By John Goolsby, For the Tribune
IRONDALE – In the fall of 1967 Shades Valley head coach Bud Bishop retired receiver Alvin Bresler’s jersey. Bresler was the first jersey retirement in the history of the school. No Mountie was to wear number 44 again.
There is little known about the location of the retired jersey from 1967 to 1969, but it appears that starting in 1970 it was prominently displayed in a trophy case inside the Shades Valley senior lounge for an unknown period of time.
Two facts are known. The first is that Bresler was told that his jersey was being unretired in 1974, and second, that shortly after Dr. T.L. Clement’s arrived at Shades Valley in 1978, the jersey was discovered in a desk drawer.
Clements contacted Bresler and informed him that he wanted to return the jersey to him. A short time later Clements met Bresler in a parking lot near Shades Valley and handed the once retired jersey over to Bresler.
The once honored and retired jersey hung in Bresler’s closet for over four decades.
How Clements knew who the jersey belonged to and that it shouldn’t be displayed remains a mystery to this day.
Before the full story of the “lost jersey” can be explained the story of why Bresler’s number was retired in the first place must be told.
Bresler is perhaps, to this day, the most decorated high school player in the school’s long history.
The speedy wide receiver was All-State as a junior and a unanimous All-State player as a senior in 1966. Bresler was also named to three high school All-American teams. He was named the number one college prospect in the state by the Birmingham Post-Herald.
Bresler didn’t just excel on the football field. Bresler led the Mounties to the 1966 State Championship in Track and Field. He was the individual state champion in the 440 yard dash, a member of the 440 yard and mile relay state championship teams, and runner-up in the 180 yard low hurdles.
Bresler’s 1966 Shades Valley team holds the distinction of being one of four teams to play in the first ever AHSAA football playoffs. Before the 1966 season, a claim to a state football championship was a “mythical” claim. “Prior to ‘66 it was about how much politicing you could do with the newspaper to be ranked number one I guess,” Bresler said.
Bresler’s Mounties were 6-0 and ranked number one in the state for four consecutive weeks before being upset by Ensley at home in week eight of the season. The unexpected loss dropped the Mounties to number five in the state rankings.
Valley responded by blowing out Bessemer and Berry by a combined score of 78-6 the next two weeks. With the playoffs in sight, the Mounties climbed to number three in the rankings as they went on the road for the last game of the regular season against seventh-ranked Vigor.
On a rainy night in Mobile, the Mountie offense gained 207 yards against Vigor, but numerous penalties, three fumbles, two missed field goals, and a bobbled snap on the PAT left Valley with only six points.
The Valley defense played well and held the Wolves to only 52 yards of total offense. Vigor’s only score of the night came late in the third quarter after Valley fumbled a punt at their own 23-yard line.
Valley, trailing by one, had an opportunity to pull out the win late but saw their chance of victory slip away when an official knocked down a wide-open Bresler at the goal line, preventing a sure go-ahead touchdown.
“As I was approaching the goal line, an official standing out of place started running toward me to get to where he should have been,” said Bresler. “As he was trying to get there, he blindsided me and broke up the play.”
“Bill Legg, our coach, gave the officials a piece of his mind….nothing out of the ordinary,” said Bresler. “We were called for an unsportsmanlike 15 yard penalty.”
“After that penalty our coaches were vocal because they couldn’t believe it,” Bresler said. “That resulted in another 15 yard penalty.”
The loss of those critical 30 yards took the Mounties out of scoring position and ended their chance to win the game.
Tempers flared after the game and the Mounties headed back to Birmingham with a 7-2 record and thoughts that their playoff dream was over.
When the state poll came out the following Wednesday, the Mounties dropped to number eight in the rankings.
After the Mounties packed away their equipment for the season, the unexpected happened the following Friday night. Number three Banks lost to Jones Valley, number five Etowah lost to
Gadsden, and number seven Vigor tied McGill.
With those two losses and tie, Valley was voted the fourth seed in the playoffs by the AHSAA over number six ranked Butler and, in a measure of justice, the number seven ranked Vigor Wolves. Ironically, the number one song in the nation that week was “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” by the Supremes.
The Mounties found themselves hastily unpacking equipment and footballs that had been packed away a week earlier in preparation for the number one ranked Poets of Sidney Lanier. “They called everyone up and told us to get to practice Saturday afternoon,” said Bresler.
Six days later the Mounties would fall to Lanier in the first ever playoff game in Alabama. Lanier would defeat the Lee Generals the following week to claim the first-ever AHSAA state championship.
“Playing Lanier was like playing a college team back in those days,” said Bresler. The 1966 Poets went 12-0, outscored their opponents 393-42, and would again win titles in 1967 and 1968. Lanier, the winningest program in the 1960s, won five “mythical” and official state championships between 1961 and 1968.
Bresler, who grew up cheering for Alabama at Legion Field wanted to run track in college. “Track was just as important to me as football was back in those days,” Bresler said. “The reason I went to Auburn was because Coach Bryant said I was only going to play football and Coach Jordan told me I could run track.”
