Thursday, June 7, 2012

Former UA running back Trent Richardson has family ties to Conecuh County

Sports fans in the reading audience, especially Alabama football fans, will be familiar with former UA running back Trent Richardson.

Richardson, who was an All American at Alabama, was born in Pensacola, Fla. and played prep football at Escambia County High School. At Alabama, he was a member of two BCS National Championship teams. During April’s NFL Draft, the Cleveland Browns made Richardson a very rich man by making him the third pick overall.

What many readers may not know is that Richardson has strong ties to Conecuh County.

According to Nymph native Fredrick D. Richardson Jr., who is a member of Mobile’s city council, Trent’s ancestors are from Nymph and the two men are cousins. Trent’s grandfather was Charlie Richardson Jr., who moved to Pensacola years ago and was a first cousin to Fred Richardson’s father.

Fred Richardson has a strong interest in genealogy and has documented his family history in an interesting book called “From Nymph to Mobile and Beyond: The Impossible Dream.” The book is Fred Richardson’s autobiography and was released earlier this year.

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If you saw the front page story and picture on this week’s front page about cross-country walker George Throop, you’ll know that he plans to pass through Auburn on his way to Atlanta in the next few weeks. I jokingly asked him if anyone had asked him yet if he was an Alabama or Auburn fan and being from Vancouver, Washington, he had no idea what I was talking about.

“Well, you might want to change those shorts you’ve got on before you get to Auburn,” I said, pointing at his crimson-colored shorts. Getting a puzzled look from the good-natured walker, I explained to him that Alabama’s school colors are crimson and white, but that no one would likely give him any grief about it.

“Should I maybe pick up a crimson jersey somewhere to go with it before I get to Auburn,” he joked.

“That would definitely be a bad idea,” I said. “Unless you plan to bypass Auburn altogether or walk really, really fast.”

Throop said that if asked about Alabama or Auburn, he’d tell people that he didn’t pull for either one. He went on to say though that this didn’t mean he wasn’t familiar with intense sports rivalries. He noted that he spent a year in Brazil as a foreign exchange student and that during that time he was exposed to the intense professional soccer rivalries in that country.

“They take their soccer down there very seriously,” he said. “It seemed like just about every town of any size there had at least two teams, and you usually didn’t mix with fans of the other team.”

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The NBA playoffs are wrapping up for another year, and we should have a champ in a few more weeks. As of Monday, the conference finals were tied 2-2 each with San Antonio, Miami, Oklahoma City and Boston still in the mix. I look for the Spurs and Miami to meet in the finals and for the Spurs to win it all.

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