Unstoppable passion for people
From his office below Mafiaoza’s, Alex Sokol listened to Phish in the morning and Paul Finebaum in the afternoon. There was never a shortage of laughter or jokes in the space.
“He brought so much life to this office, as he did to everything,” said Jason Rogoff, remembering his cousin with whom he shared office space. “He was such a passionate person, whether that was football or friendships, but it was mostly Alabama football.”
Sokol would often call attention to how Nick Saban was smiling in a photo of the two of them from a park opening planned by Alabama Forever, Sokol’s nonprofit organization. Not a day passed when he didn’t talk about his framed No. 8 Julio Jones jersey. On the wall of his office hung just as many framed Alabama football Sports Illustrated covers as the university’s offices, if not more.
Sokol’s connection wasn’t just to the sport, though. It was to its people. Practice credentials hang alongside passes to national championships and the Sugar Bowl in his office.
Rogoff recalled being in the football practice facilities in Tuscaloosa and hearing Sokol yell, “Hey, LC!”
Landon Collins, an NFL safety who played for the Tide at the time, turned around.
“They all knew him,” Rogoff said. “It was so fascinating to me that he knew all these people and they knew him back.”
Sokol’s passion for people was evident on March 26 of this year. That day a playground was dedicated at Alberta Elementary in Tuscaloosa, a school that had been destroyed in the April 27, 2011, tornado. The project was completed in partnership with Nick’s Kids, Nick and Terry Saban’s nonprofit, and the Junior League of Tuscaloosa, but like most things he got involved with, Sokol was the driving force behind it.
Two days later, Sokol died. He was 38.
A day before the dedication, Sokol had given a check to his friend, musician Matthew Mayfield, to support his new record. Like everything he gave away, he expected nothing in return.
“Any time you needed something, he didn’t hesitate to do it,” Rogoff said. “He’d say, ‘Absolutely, yes, I’ll do it.’ That’s a rare trait. And he’d do it for anybody, not just his friends. He loved helping people.”
Friends and family filled Temple Emanu-El for Sokol’s funeral a couple of days later, leaving standing room only, even though many of his friends were out of town on spring break. Again friends came together a few days later to celebrate Sokol at a memorial gathering at Mafiaoza’s once more of them were back in town.
Looking back now, Chris Nix, Sokol’s lifelong friend, can see that for years Sokol was hurting badly to do something for people. He wanted to take ownership in something. They often talked about starting businesses, and Sokol eventually found a taste of his calling by working at The Pants Store, where he got to know countless moms and children.
Then the tornadoes came on April 27, 2011. The next day Sokol went down to Tuscaloosa to help a friend’s mom and at some point wandered off, taking in the damage to the town and its people. Two days later, he had a plan. He called up a group of friends, including Nix, and told them to meet him for lunch at Moe’s Original BBQ.
“I have an idea, and we’re going to do it,” Sokol told them. Its name was Alabama Forever, and it was going to help the communities devastated by the tornadoes.
“I’m not sure I believed him, but I believed in him,” Nix said.
The lunch meeting formed the foundation of Alabama Forever’s first board of directors: Jim Ashurst, Ed Welden, Cory Reamer, Richard Estes, Scott Mullins and Shannon Crull, along with Nix and Sokol. Within a month, Sokol quit his job at The Pants Store and had a logo, a mission, a vision and funds for Alabama Forever.
The board tried to slow him down, knowing that obtaining 501(c)(3) status was a slow process. An attorney said it would take three to six months.
“Nobody cares about that right now,” Sokol told them. “People need our help.”
And sure enough, Sokol got them their nonprofit status in 45 days.
Sokol had started at the first of May by collecting donations at The Pants Store and delivering them to tornado-ravaged areas but soon found that they needed to address long-term needs. He and his new board of directors set a new goal to make a “generational impact,” and that started with rebuilding a baseball field in Cordova as well as projects in Pratt City and Hackleburg.
In Pratt City, instead of rebuilding the library, a big project, they focused on getting computer equipment to stock the library once it opened. Across the street they also built a gazebo to create green space for families with the help of kids from Mountain Brook. Uncle Al, also known as Big Al, always dropped everything to spend time with them, so they didn’t think twice about helping Sokol with a project that they might have turned up their noses at if their parents had asked.
“If Alex asked [my kids] to lay sod in Pratt City, they would jump at the chance,” said Ed Welden, a lifelong friend and Alabama Forever board member. “He’d make it fun and taught them a lot of lessons.”
After that initial year, Alabama Forever decided to focus more broadly on education in areas of need in Alabama. Each year they accept applications from high schools that need help funding athletic equipment and were able to help about 25 of them a year. They never presented checks, though, instead providing the uniforms themselves or whatever items were needed.
“Whether it was a playground or food or materials, [Alex] wouldn’t stop,” Welden said. “He was relentless and would pull together his friends and resources to make it happen.”
Sokol’s work at Alabama Forever still isn’t finished. The organization is helping with a playground project at a new Tuscaloosa YMCA that will open next year, a project Sokol had begun, as well as the development of a scholarship fund in Sokol’s memory. Still, there’s no denying a void has been left.
“We want to help keep Alex’s legacy alive, but it will be difficult because he had that ‘it’ factor,” Nix said. “He had a worldwide reach in this small community. Alabama Forever was the platform that shared Alex with the world.”