Bear Bryant

Bear Bryant

Paul William "Bear" Bryant (September 11, 1913 – January 26, 1983) was an American college football coach. He was best known as the longtime head coach of the University of Alabama football team. During his twenty-five year tenure as Alabama's head coach he amassed six national championships and thirteen conference championships. Upon his retirement in 1982 he held the record for most wins as head coach in collegiate football history. At the University of Alabama, the Paul W. Bryant Museum, Paul W. Bryant Drive and Bryant-Denny Stadium are all named in his honor. He was also known for his trademark houndstooth hat, deep voice, casually leaning up against the goal post during pre-game warmups, and frequently holding his rolled-up game plan while on the sidelines.

Before arriving at Alabama, Bryant was head football coach at University of Maryland, the University of Kentucky, and Texas A&M University.

Early life

Paul Bryant was the 11th of 12 children who were born to William Monroe and Ida Kilgore Bryant in Moro Bottom, Arkansas. His nickname stemmed from his having agreed to wrestle a captive bear during a theater promotion when he was 13 years old.

He attended Fordyce High School in Fordyce, Arkansas, where 6 ft 1 in (1.85 m) tall Bryant - who as an adult would eventually stand 6 ft 3 in (1.91 m) - began playing on the school's football team as an eighth grader. During his senior season, the team, with Bryant playing offensive line and defensive end, won the 1930 Arkansas state football championship.

College

Bryant accepted a scholarship to play for the University of Alabama in 1931. Since he elected to leave high school before completing his diploma, Bryant had to enroll in a Tuscaloosa high school to finish his education during the fall semester while he practiced with the college team. Bryant played end for the Crimson Tide and was a participant on the school's 1934 National Championship team. Bryant was the self-described "other end" during his playing years with the team, playing opposite the big star, Don Hutson, who later became an NFL Hall-of-Famer. Bryant himself was second team All-SEC in 1934, and was third team all conference in both 1933 and 1935. Bryant played with a partially-broken leg in a 1935 game against Tennessee. Bryant pledged the Sigma Nu social fraternity, and as a senior, he married Mary Harmon.

Bryant was selected in the fourth round by the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1936 NFL Draft, but never played professionally.

Coaching career

Assistant and North Carolina Pre-Flight

After graduating in 1936, Bryant took a coaching job at Union University in Jackson, Tennessee, but he left that position when offered an assistant coaching position under Frank Thomas at The University of Alabama. Over the next four years, the team compiled a 29–5–3 record. In 1940, he left Alabama to become an assistant at Vanderbilt University under Henry Russell Sanders. After the 1941 season, Bryant was offered the head coaching job at the University of Arkansas. However, following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Bryant joined the United States Navy. He served off North Africa, seeing no combat action. However his ship, the civilian merchantman SS Uruguay was rammed by another ship and ordered to be abandoned. Bryant disobeyed the order, saving the lives of his men. 200 others died. He was later granted an honorable discharge to train recruits and coach the North Carolina Navy Pre-Flight football team. One of the players he coached for the Navy was the future Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback Otto Graham. While in the Navy, Bryant attained the rank of Lieutenant Commander.

University of Maryland

In 1945, 32-year old Bryant met Washington Redskins owner George Marshall at a cocktail party hosted by the Chicago Tribune, and said he had turned down offers for assistant coaching positions at Alabama and Georgia Tech. Bryant told Marshall that he was intent on becoming a head coach. Marshall put him in contact with Harry Clifton "Curley" Byrd, the president and former football coach of the University of Maryland.

After meeting with Byrd the next day, Bryant received the job as head coach of the Maryland Terrapins. In his only season with at Maryland, Bryant led the team to a 6–2–1 record. However, Bryant and Byrd came into conflict. In the most prominent incident, while Bryant was on vacation, Byrd reinstated a player who had been suspended by Bryant for a violation of team rules. After the 1945 season, Bryant left Maryland to take over as head coach at the University of Kentucky.

University of Kentucky

Bryant coached at the University of Kentucky for eight seasons. Under Bryant, Kentucky made its first bowl appearance (1947) and won its first Southeastern Conference title (1950). The 1950 Kentucky team concluded its season with a victory over Bud Wilkinson's #1 ranked Oklahoma Sooners in the Sugar Bowl. The team finished the season ranked #1 according to the Sagarin Rankings. The living players from the 1950 team were honored during halftime of a game during the 2005 season after the NCAA retroactively recognized the team as co-national champions for that season. Bryant also led Kentucky to appearances in the Great Lakes Bowl, Orange Bowl, and Cotton Bowl Classic. Kentucky's final AP poll rankings under Bryant included #11 in 1949, #7 in 1950, #15 in 1951, #20 in 1952 and #16 in 1953. The 1950 season was Kentucky's highest rank until it finished #6 in the final 1977 AP poll.

