in its early years. It was when graduates of East Coast universities and prep schools began to filter out south and west that they brought American football with them and spread the game’s gospel.
The “Johnny Appleseed” of Alabama football was a man named William G. Little, a Livingston native who had attended Phillips-Exeter Academy in Massachusetts during the 1891-92 school year following two years in college in Tuscaloosa. Little originally intended to continue his education at Yale, but after a death in his family, returned to his home state and re-enrolled at Alabama.
Yale’s loss was Alabama’s gain, as Little formed the first football team at the university in the fall of 1892. He was named team captain and started at left guard in the Cadets’ first game.
Eugene Beauharnais “E.B.” Beaumont, a 24-year-old University of Pennsylvania graduate, served as the team’s first coach. (In addition to Little, other players on that first Alabama team included future Alabama governor Bibb Graves and future U.S. Speaker of the House William Bankhead.)
Touchdowns counted as four points each in those days, and Alabama rang up 11 of them — in addition to six kicked “goals” (good for two points each) — in its game vs. the Birmingham High School squad. The Cadets appeared to clearly outclass their younger counterparts, according to a report in the following day’s Birmingham Post-Herald.
“A fine-looking lot of boys it was that tumbled out onto the field with a large U.A. on their ‘sweaters,’” the unbylined report read. “… Lithe, strong, active and well-trained, quick and well-coached, they were worthy representatives of Alabama’s university.
“Averaging about 160 pounds, they were clearly too big and strong for the school boys, who looked small by comparison, and who fought a most plucky, though losing fight, against superior weight and strength.”
The Cadets led 28-0 at halftime, and “the second half was a repetition of the first,” according to the Post-Herald.
“For the university the fine running of Smith, Frazer and Grayson was especially noticeable, while the work of the whole team was good,” the report continued, “their interference being excellent and well-timed and their blocking quick and hard. … The wonder is that the score was not much larger.”
Alabama played again the next day, this time losing 5-4 to Birmingham Athletic Club at Lakeview Park. The Cadets then beat the BAC 14-0 (also at Lakeview) on Dec. 10.
There would be one more Alabama football game that “season” at Lakeview Park, but it would not take place until Feb. 22, 1893. The Cadets lost 32-22 to the team from Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama — now known as Auburn — in the first meeting in what would grow into arguably the most-heated rivalry in college football.
The 2-2 final record apparently did not sit well with members of the Alabama team, who forced out Beaumont as coach after one season. A report in the university’s Corolla yearbook later said of Beaumont, “We were unfortunate in securing a coach. After keeping him for a short time, we found that his knowledge of the game was very limited. We therefore got rid of him.”
Eli Abbott, a tackle on the 1892 Alabama Cadets, was installed as head coach. He coached the team for three seasons (going 3-9 overall) before leaving, then later returned to post a 4-4 record in 1902. (The Crimson Tide nickname would be adopted in 1907.)
Little returned to Livingston after graduating from Alabama in 1893, and later operated a farm, a retail store and an automobile dealership. He served as treasurer, tax collector and probate judge in Sumter County before he died at age 64 in 1938 from what was termed a “serious stomach disorder” that had caused him to be hospitalized for more than a week.
During his time at Alabama, Little “was a colorful campus figure,” according to a story published by the Associated Press shortly after his death. “He was known among Alabama alumni as one of the most enthusiastic supporters of the modern Crimson Tide.”
Lakeview Park, used primarily for baseball, no longer exists. Part of the property is now Highland Park Golf Course, while the actual site of the first Alabama football game — as well as the first Alabama-Auburn game in 1893 — was at roughly the intersection of Highland Ave. and Clairmont Ave., near an office building and a Piggly Wiggly supermarket.
