Matt Sweatman is a specialist. He’s “the glove man” for the national champion University of Alabama football team.

      Sweatman, 20, a 2007 Trion High School graduate is a junior at Alabama and an equipment manager for the Crimson Tide.

     In his third year at Tuscaloosa, the former Trion Bulldog offensive lineman works for longtime   Alabama equipment director Tank Conerly.

     “He’s real laid back,” said Sweatman of his boss, who has worked for the university for 24 years. “He’s a great guy.”

     Conerly has enough confidence in Sweatman to let him order the receivers’ gloves from the manufacturer, Nike. It’s not a meaningless task, as each of Alabama’s receivers wear gloves during the games.

     Conerly is Sweatman’s direct boss, but the Trion native is also assigned to wide receivers under Coach Curt Cignetti and special teams Coach Bobby Williams.

     It’s a demanding, time-consuming job, but Sweatman loves it.

     “Coach Cignetti is pretty intense but both he and Coach Williams are good to work for,” he said.

     Attending Alabama was always in the plan for Sweatman. His dad, Dean Sweatman, was a graduate and the younger Sweatman grew up in a Crimson Tide household.

     “I never even applied anywhere else,” he laughed.

     “At 5-8, 200 or so pounds, he wasn’t built to play football at the college level, but that didn’t keep him from pursuing a place with the one of the nation’s most storied football programs.

     “My step-brother Jesse Griffin was a manager at Georgia Tech and he told me about what he did,” said Sweatman. “After I graduated Jesse and Coach Loudermilk (former THS football coach Mark Loudermilk) sent some letters for me to Alabama.”

     Sweatman went to Tuscaloosa and interviewed for a position with the equipment staff. He got the job, which not only puts him on the sidelines at the team’s ballgames, but pays him a partial scholarship which increases each year he sticks with the program.

“It’s a lot of work, but it’s worth it,” he said.

Sweatman is very proud of the Crimson Tide’s undefeated season this year.

“It was almost like a fairy tale,” he said. “No one thought we could make it through the SEC without losing a game, but we did it,” he said.

While the team’s national title win over Texas was exciting, Sweatman said the most satisfying win of the season was Alabama’s 32-13 thrashing of Florida in the SEC championship game in Atlanta.

“No one thought we could beat Florida,” he said.

Other memorable games for the Trion native was last year’s win over Tennessee in Knoxville and the 2008 victory over Georgia at Athens in the “blackout game.”

Sweatman has one more year ahead of him on the Alabama sidelines and hopes another SEC championship and national title run is in the cards. After that, he plans on completing his degree in special education and beginning a career as a teacher.

Oh yeah, he’s still not done with football.

“I want to coach,” he said. “Eventually I would like to be a head coach at the high school level.”