Remembering Sports Illustrated’s iconic Alabama football, basketball covers

For more than a half-century, Sports Illustrated has been not only a pillar of sports journalism, but an indispensable resource for millions of fans seeking insight into the players, teams and sports they so dearly love.

Perhaps nothing embodied the importance and larger relevance of Sports Illustrated more than its covers. To grace the cover of the famed magazine meant someone mattered in a pronounced, even life-changing way. For fans, the opportunity to see their favorite player, team or coach on the cover provided an unmistakable sense of joy and excitement.

They’re the kinds of images and headlines that live on forever, whether still attached to the front of a magazine, affixed on a wall or just embedded in the fond memories of those who remembered seeing it.

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Those covers have served as fond farewells of sorts for the magazine, with news breaking Friday that the company that currently owns Sports Illustrated is instituting mass layoffs. The magazine and its website will still exist, just in a greatly diminished form.

Fans of various teams have taken to social media to post their favorite Sports Illustrated covers featuring their beloved squads, both as a way to remember the thrill that those moments in time offered and to pay tribute to those still employed at the outlet.

Alabama – and, specifically, its football team — has been featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated in some form 40 times over the course of the magazine’s history, which dates back to 1954. Those covers have helped chronicle the Wildcats at various stages in their illustrious history, though that group does include at least one cover from the program’s nadir.

Given Alabama’s prevalence in the magazine’s storied existence, here’s a look at some of…


Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/remembering-sports-illustrated-iconic-alabama-225319531.html

Author : The Tuscaloosa News

Publish date : 2024-01-19 22:53:19

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