Tommy Brooker, standout on 1961 Alabama national champions, dies at 79
Tommy Brooker, a star end and placekicker on Alabama’s 1961 national championship team who later became a prominent Tuscaloosa businessman and driving force behind the school’s A-Club Charitable & Educational Foundation, has died after a long illness. He was 79.
Services for Brooker, a Demopolis native, will be Sunday, Sept. 29, at 2:30 p.m. in Forest Lake United Methodist Church in Tuscaloosa.
Brooker, born Oct. 31, 1939, was part of coach Paul “Bear” Bryant’s first Alabama recruiting class in 1958. That group, which also included Pat Trammell, Billy Neighbors, Bill Oliver and Mal Moore, among others, teamed up to lead the Crimson Tide to a national championship in their senior season of 1961.
That Alabama team allowed just 25 points all season, winning six games by shutout. They capped the year by beating Arkansas 10-3 in the Sugar Bowl and finishing No. 1 for the first of six times during Bryant’s tenure.
“We had gotten to where we were really good,” Brooker said in a 2018 interview with AL.com. “We’d done all the things coach Bryant asked us to do. He told us the first time he ever met with us, that ‘if you do these small things, you may think they’re incidental. Little-bitty things you do every day. If you don’t do them one day, come back the next day and make up the difference. Our goal every day was to achieve 110 percent. … We did those things he asked us to do. He said ‘I guarantee you, at the end of four years, you’ll be national champions.’”
Brooker was a third-team All-SEC pick and an Academic All-American at Alabama, and was drafted by the Dallas Texans of the upstart American Football League in 1962. He played five seasons with the Texans, which later became the Kansas City Chiefs.
In the 1962 AFL championship game, the Texans and Houston Oilers were tied after regulation, and again after an overtime period. Less than three minutes into the second overtime, Brooker kicked a 24-yard field goal to give the Texans a 20-17 victory and the championship.
After his football career ended in 1966, Brooker returned to Tuscaloosa and started his own construction company. He also served as a volunteer coach under Bryant, working with kickers.
One of those kickers was his nephew, Johnny Brooker of Demopolis. His uncle “enjoyed life,” said the younger Brooker. Tommy Brooker gave him pointers “a lot” all throughout high school and worked with him during his years with Coach Bryant.
It was in 1968 that Brooker’s most lasting legacy with Alabama was formed. Following the premature death from cancer of his close friend Trammell, Brooker was among several former Crimson Tide players who created the A-Club Educational & Charitable Foundation, the fundraising arm of Alabama’s alumni athlete organization.
To this day, the A-Club Foundation raises money for former Alabama players and their families who are in need, as well as other charitable ventures. Among the first to benefit were Trammell’s then-young children, Pat Jr. and Juliana.
In later years, Brooker ran Tommy Brooker Realty in Tuscaloosa. A 2009 inductee into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame, he remained active with the A-Club Foundation until the end of his life.
Brooker’s wife, Margaret, died in 2017. He is survived by sons Todd and Blake, and several grandchildren.
Some of the information for this story is courtesy of al.com.