Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 20, 1992 TAG: 9203200097
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Jack Bogaczyk
DATELINE: CINCINNATI LENGTH: Medium
Wimp Sanderson has been coaching at the same school for 32 seasons, and really, what does the public know about him?
He has an unflattering nickname. He wears plaid sportcoats and seemingly a perpetual scowl.
That's what happens when your team plays during football recruiting season and spring practice in a state where, when people think field goals, they always think 3-pointers.
Sanderson's given name is Winfrey. Call him Win for short, because that's what he does. Saturday in the Southeast Regional against North Carolina, Sanderson will try to coach Crimson Tide basketball to its sixth NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 appearance in eight seasons.
'Bama has played in five of the past six Southeastern Conference Tournament championship games, winning four. Still, in his 12th season as the Tide's head coach, back home in Alabama they complain that Sanderson hasn't put the program in the Final Four.
Sanderson is thick-skinned about the pig-skinned, and he doesn't seem to worry that his image has become somewhat buffoonish, mostly because he refuses to wear "straight" jackets like other coaches.
The reason for the plaid jackets makes sense. How would you draw attention to your budding program when the competition from football was un-Bearable? Sanderson succeeded C.M. Newton as the 'Bama boss.
"I think the wardrobe is unfortunate," said Newton, the Kentucky athletic director who is here as a member of the NCAA Basketball Committee. "His taste in clothes and his style of coaching has overshadowed what a great coach Wimp really is."
If Sanderson is the Man from Plaid when coaching, he doesn't appear to be the Man from Glad.
"That's another misconception," said Sanderson, whose growly voice adds to his perceived gruffness.
"The public sees a person who doesn't smile much," said the 54-year-old father of three. "By nature, I'm a guy who worries. When most people see me, they see a man worried about our team or a game. I'm not grumpy. I'm just competitive."
It's been 32 years since Sanderson, a Florence, Ala., native, hitched a ride on a coal truck from Carbon Hill to Tuscaloosa after one season of high school coaching. Then-coach Hayden Riley hired Sanderson.
"I was only going to stay one year," Sanderson said. "It's been a long 32 years, a lot of good, and some of the other."
Alabama has won at least 20 games in nine of Sanderson's 12 seasons as head coach. Friday's 80-75 NCAA first-round scowl-down of Stanford put the Tide (26-8) two victories short of the 1987 school record.
"Wimp is the funniest damn guy in the world," Vanderbilt coach Eddie Fogler said. "Half the things he says under his breath, nobody else can hear. He can really coach though. He's an Alabama institution."
Sanderson responded in typical fashion:
"There are a lot of institutions in Alabama, including some insane asylums. I'm not sure I want to be thought of as an institution."
As a survivor in a business full of checkered careers, Sanderson is no coaching Wimp.
"I guess I didn't realize it," Sanderson said. "Some people told me I've been at Alabama so long, the Dead Sea wasn't even sick when I got there."
by CNB