A crush for all seasons: Sela Ward

Sela Ward at 'Bama.

Now that I’ve written about the glories of Southern football (in two parts, no less), let me go a step further. I have to call out Ray Gustini, a Big Ten man.  This is a dangerous thing since Ray is far more quick-witted than I am and has seen enough Michael Mann movies to make a list longer than just “The Last of the Mohicans.” But as a guy in my 40s, I’ve been left out in the cold by the Rapid One’s daily crushes. Ray picks some 19-year-old confection who did a magazine cover once and calls it a column.

I don’t have a daughter, but if I did, Ray’s crushes would be about the same age of my offspring. So Ray is talking about the daughter of some guy like me. I would be “that kind of father,” and when I see the daily crush, I am sympathetically feeling the pain of her dad.

Second, while a woman of 19 can be pretty, she really can’t hold a candle to a woman who has done something with her life and maybe learned a bit with her years on planet Earth. And since this is a football site, she has to have some relevance to the sport of football apart from looking good in Under Armour.

This is why I’m proposing as a special edition, Southern football, Crush for All Seasons, former Alabama cheerleader and daughter of Meridian, Miss., Sela Ward.

Yep, she’s in her 50s now. And in her 40s, some moronic James Bond producer said she was too old to be a Bond girl and put the younger but far less interesting Terri Hatcher in that movie. Frankly, Sela might have been a more believable 007 than Pierce Brosnan, who always ran too much like a girl to be a super-spy. I sure would have watched.

Gary Baumhower

But Sela got her revenge on that producer, winning an Emmy Award for best actress. And being the voice of the University of Alabama’s public service announcements, a published author, her active work in charitable causes in Hollywood and in her Southern hometowns, and a mom all make her far more interesting than all of Ray’s crushes combined.

If you need photographic proof, Sela Ward was the most lissome Tide cheerleader of hers or any era. Greatness endures, and Sela has done exactly that, being a beauty for four decades.

She also retains a special place in my heart because her college boyfriend was not a quarterback but a lineman: Tide captain and future Miami Pro Bowler Bob Baumhower. All right, the young Baumhower was still a tall, lean, good-looking guy, but he was a lineman nonetheless, and over the years he’s become a big ol’boy. Baumhower served me wings and beer many times during my law school days in his Wings Grill restaurants. He was a kind and gracious host who was always quick with a story from his playing days, and Sela never has said a less than kind word about her old boyfriend.  So she was beautiful and understood that football was played by strong men along the lines of scrimmage. Now there’s a crush for all-time.

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