Alabama Crimson Tide football is never going to look or sound the same. Even if it soon starts collecting national championships like groceries under new coach Kalen DeBoer.
Just six weeks after Saban announced he would retire after 17 seasons as Alabama’s football coach with six national championships, plus one previously at LSU, the Voice Of Alabama Football for more than three decades is also leaving.
Former Voice of Alabama Football Eli Gold (center) with former analyst Phil Savage (left) and Chris Stewart, who replaces Gold as the new Voice of Alabama Football. (Photo Courtesy of University of Alabama).
News of Alabama firing Gold, 70, broke Wednesday. Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne and Crimson Tide Sports Marketing general manager Jim Carabin met with Gold last week via video, according to Bama 247 writer Mike Rodak. Alabama tried to get Gold to announce he was retiring.
Eli Gold Refused To Say He Was Retiring
But Gold would not say that because it’s not true. And Gold, a Brooklyn native who is as well known for being the voice of NASCAR from 1976-2016 as well as the Crimson Tide, has always told it like it is. And he decided not to stop on his way out of the Alabama broadcast booth, where he started in 1988.
“I am not retiring,” Gold told various Alabama media outlets Wednesday and Thursday. “The university has chosen, as they say, ‘to go in a different direction.’ And that’s certainly their right.”
Age 70 seems to mean The End of late. New England fired the record-holding, six-time Super Bowl winning head coach Bill Belichick, 71, after last season. And Seattle fired two-time college football national champion and Super Bowl champion head coach Pete Carroll, 72, after the 2023 season as well. Saban retired on his own at 72.
Alabama should have let Gold retire on his own. I have listened to Gold’s radio broadcasts on car radios or Sirius Radio for decades, and he was as good in the 2023 season as he ever was. He was also an excellent coaches’ show host as well. Unlike many hosts, he knows when to stop talking and let the coach talk, which is why people listen.
Gold’s contract with Alabama expires in June, and Alabama decided not to renew it. Gold wanted it renewed. So, he was fired.
Gold is 70 and has battled serious health issues in recent years as detailed by OutKick.com last July. Gold beat cancer before his return to the Alabama booth in 2023 after missing all of 2022. He only did home games and the Iron Bowl at Auburn in the 2023 season, but he looked and sounded healthier than previously as he lost a lot of weight.
Health Issues Were Not Why Alabama Let Gold Go
“This is not, with a capital N-O-T, not at all health-related,” Gold said in an AL.com story. “I am very healthy. Everything is wonderful. I am healthy as a horse. The University has chosen not to bring me back.”
Veteran Alabama basketball and baseball announcer Chris Stewart replaced Gold at the road games in 2023 and in the 2022 season when he battled cancer and other issues. Alabama announced on Wednesday that Stewart will replace Gold now on a full-time basis. Stewart, 53, has beat his own health issues and has been a great play-by-play man for decades.
Gold said Byrne and Carabin didn’t say it was health. He said they said he wasn’t doing the job.
“They said I wasn’t living up to the standard,” Gold told Bama 247. “That’s very subjective. There was an indication that I had lost a step, or two, or three, while I was gone battling cancer. And I’ve come back and I didn’t do the job that I should have. I don’t necessarily agree. If I felt that I was not doing the job, I would have stepped down. I was not going to embarrass myself or the university. I care too much for those entities.”