Bryant departed Kentucky after he and basketball coach Adolph Rupp had both completed successful seasons in their respective sports. Legend has it that, as a reward, Rupp was given a Cadillac automobile: Bryant was given a cigarette lighter. Bryant left Kentucky, furious that the University had not reprimanded Rupp for his players' roles in the college basketball point shaving scandals of the early '50s. Kentucky was suspended from playing college basketball in 1953, and Rupp received no suspension. This led Bryant to conclude that basketball was #1 on the Kentucky campus and Bryant could not abide by that. Rumors also stating that Bryant left Kentucky after his ideas of integrating the team were rebuffed.

Texas A&M University

In 1954, Bryant accepted the head coaching job at Texas A&M University. He also served as athletic director while at A&M.

The Aggies suffered through a grueling 1-9 initial season which began with the infamous training camp in Junction, Texas. The “survivors” were given the name “Junction Boys.” Two years later, Bryant led the team to the Southwest Conference championship with a 34–21 victory over the University of Texas at Austin. The following year, 1957, Bryant's star back John David Crow won the Heisman Trophy (the only Bryant player to ever earn that award), and the Aggies were in title contention until they lost to the #20 Rice Owls in Houston, amid rumors that Alabama would be going after Bryant.

Again, as at Kentucky, Bryant attempted to integrate the Texas A&M squad. "We'll be the last football team in the Southwest Conference to integrate," he was told by a Texas A&M official. "Well," Bryant replied, "then that's where we're going to finish in football."

At the close of the 1957 season, having compiled an overall 25–14–2 record at Texas A&M, Bryant returned to Tuscaloosa to take the head coaching position, succeeding J.B. "Ears" Whitworth, as well as the athletic director job at Alabama.

University of Alabama

Memorial of Bryant outside of Legion Field

Bryant took over the Alabama football team in 1958. When asked why he came to Alabama, he replied "Momma called. And when Momma calls, you just have to come runnin'." After winning a combined four games the last three years, the Tide went 5–4–1 in Bryant's first season. The next year, in 1959, Alabama beat Auburn and appeared in a bowl game, the first time either had happened in the last six years. In 1961, under his leadership with quarterback Pat Trammell, football greats Lee Roy Jordan, and Billy Neighbors, Alabama went 11–0 and defeated Arkansas in the Sugar Bowl to claim the national championship.

The next three years (1962–64) featured Joe Namath at quarterback and were among Bryant's finest. The 1962 season ended with a victory in the Orange Bowl over Bud Wilkinson's University of Oklahoma Sooners. The following year ended with a victory in the 1963 Sugar Bowl. In 1964, the Tide won another national championship but lost to the University of Texas in the Orange Bowl in the first nationally televised college game in color. The Crimson Tide would repeat as champions in 1965 after defeating Nebraska in the Orange Bowl. Coming off of back-to-back national championship seasons, Bryant's Alabama team went undefeated in 1966 and defeated a strong Nebraska team 34–7 in the Sugar Bowl. However, Alabama finished third in the nation behind co-national champions Michigan State and Notre Dame, who had previously played to a 10–10 tie in a late regular season game.

The 1967 team was billed as another national championship contender with star quarterback Kenny Stabler returning, but the team stumbled out of the gate and tied Florida State 37–37 at Legion Field. The season never took off from there, with the Bryant-led Alabama team finishing 8–2–1, losing in the Cotton Bowl Classic to Texas A&M, coached by former Bryant player and assistant coach Gene Stallings. In 1968, Bryant again could not match his previous successes, as the team went 8–3, losing to the University of Missouri 35–10 in the Gator Bowl. The 1969 and 1970 teams finished 6–5 and 6–5–1 respectively.

For years, Bryant defended charges of racism by saying the social climate didn't allow him to go after black players. He finally was able to convince the administration to allow him to do it after scheduling the Tide's 1970 season opener against a strong University of Southern California team led by African-American fullback Sam Cunningham. Cunningham rushed for 150 yards and three touchdowns in a 42–21 victory against the overmatched Tide. After that season, Bryant was able to recruit Wilbur Jackson as Alabama's first African-American scholarship player, and junior-college transfer John Mitchell became the first black man to play for Alabama. By 1973, one-third of the team's starters were African-American.

