Welcome back and happy Monday. First of all, I hope your bowl pool got off to a good start this weekend. (Thank you, Jacksonville State.)

Now let’s get caught up on some news. It was a violent weekend in Birmingham, recently we had one of the state’s oldest bars close. And — speaking of Jacksonville State — we remember a championship college football coach.

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Some crime numbers

Three homicides were confirmed Saturday in Birmingham, taking this year’s total so far to 131, reports AL.com’s Carol Robinson.

With two weeks left in the year, that’s just 13 fewer homicides than the city had in 2022. The 144 homicides last year are believed to be the most in Birmingham since 1933.

This year, one of the homicides was an officer-involved shooting by an outside law enforcement, and nine others have been ruled justified.

One of Saturday’s shootings, at the Pita Stop on the city’s South Side, happened after a man reportedly argued about whether he’d paid for his meal. The restaurant owner claims the man attacked the owner, who ended up shooting the man. Authorities are still investigating.

Then on Sunday morning, outside Birmingham on Center Point Parkway, a man was killed in a shooting at a Waffle House after reportedly threatening to shoot other people there. That raises Jefferson County’s homicides this year to 183, within 11 of last year’s total.

Cheers to the years

One of Alabama’s oldest bars has closed, reports AL.com’s William Thornton.

The Green Lantern in McCalla, on Old Tuscaloosa Highway, has been around “for almost 100 years,” according to the establishment’s announcement. Back in 2013 AL.com published a story in which the bar’s operator said it had been around since the 1920s, and the wall mural outside also claims “since the twenties.”

Since that was during the prohibition era, we’ll just chalk up the roadhouse’s vague beginnings to a Coca-Cola haze.

In that 2013 story, bar regular Jerry Walker called the Green Lantern “a good neighborhood pub for the working man.”

RIP, Coach Burgess

Former Jacksonville State head football coach Bill Burgess passed away last week, reports AL.com’s Creg Stephenson.

During his time at JSU, Burgess led the Gamecocks to four Gulf South Conference championships and the 1992 Division II national title.

Burgess was from Birmingham and had previously coached at Woodlawn and Oxford High Schools. His name was reintroduced to a nationwide audience via the long-running Rick & Bubba radio show. Sons of the coach, host Rick Burgess and his brother Greg Burgess, are personalities on that show.

Bill Burgess was 82 years old.

Quoting

“I can’t root for Alabama under any circumstances. I love coach Saban. He’s been great to me, but I can never root for Alabama under any circumstances. I told you, if they played Afghanistan, I’d be pulling for Afghanistan.”

Former Auburn and NBA star Charles Barkley, while talking about the College Football Playoffs during an ESPN broadcast of an Auburn basketball game.

By the numbers

$2.86 million

That’s how much U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville is estimated to have lost in potential profits after he sold Tesla stock “put options.”

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