ATHENS — Donald Trump plans to attend another Alabama-Georgia football game this weekend. Spectators also heading to Saturday’s matchup in Tuscaloosa can only hope the former president’s visit is slightly less chaotic this time around.
Trump, the Republican nominee for November’s presidential election, was the sitting president when he attended the College Football Playoff Championship game between Georgia and Alabama at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Jan. 8, 2018. The logistical problems that created that night are the stuff of legend.
“It’s the ultimate good-news, bad-news scenario,” said Bill Hancock, then-executive director of the College Football Playoff. “You’re delighted to have the leader of the free world attend your game. But from an event operations standpoint, it’s extremely difficult.”
Similar to what University of Alabama officials are dealing with this week, game organizers had barely a week’s notice of Trump’s visit to Atlanta’s national championship game in what was then a new facility. The Secret Service’s security detail to ensure the president’s safety closed the Mercedes-Benz Stadium’s gates just as the majority of spectators were trying to enter the stadium. That caused delays of up to two hours for many people coming to see the game.
What made it worse, the delays came during a steady downpour on a cold January night.
“It’s kind of like the weather; it’s one of those things you can’t control,” said Dan Corso, president of the Atlanta Sports Council. “You can’t say no to rain, and you can’t say no to the president.”
Alabama officials are watching the weather this year as well. As luck would have it, a tropical disturbance in the Gulf of Mexico is expected to develop into Hurricane Helene and was bearing down on the Alabama coast Tuesday. However, the latest forecast models have it clearing out of the Tuscaloosa area before Saturday’s game.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Regardless, security is expected to be extremely tight Saturday in Tuscaloosa. Trump’s visit to Bryant-Denny Stadium to watch No. 2-ranked Georgia take on No. 4 Alabama comes just a week after an alleged assassination attempt on Trump at his South Florida golf course and 10 weeks after the former president suffered a gunshot wound to his ear during an attempt on his life at a political rally in Pennsylvania in July.
Accordingly, inconveniencing fans is not high on the University of Alabama’s list of concerns.
“The safety of our campus is and will remain our top priority, and UAPD will work closely with the U.S. Secret Service and other law enforcement partners to coordinate security,” the University of Alabama said in a statement confirming Trump’s visit. “Additional safety measures will be enacted in collaboration with local and federal agencies, so fans are encouraged to arrive early to expedite the security screening process.”
The school said walk-through metal detectors will be in place and only clear bags in which contents can clearly be seen will be permitted inside the stadium.
Trump is attending the game on “the invitation from a private citizen,” the school added.
Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer was asked during Monday afternoon press conference in Tuscaloosa about the President’s visit.
“Yeah, I’m sure there are going to be a lot of celebrity-type people here,” the Crimson Tide’s first-year coach said. “People want to come be a part of what’s happening on game day. Everyone’s going to be watching, so it will be great for everyone who wants to come watch be here.”
ESPN’s popular “College GameDay” pregame show is originating from Tuscaloosa on Saturday morning. The fuss is over Georgia and Alabama meeting for the seventh time in the past six years as top-five teams.
DeBoer is doing what he can to keep his team focused on the task at hand.
“With GameDay and everything else coming here as well, the guys need to take everything off their plate other than maybe a few extra interviews toward the end of the week,” DeBoer said. “The main thing is that they get prepared to play the best football game that they’ve played this year.”
Trump, who was president from 2017-21, is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, but there are indications he may be a bit of an Alabama fan. This will be Trump’s third time attending a Crimson Tide football game, according to the Tuscaloosa News. After watching Alabama defeat Georgia 26-24 in Atlanta in 2018, Trump attended the Crimson Tide’s home game against LSU in November 2019. Alabama lost a thriller, 46-41, to the eventual national champion Tigers.
According to the Anniston Star, it will be the sixth time that a president, president-elect or presidential candidate attended an Alabama football game.
Game attendance by dignitaries always creates logistical challenges. Trump’s visit in 2018 was especially problematic.
“That was a perfect storm,” recalled Hancock, who announced his retirement as executive director and became a consultant when executive director Rich Clark was hired this year. “It rained, that was our first time to use digital ticketing and my recollection is that the Secret Service brought their own (scanning) machines. But the people at the stadium weren’t sufficiently trained to operate them.”
Hancock said the presidential entourage also was late in arriving to the game, which extended delays.
“No fault of their own,” Hancock said. “They had to deal with Atlanta traffic and police getting them through. So they arrived late, but we had to shut down the gates early because we didn’t know exactly when they were getting there. So, it was a major inconvenience for the fans. Always is.”
Hancock is particularly well-versed in presidential attendance. Well before his appointment to the College Football Playoff, he directed NCAA Final Fours from 1989-2002. That tenure included President Bill Clinton attending the 1994 Final Four in Charlotte, North Carolina.
More times than not, he said, presidents will say they’re coming to an event only to cancel at the last moment. Then all the meticulous plans go by the wayside.
To be clear, there are ton of logistics involved.
“The Secret Service changes everything,” Hancock said. “The president has to have a special entrance that no one else can use. They need a special box to sit in. Everyone nearby it has to be screened. As an event-operations person, you have to be respectful of what the Secret Service needs to do. You have the White House staff, too. But you really only listen to the pros, and that’s the Secret Service.”
Hancock said he knows most of the University of Alabama’s game-day operations personnel, and he is confident they will handle the situation well.
“They have a million things to focus on every game week,” Hancock said. “But they just added another million on top of that.”
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