Count 36-year-old actress Melissa Joan Hart as a member of Crimson Tide Nation. The star of shows such as “Clarissa Explains It All,” “Sabrina, the Teenage Witch” and currently “Melissa and Joey” knows her Alabama football.
Maybe you already knew this. I didn’t realize it until I tripped over a post she delivered on Twitter to former Alabama defensive back Javier Arenas, now a third-year defensive back for the Kansas City Chiefs.
Arenas tweeted this July 25: “Checking out all 3 eps. Of Melissa & Joey on abc family right now @MellyJHart”
Then Hart tweeted back: “Xoxo RollTide!” According to Twitter, 29 people retweeted her response, including Arenas.
Not sure what’s more surprising — that Hart likes Alabama enough that she’s Twitter friends with Arenas or that Arenas is a big fan of “Melissa and Joey.”
Hart has more than 227,000 Twitter followers (@MellyJHart), but she follows only 268 people, most of whom are other actors and actresses. But Arenas has made the cut, along with former Alabama players Courtney Upshaw and Mark Ingram.
According to an espn.com story, she became an Alabama fan because of her husband, musician Mark Wilkerson, who is from Andalusia. They met in 2002 and married in 2003. They attended the Alabama-Texas BCS showdown in Pasadena, Calif., three years ago. She apparently wasn’t a college football fan until meeting him.
So maybe Alabama fans should pay her back by watching her show. If you’re not sure when it’s on, just start following Arenas on Twitter (@JavierArenas21). When Hart tweeted last week, “Set your TiVo for Melissa and Joey tonight! #MelissaJoey,” Arenas faithfully retweeted it.
