Bear Bryant
American Football Player and Coach
| Date of Birth | : | 11 Sep, 1913 |
| Date of Death | : | 26 Jan, 1983 |
| Place of Birth | : | Cleveland County, Arkansas, United States |
| Profession | : | American Football Head Coach, American Football Player, Footballer, Army Officer, Coach |
| Nationality | : | American |
Paul William "Bear" Bryant (পল উইলিয়াম বিয়ার ব্রায়ান্ট) was an American college football player and coach. He is considered by many to be one of the greatest college football coaches of all time, and best known as the head coach of the University of Alabama football team from 1958 to 1982. During his 25-year tenure as Alabama's head coach, he amassed six national championships and 13 conference championships. Upon his retirement in 1982, he held the record for the most wins (323) as a head coach in collegiate football history. The Paul W. Bryant Museum, Paul W. Bryant Hall, Paul W. Bryant Drive, and Bryant–Denny Stadium are all named in his honor at the University of Alabama. He was also known for his trademark black and white houndstooth hat, even though he normally wore a plaid one, deep voice, casually leaning up against the goal post during pre-game warmups, and holding his rolled-up game plan while on the sidelines. Before arriving at Alabama, Bryant was head football coach at the University of Maryland, the University of Kentucky, and Texas A&M University.
Early life
Bryant was the 11th of 12 children who were born to Wilson Monroe Bryant and Ida Kilgore Bryant in Moro Bottom, Cleveland County, Arkansas. His nickname stemmed from his having agreed to wrestle a captive bear during a carnival promotion when he was 13 years old. His mother wanted him to be a minister, but Bryant told her "Coaching is a lot like preaching." He attended Fordyce High School, where the 6 ft 1 in (1.85 m) tall Bryant, who as an adult would eventually stand 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m), began playing on the school's football team as an eighth grader. During his senior season, Bryant played offensive line and defensive end, and the team won the 1930 Arkansas state football championship.
College playing career
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 a star in the National Football League and a Pro Football Hall of Famer. Bryant himself was second team All-Southeastern Conference 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 was a member of Sigma Nu fraternity, and as a senior, he married Mary Harmon, which he kept a secret since Alabama did not allow active players to be married.
Bryant was selected in the fourth round by the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1936 NFL Draft, but he never played professional football.
Coaching career
Assistant and North Carolina Pre-Flight
After graduating from the University of Alabama in 1936, Bryant took a coaching job under A. B. Hollingsworth 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. During their 1940 season, Bryant served as head coach of the Commodores for their 7–7 tie against Kentucky as Sanders was recovering from an appendectomy. After the 1941 season, Bryant was offered the head coaching job at the University of Arkansas. However, Pearl Harbor was bombed soon thereafter, and Bryant declined the position to join the United States Navy. In 1942 he served as an assistant coach with the Georgia Pre-Flight Skycrackers.
Bryant then served off North Africa, on the United States Army Transport SS Uruguay, seeing no combat action. On February 12, 1943, in the North Atlantic the oil tanker USS Salamonie suffered a steering fault and accidentally rammed the SS Uruguay amidships. The tanker's bow made a 70-foot (21 m) hole in Uruguay's hull and penetrated her, killing 13 soldiers and injuring 50. The Uruguay's crew contained the damage by building a temporary bulkhead and three days later she reached Bermuda. President Franklin D. Roosevelt decorated Uruguay's Captain, Albert Spaulding, with the Merchant Marine Distinguished Service Medal for saving many lives, his ship and her cargo.
Bryant 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.
Maryland
In 1945, 32-year-old Bryant met Washington Redskins owner George Marshall at a cocktail party hosted by the Chicago Tribune, and mentioned that he had turned down offers to be an assistant coach at Alabama and Georgia Tech because 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 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 brought back a player that was suspended by Bryant for not following the team rules. After the 1945 season, Bryant left Maryland to take over as head coach at the University of Kentucky.
Kentucky
Bryant coached at Kentucky for eight seasons. Under Bryant, Kentucky made its first bowl appearance in 1947 and won its first Southeastern Conference title in 1950. The 1950 Kentucky Wildcats football team finished with a school best 11–1 record and concluded the season with a victory over Bud Wilkinson's top-ranked Oklahoma Sooners in the Sugar Bowl. The final AP poll was released before bowl games in that era, so Kentucky ended the regular season ranked #7. But several other contemporaneous polls, as well as the Sagarin Ratings System applied retrospectively, declared Bryant's 1950 Wildcats to be the national champions, but neither the NCAA nor College Football Data Warehouse recognizes this claim. 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.
Texas A&M
In 1954, Bryant accepted the head coaching job at Texas A&M University. He also served as athletic director.
The Aggies suffered through a grueling 1–9 season in 1954, which began with the infamous training camp in Junction, Texas. The "survivors" were given the name "Junction Boys". Two years later, Bryant led the 1956 Texas A&M Aggies football team to the Southwest Conference championship with a 34–21 victory over the Texas Longhorns at Austin. The following year, Bryant's star back John David Crow won the Heisman Trophy, and the 1957 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 Jennings B. Whitworth, as well as the athletic director job at Alabama.
