Thomas Hawley "Tommy" Tuberville (18 September 1954-) was a Republican US Senator from Alabama from 3 January 2021, succeeding Doug Jones.
Biography[]
Thomas Hawley Tuberville was born in Camden, Ouachita County, Arkansas in 1954, and he coached football on the high school level before becoming the University of Miami's defensive coordinator in 1993. In 1994, he became head coach at the University of Mississippi, and he supported efforts to ban the Confederate flag on campus in order to bolster the school's image and its athletic recruitment. In 1998, he became head coach at Auburn University in Alabama, and he received two Coach of the Year Awards in 2004 after Auburn's 13-0 season. He then coached at Texas Tech University from 2010 to 2012 and at the University of Cincinnati from 2013 to 2016, and, in 2017, he became an ESPN color analyst. In 2020, Tuberville ran for US Senate in Alabama as a Republican, closely allying himself with Donald Trump by supporting his proposed border wall, supporting reducing the national debt, and accusing his primary opponent of Jeff Sessions of failing to stand by Trump during the Russia investigation. On 14 July, Tuberville defeated Sessions in the GOP runoff primary with 61% of the vote, and he defeated Democratic incumbent Doug Jones in a close contest in November.