Tommy Tuberville

Thomas Hawley Tuberville (/ˈtʌbərvɪl/; TUH-bərv-il; born September 18, 1954) is an American politician, and retired college football coach and sports broadcaster who is the senior United States senator from Alabama, a seat he has held since 2021. He is a member of the Republican Party. Before entering politics, Tuberville was the head football coach at Auburn University from 1999 to 2008. He was also the head football coach at the University of Mississippi from 1995 to 1998, Texas Tech University from 2010 to 2012, and the University of Cincinnati from 2013 to 2016.

Tuberville won five national coach-of-the-year awards (AP, AFCA, Sporting News, Walter Camp, and Bear Bryant) after Auburn's 13–0 season in 2004, in which Auburn won the Southeastern Conference title and the Sugar Bowl, but was left out of the BCS National Championship Game. He earned his 100th career win in 2007. Tuberville is the only Auburn football coach to beat in-state rival Alabama six consecutive times. In 2015, he was the president of the American Football Coaches Association. He worked for ESPN as a color analyst for its college football coverage during 2017.

In his first political campaign, Tuberville ran for Senate in 2020, winning the Republican primary and defeating Democratic incumbent Doug Jones. Establishing himself as an ally of President Donald Trump, he was among a group of Republican senators who voted to object to the certification of the 2020 presidential election. In 2023, in protest of a Defense Department policy reimbursing travel for service members seeking abortions, Tuberville blocked all promotions of senior officers in the U.S. military for 10 months, delaying over 450 promotions. He initially planned to run for reelection to a second term, but later announced he would run for governor of Alabama in 2026 instead.