(Basketball 1957-59)

A native of Florence, Wimp Sanderson was a prep standout at Coffee High School and played his freshman season of collegiate basketball at Abilene Christian (Tex.) before transferring back to Florence State. In three seasons with the Lions, from 1957-59, he scored 1,076 points and averaged 14.9 points over his 72 game career. He was named team captain as both a junior and a senior and led the Lions in scoring in 1958 with 403 points. His best single-game performance came against Jacksonville State in 1958 when he scored 31 points. But by the time his playing days were over, Sanderson had just begun to make his mark on the game of basketball. After earning a degree in physical education in 1959, he began his coaching career at Carbon Hill High School where he went 25-4.

The next season he became a graduate assistant to Hayden Riley at the University of Alabama for the 1960-61 season and was elevated to a full-time assistant's post the following year. He held that spot until C.M. Newton's retirement in 1980. Then, after 20 years as an assistant coach, Sanderson was named Alabama's 16th head coach on April 15, 1980. In his first 11 years (1981-91) as head coach, Sanderson took Alabama to nine NCAA Tournaments, one NIT and reached the NCAA's "Sweet Sixteen" six times. He also took the Crimson Tide to the finals of the Southeastern Conference Tournament eight times and won five (1982, 1987, 1989, 1990, 1991). He had seen almost 50 percent of all basketball games in which Alabama participated in up until 1991. He was named "SEC Coach of the Decade" for  the 1980s by the Lexington Herald-Leader.