In 1971, Bryant installed the wishbone offense. The change helped make the remainder of the decade a successful one for the Crimson Tide. That season Alabama went undefeated and earned a #2 ranking, but lost to #1 Nebraska, 38–6 in the Orange Bowl. The team would go on to split national championships in 1973 (Notre Dame defeated Alabama in the 1973 Sugar Bowl, which led the UPI to stop giving national championships until after all the games for the season had been played - including bowl games), 1978 (despite losing a regular season matchup against co-national champion USC) and win it outright in 1979.

Bryant coached at Alabama for 25 years, winning six national titles (1961, 1964, 1965, 1973, 1978, and 1979) and thirteen SEC championships. Bryant's win over in-state rival Auburn University, coached by former Bryant assistant Pat Dye in November 1981 was Bryant's 315th as a head coach, which was the most of any head coach at that time.

Retirement and death

Bryant announced his retirement as head football coach at Alabama effective with the end of the 1982 season. His last regular-season game was the 23–22 loss to Auburn University and his last post-season game was a 21–15 victory in the Liberty Bowl in Memphis, Tennessee over the University of Illinois. When asked in a post-game interview what he intended to do while retired, Bryant sarcastically replied that he would "probably croak in a week."

On January 25, 1983, Bryant, complaining of chest pains, checked into Druid City Hospital in Tuscaloosa. A day later, when being prepped for an electro-cardiogram, Bryant died after suffering a massive heart attack. First news of Bryant's death came from Bert Bank (WTBC Radio Tuscaloosa) and on the NBC Radio Network (anchored by Stan Martyn and reported by Stewart Stogel). His death came 28 days after his last game as a coach, and only one day after passing a routine medical checkup. On his hand at the time of his death was the only piece of jewelry he ever wore, a gold ring inscribed "The Junction Boys". He is interred at Birmingham's Elmwood Cemetery.

Defamation suit

In 1962, after Bryant lambasted The Saturday Evening Post for printing an article that accused Bryant of encouraging his players to "engage in brutality" in a 1961 game against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, the magazine claimed that Bryant and Georgia Bulldogs coach Wally Butts had conspired to fix their 1961 game together in Alabama's favor. Butts, also on Bryant's behalf, sued Curtis Publishing Co. for defamation. The case went to the Supreme Court. As a result of Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts 388 U.S. 130 (1967), Curtis was ordered to pay $3,060,000 in damages to the plaintiff.

Honors and awards

• Ten-time Southeastern Conference Coach of the Year
• Three-time National Coach of the Year in 1961, 1971 and 1973. The national coach of the year award was subsequently named the Paul "Bear" Bryant Award in his honor.
• Was named Head Coach of Sports Illustrated's NCAA Football All-Century Team.
• He received 1.5 votes for the Democratic Party Presidential nomination at the extremely contentious 1968 Democratic Convention
• In February 1983, Bryant was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Ronald Reagan.
• Bryant was honored with a U.S. postage stamp in 1996.
• Country singer Roger Hallmark recorded a tribute song in his honor.
• Charles Ghigna wrote a poem that appeared in the Birmingham-Post Herald in 1983 as a tribute to Bryant.
• Super Bowl XVII was dedicated to Bryant. A moment of silence was held in his memory during the pregame ceremonies.

Legacy

Many of Bryant's former players and assistant coaches went on to become head coaches at the collegiate level and/or in the National Football League. Mickey Andrews, Danny Ford, Jim Owens, Howard Schnellenberger, and Gene Stallings all won national championships as head coaches for NCAA programs, while Neil Callaway, Joey Jones, Mike Riley and Schnellenberger are active head coaches in the NCAA.

See also

• List of presidents of the American Football Coaches Association
• The Bear (1984 film)

External links

• Paul W. Bryant Museum
• Paul "Bear" Bryant College Football Coaching Awards
• Paul "Bear" Bryant Memorial at Find A Grave
• Paul "Bear" Bryant article, Encyclopedia of Alabama
• Coach Bryant Timeline at the Paul W. Bryant Museum.
• Paul "Bear" Bryant at the College Football Hall of Fame
• Summary of Bryant's record from RollTide.com
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