Magazine-Winter-2025 - Flipbook - Page 39
R O L L T I DE
Erwin Dudley at practice with Tide basketball players Collins Onyejiaka (left) and Aden Holloway (right).
C
rimson Tide basketball fall practices are a
symphony of shoe squeaks and dribbles on the
practice court in Coleman Coliseum, conducted
by head coach Nate Oats and a crew of assistant
coaches. The players run drills and scrimmages, and
occasionally, a team is instructed to sprint the length
of the court if they make a mistake. If someone makes
a big play, every player and staff member whoops
and claps, echoing across the gym.
Oats paces the side of the court in front of a few
whiteboards and screens full of analytics that are an
essential part of his coaching methods. Meanwhile, a
tall figure—6 foot 9, to be exact—stands at the top of
the court by the basket, overseeing the action. Erwin
Dudley ’03, MS ’25, is a former Tide basketball player
from Uniontown, Alabama, who now serves as the
special assistant to the head coach.
Dudley was named SEC Player of the Year and a
unanimous All-SEC First Team pick in 2002, the same
season the Tide won the regular season SEC title for
the first time since the mid-1980s. He ranks fourth on
Alabama’s all-time rebounding list with 1,184 rebounds
and ninth on the program’s all-time scoring list with
1,775 career points. He was also named an SEC
Basketball Legend in 2019.
He explains all of this nonchalantly after practice,
grinning as he recalls a sort of renaissance era of
Alabama basketball.
“We had turned the curve, you know, Alabama
basketball,” Dudley said. “Before I got here, I remember
going to a game down at the other school in the state,
and I think they lost by like, 40 or 50 points. I’ll never
forget it. Coach Gottfried ended up bringing me in as
part of his first recruiting class. He kind of put us out
there, you know, as freshmen in the SEC, and let us
make mistakes and allowed us to go out and play and
just learn. We started out just trying to make a name for
the program. And then we ended up winning the SEC
title, so it was a big time.”
After graduating, Dudley played internationally for
14 seasons, one in Israel and the rest in Turkey. He now
holds dual citizenship in the U.S. and Turkey and often
revisits the country with his family.
“I loved it,” he said. “Going there, it definitely
changed my life. I thought, what else am I gonna do?
So, I tried it. You know, I went to Turkey, and it’s a
different language, and I couldn’t speak it. I was like,
alright, I’m here. I was able to start picking up on the
language. The food got better and better to me. Turkey
is like probably one of my favorite places ever, like in
the whole world. I tell people it’s my second home.”
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