TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — It is altogether appropriate that the elephant is a symbol of the University of Alabama because it is apparent the Crimson Tide also does not forget.

Not about the final football game of the 4-9 2003 season, at least. Not about the 37-29 loss to the University of Hawai'i that put an exclamation point on the season with the most losses in 50 years certainly.

"It wasn't a very good feeling, that's for sure," coach Mike Shula said. " None of us will forget that, but that was then."

Really?

On campus and in shops along the University Avenue area known as "The Strip," T-shirts commemorating tomorrow's season opener against Hawai'i proclaim "WELCOME TO OUR PARADISE!" with a crimson-clad elephant standing, arms crossed and defiant, in front of the expanded Bryant-Denny Stadium that is the site of the game.

But long before the T-shirts found their way into shop windows or the backs of fans, Shula was already at work. "(With) the seniors, we've talked about it throughout the summer," Shula said of the 2003 loss. "And there have been articles written over there that have somehow found their way to our kids' hands."

If the Tide overlooked UH three years ago — and it shouldn't have after a 21-16 win in 2002 — its coach doesn't want it to happen again. And Shula can't afford for it to.

"That (loss) really resonated," said Rich Megraw, a UA professor. "It was like, 'My (gosh), we're supposed to be Alabama,' and whenever kids from Alabama and kids from Hawai'i get on the same football field, we have serious expectations that were not met in that regard."

In 2003 Shula had a free pass as a first-year head coach taking over a program that had been slapped with NCAA probation and tossed by the turmoil of the departures of Dennis Franchione and Mike Price in a matter of months.

But this is year four of the Shula era, most of the players are his and so is the home ground. So, too are the expectations that follow a 10-2 season, not to mention the grand coming out party for the $50 million renovation and expansion of Bryant-Denny to 92,138 seats.

Critics here have lambasted the non-conference portion of the Tide's schedule — UH, Louisiana-Monroe, Duke and Florida International— as cupcake.

"This might be the most embarrassing schedule of non-conference opponents any school has put together in the history of college football," one Alabama-based columnist suggested.

It is a schedule set up to fatten the win column. Indeed the talk here isn't if Alabama will win, but by how many points. So it just wouldn't do for a hand-picked guest traveling a fifth of the way around the globe, 17-point underdog UH, to spoil the party.

Which is why, along with the regular opening-game jitters, the perception is that Shula's paranoia index has been rising. Which might be saying something.

Yesterday UA officials said they would shorten the media's access to the last full practice before the game. Then, Shula had a columnist from your favorite newspaper escorted from the practice area while the team was doing stretching exercises. Stretching apparently being the key to whatever it is Alabama plans to do tomorrow.

But it would not be a stretch to say Alabama remembers well what happened three years ago and is pulling out the stops to see it doesn't happen again tomorrow.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.