Tom Ables walked off the USS Alabama in August of 1946 not knowing exactly where life would take him.

Less than a month later, Ables was a freshman at San Diego State and found himself attending his first football game, a 34-0 win over Pomona. He has missed only three Aztecs football games in the 70 years since. Ables became an “Aztec for Life” long before it became part of the campus vernacular.

When the 19th-ranked Aztecs play South Alabama on Saturday night in Mobile, Ala., the 90-year-old Ables will be on the sidelines. It will be the 774th game he has attended in person.

Ables plans to visit an old friend earlier in the day, completing a circle of sorts. The USS Alabama is a ship museum now in Mobile Bay, located just five miles from South Alabama’s Ladd–Peebles Stadium.


“I can’t tell you how emotional I get when you stop to think what the odds are of something like that happening in anybody’s life,” Ables said. “Almost 70 years to the day I’ll be back on the ship. ... And to have it happen the same day I’m with my Aztecs is unbelievable.

“I’m looking forward to it and very excited about it. I’d like to go on, go down to my old engine room and quietly be emotional.”

Ables, who owns his own public relations company, said he had thought about becoming an architect or an engineer when he joined the Navy. It was a thought he shared when asked as he first boarded the battleship late in 1945.

“Ah, engineer,” came the reply from a shipmate assigning duties.


“So he put me in the engine room,” said Ables, who had no idea what he was supposed to do down there.

“No problem,” he was told. “There are only two things you need to know how to do here. One is to man the bilge pump. The other is to make coffee.”

Ables entered the service just months before World War II ended.

“I was proud to have been in the Navy, but my brother (Charles) was the war hero in our family,” said Ables. “He was a staff sergeant in the Marines. He had gone to San Diego State. He was there when Pearl Harbor hit. He joined the Marines and was in every one of those island battles you’ve heard about, from Guadalcanal (a battle fought from August 1942 to February 1943) all the way to Iwo Jima (February/March of 1945).


“He never came home that whole time, but, happily, he came home alive and well.”

Ables went aboard the Alabama while it was in port in San Francisco in October of 1945 and served on the battleship during a West Coast tour for the next year. The ship was decommissioned a year later and has served as a museum, much like the USS Midway in San Diego, since 1965.

Thinking about Saturday’s visit, Ables said, “when I actually go down that ladder into the engine room, that’s when it will hit me the hardest.”

Ables plans to share his thoughts with the Aztecs players beforehand. SDSU head coach Rocky Long has asked Ables to speak to the team from time to time, and has invited him to do so Friday on the plane ride to Mobile.


“Our players all know who Tom is,” Long said earlier this week. “They all respect his streak. They like seeing him on the road. They like seeing him at games because he’s there every time. I think he adds something to the program.”

SDSU quarterback Christian Chapman, like many of his teammates, is impressed by Ables’ dedication to the team.

“That says a lot about how he cares about this program and how he’s always here supporting us, especially at his age,” Chapman said. “Being to 700 games, or I don’t even know where it’s at, it’s amazing that he’s still there. I’m just glad he’s always there supporting us.”

Ables sits in the stands at home games, but walks the sidelines for road games. It seems a little risky for a man in his 10th decade. Then again ...


“I’m a 66-year-old man on the field and they could wipe me out at any time, too,” Long said. “If you’re on the sidelines, it’s at your own risk.”

After 773 games, Ables said he has a pretty good idea how to stay out of the way.

kirk.kenney@sduniontribune.com / on Twitter: @sdutkirKDKenney


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