“My parents wanted me to go to Alabama, but there was just something about track that made it important to me, and I made the decision to go to Auburn,” he said. “I easily converted over to orange and blue.”
That decision proved to be a wise one for Bresler. He caught passes from Heisman Trophy winning and College Hall of Fame quarterback Pat Sullivan and lined up opposite another College Hall of
Famer and All-American in Terry Beasley.
Bresler held the record for longest touchdown reception in Auburn history, an 85 yarder, for 34 years until it was broken in 2004. Bresler ended his career with four receptions for 102 yards and a touchdown to help the Tigers defeat Ole Miss in the 1971 Gator Bowl.
Bresler was the recipient of The Cliff Hare Award, the highest award an athlete can receive at Auburn, in 1971. He was inducted into Auburn’s Tiger Trails Walk of Fame in 2017.
Due to Bresler’s size, great hands and blazing speed, he was the 153rd player taken in the 1971 NFL draft by the San Francisco 49ers. “I stayed through part of the training camp and decided I really didn’t want to continue pursuing an NFL career,” Bresler said. “I found myself running back kickoffs and punts and I really wanted to be a receiver.”
Coach Jordan was true to his word and allowed Bresler to run track. He was able to compete in track as a freshman and was runner up in the hurdles to Tennessee’s Olympic hopeful Richmond Flowers at the SEC Championship meet in 1968.
A knee injury as a sophomore sidelined Bresler for nearly a year and a half. He recovered and was the 1971 SEC champion in the 440 yard intermediate hurdles.
Because of his knee injury as a sophomore, Bresler had the opportunity to go back to Auburn and run track in 1972 but had signed a contract with the 49ers. “It would have been really fun to go back and concentrate just on track,” Bresler said.
With the decision to put his playing days behind him, Bresler made his way back to Alabama an took an assistant coaching position at Anniston High School for the 1971 season.
Bresler, as a 23-year-old, applied and was hired as the first head coach of Homewood High School in 1972. In his third year, Bresler won the state championship. In the Patriot’s run to the championship in 1974 they defeated Shades Valley 37-0. Bresler had defeated his old school 33-0 the previous year.
After the 1974 game, Mountie head coach George Miller, smarting from the blowout, informed Bresler at midfield that they were going to have his jersey unretired at Shades Valley.
At that time, Bresler had bigger things on his mind, such as winning a state championship, than worrying about the threat from a defeated opponent.
At 26, Bresler was at the top of his profession and left Homewood for a lucrative offer to become the head coach at Talladega High School.
His first team in 1975 won the region and made the playoffs. In 1976 Bresler made the decision to start a black quarterback. “They weren’t ready for that and I wasn’t ready for their reaction,” Bresler said. “We went 4-5-1 and I told them that I was leaving.”
Bresler’s goal was to coach in college. That almost became a reality. Auburn head coach Doug Barfield offered Bresler a position, but the NCAA had recently made some changes that limited the amount of money Bresler could make. “I told Coach Barfield thanks for the offer but with two kids and one on the way I didn’t see how it would work,” Bressler said.
Barfield then contacted Larry Blakney at Vestavia Hills High School and offered him the Auburn job and he accepted.
With Blakney’s departure, Vestavia had an opening and reached out and offered Bresler the head coaching position. Bresler also had an offer to take the coaching position at Huntsville High but elected to return home to Birmingham and coach the Rebels.
Bresler arrived at Vestavia in the summer of 1977 and due to various circumstances went 3-7. Bresler felt that the time to leave coaching had come. “Buddy Anderson had been on Blakney’s staff and was on mine,” Bresler said. “I saw Buddy everyday and I knew he wanted the job.”
“After the season I told Buddy I hoped he got the job because I was leaving for the business world.” Anderson got the job and became the winningest coach in the history of Alabama high school football.
Bresler joined Engel-House/Corroon & Black in 1978 and then found success in the surety bond and contractors’ insurance industry.
“God has a plan for everyone and I sure know He had one for me,” Bresler said.
For years the comment from Miller in 1974 and the phone call from Clements, along with the return of the jersey, solidified Bresler’s belief that his alma mater had indeed unretired his jersey.
As plans were being made by Shades Valley to retire current NFL player Daron Payne’s jersey, a search by an alumnus was made to determine the number of jerseys Shades Valley had retired. A lead by Lee C. Parker, Shades Valley class of 1965, led to a call with Bresler who told the story of the “lost jersey.”
On August 3 Bresler made the trip to Shades Valley to meet with current Mountie coach Rueben Nelson and return #44 to it’s home after a forty-plus-year absence.
“This means a lot to the program,” Nelson said. “These things matter.”
Bresler’s jersey will join Ben Tamburello’s #55, Bonkey McCain’s #71 and Daron Payne’s #94 on the Wall of Fame in Shades Valley’s field house.
Bresler and Becky, his wife of 53 years, reside in Vestavia Hills. They have three married daughters, one who ran track at Auburn, and ten grandchildren, two who have followed in their grandfather’s footsteps and run for Auburn.