Alabama appoints new athletic director

Alabama has appointed Bill Battle as the new Alabama athletic director after Mal Moore had to retire for health reasons.

Battle, who played for Bear Bryant in 1961, then went onto coach as a graduate assistant at Oklahoma and the US Military Academy, before going to Tennessee as an assistant before graduating to head coach in 1970, where he was relatively successful, going 59-22-2 in Knoxville.

After leaving there, he became quite the entrepreneur, starting up the Collegiate Licensing Company, where he was CEO until 2010. His first client? The University of Alabama.

Alabama coach Nick Saban called Battle a “First class person and leader” , and invited him to practice, according to reports.