Making the case for firing Steve Hale

Pardon me for dropping the F bomb, but it's time to say publicly what a lot of people in Mobile are saying privately: The Senior Bowl's board of directors needs to fire Steve Hale.

It isn't that he lacks talent. In Hale's 16-year tenure with the Senior Bowl, he has overseen the annual game's greatest growth.

It isn't that he's been

dogged by any personal or professional scandal.

And it's not that I dislike him or even really know him. I've only met him once, back in the 1980s when he was a young assistant coach for Bear Bryant on a recruiting visit in Foley and I was a young newspaper photographer who'd been sent to snap a picture of him.

He was polite and professional then, and I am sure he is polite and professional now.

But in light of how he has overseen the Senior Bowl's dalliance with other cities, and in view of his obvious willingness to move the game, Hale has got to go.

In fact, he already should be gone.

The "will it or won't it leave" story line has been festering publicly for more than seven months, and with every news article and broadcast, Mobile's image suffers.

Not to mention Mobile's psyche. The Senior Bowl is a venerable and venerated

institution in the Azalea City, having been played here since 1951.

It is a part of the fabric of Mobile — every bit as dear to us as Mardi Gras, the USS Alabama and the sights and sounds of our busy port.

Send away the Senior Bowl? You might as well be talking about sending away a child. It's preposterous and outrageous.

Granted, Mobile has some negatives. We are smaller than the cities with which Hale apparently is flirting, and we do not have an international airport or an NFL stadium....