HUNTSVILLE, Alabama -- He just wanted to see Alabama play one time. His imagination had been fueled by the 1960s radio broadcasts of his favorite team and he knew the players' names as if they were his own classmates. Trammell. Jordan. Clark. Fracchia. Neighbors. Battle. Namath.

"Just to see Alabama play one time," Tommy Ray says, still sounding wistful a half-century later. "Now, I've been fortunate enough to see 526 games."

And, with Saturday's Alabama-Mississippi State game, it's 500 consecutive Crimson Tide football games.

That's home and road, regular season and bowls, from Honolulu to Boston, Miami to South Bend. The streak began Sept. 9, 1972, with an Alabama victory over Duke at Birmingham's Legion Field.

He'll match the streak of the late Tony Brandino, second only to the 700-plus-and-counting of Dick Coffee.

During his streak, the 64-year-old Ray has met most of the coaches. He was particularly close to Bill Curry, continuing to offer support and friendship to Curry when others were unwelcoming and critical.

"Obviously Tommy is among the most loyal human beings in the world when he believes in something," says Curry, now the head coach at Georgia State. "

He was a tremendous support to us. It was great to see him after every game. The good ones and the bad ones, you knew he would be there.

Tommy is a great, positive factor in the Alabama program."

By now, you've already pondered the notion that Tommy Ray must be some maniacal, obsessed fan in desperate need of a life.

You couldn't be further from the truth.

"I don't paint my face. I wear neutral colors," says Ray, who didn't even attend Alabama; he went to UAH.

He and wife Sarah, who attends most of the games with him, get a chuckle as they drive to Tuscaloosa and other venues, and see the magnetic signs and the pennants flapping from the windows, and how it seems the only cars with no decoration are the Rays' vehicle and unmarked state trooper cars.

"What I enjoy is the three hours of the game," says Ray, an engineering technician for the city of Huntsville. "It's the all-day adventure, but it's all for those three hours inside the stadium."

It's not about the streak.

"I won't allow it (to take on a life of its own)," he says. "I do it because the University of Alabama has a football game."

Before the season, the devout Ray even offers a prayer that if the streak becomes too much of an obsession, too much focus, to "please take it away."

There have been three near-misses.

The first, Sarah was in the hospital, but was recovering nicely from an illness. Though she pretty much had to chase him out the door herself, he made it to the game.

The second, Tommy had been doing some renovation work and inhaled paint fumes. He wasn't feeling well when he left for Miami and the 2000 Orange Bowl. He started feeling even worse, but made it to the game.

He drove home and went to see his doctor -- who immediately ordered him to check into the hospital, where he spent four days.

The third was "comical," with a time-zone change snafu.

Maybe the most astounding thing about it all, Tommy Ray isn't a season-ticket holder. Never has been.

Early on, he went through the university trying to buy a ticket and got a rejection letter. The letter is laminated and in his office. He'll get his tickets from friends or even buy them on the street.

What a laugh he had that day a street-corner entrepreneur, after Ray rejected his price tag, said to him, "Man, you'll never get in that stadium."

He did. And still does.

He has spent enough time around coaches during the streak for something to have rubbed off on him.

Over lunch a few days before No. 500, Ray says, "I take it one game at a time."

Contact Mark McCarter at mmccarter@al.com and follow him on Twitter @markmccarter