Alabama
When asked why he returned to his alma mater, Bryant replied, "Mama called. And when Mama calls, you just have to come runnin'." Bryant's first spring practice back at Alabama was much like what happened at Junction. Some of Bryant's assistants thought it was even more difficult, as dozens of players quit the team. After winning a combined four games in the three years before Bryant's arrival (including Alabama's only winless season on the field in modern times), the Tide went 5–4–1 in Bryant's first season. The next year, in 1959, Alabama beat Auburn and appeared in the inaugural Liberty Bowl, the first time the Crimson Tide had beaten Auburn or appeared in a bowl game in six years. In the 1960 season, Bryant led Alabama to a 8–1–2 record and a #9 ranking in the final AP Poll. 1961, with quarterback Pat Trammell and football greats Lee Roy Jordan and Billy Neighbors, Alabama went 11–0 and defeated Arkansas 10–3 in the Sugar Bowl to claim the national championship.
September 11, 1913 – Paul William Bryant is born in Moro Bottoms near Moro Creek in southern Arkansas. Moro Bottom was a three-square mile plot of land where seven families lived.
He is the 11th of 12 children borne by Ida Kilgore and Wilson Monroe Bryant. Three of the Bryant children had died in infancy.
1924 – The Bryant family moves to nearby Fordyce, Ark., a town of 3,600 people.
1926 – Paul Bryant goes out for football and plays in the first game he ever sees. He has cleats screwed into his shoes, the only pair he owns, and wears them everywhere he goes.
1927 – The young teenager goes to the Lyric Theatre in Fordyce. where anyone who will wrestle a bear can win a dollar a minute. Bryant wrestles the bear but the owner and the bear escape without paying. He didn’t get the buck but he got a nickname.
1930 – Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant leads his high school team, the Fordyce Red Bugs to a perfect season and a state championship.
1931 – Alabama assistant coach Hank Crisp comes to Fordyce trying to sign the Jordan twins, who opt to go to Arkansas. Crisp leaves with one Paul Bryant.
1933 – In the first year of the Southeastern Conference, Bryant helps the Crimson Tide to the initial SEC Championship.
1934 – Paul Bryant becomes known in football folklore as the ‘other end’ to Don Hutson as Alabama goes 10-0 and beats Stanford 29-13 in the Rose Bowl. The Crimson Tide claims the national title by a number of polls in the pre-AP era.
June 2, 1935 – Paul Bryant secretly marries Mary Harmon Black in Ozark, Ala. He doesn’t tell Coach Frank Thomas in fear he’ll take away his scholarship.
October 19, 1935 – The legend of Bryant continues to grow as he plays against Tennessee in Knoxville with a broken bone in his left leg and he leads the Tide to a 25-0 victory over the Volunteers. The Tide goes 23-3-2 during his three-year career.
1936 – Bryant is hired at Union College in Tennessee to install the Notre Dame Box offense. He’s making $170 a month when Frank Thomas calls him home to Alabama as an assistant coach, paying him $1,250 a year. Daughter Mae Martin is born.
1940 – Bryant goes to Vanderbilt as an assistant coach to Red Sanders after being recommended by sports writer and close personal friend Fred Russell. Bryant helps the Commodores upset the Tide 7-0 in 1941.
December 7, 1941 -Bryant and Hall of Fame New York Yankee catcher Bill Dickey are going to Arkansas where Bryant is in line to be named the head coach of the Razorbacks when they hear news of Pearl Harbor on the radio. They turn around and head back to Nashville and Bryant enlists in the Navy.
1942-44 – Bryant serves in the Navy, in North Africa, before being stationed at North Carolina, where he coached the Pre-Flight Team. He receives an honorable discharge with the rank of Lt. Commander.
1945 – Four years after almost becoming the head coach at Arkansas, Bryant lands the head coaching position at Maryland and quickly turns the Terps into a winner, going 6-2-1.
1946 – Bryant accepts the head coaching job at Kentucky and turns a 2-8 team into a 7-3 one. One of the losses was 21-7 defeat at the hands of Alabama in a game played in Montgomery.
1947 – In his second year at Kentucky, Bryant takes the Wildcats bowling, finishing with an 8-3 record, with one of the defeats being a 13-0 shutout at the hands of Alabama in a game played in Lexington. Kentucky’s win over Villanova is the first bowl appearance ever for UK.
1950 – Bryant guides the Wildcats to an 11-1 record and the only SEC title in school history. With a team featuring Babe Parilli, Charlie McClendon and Pat James, the Wildcats stun the college football world by upsetting No. 1 Oklahoma 13-7 in the Sugar Bowl on New Year’s Day, 1951. It ends a 31-game winning streak for Bud Wilkinson’s Sooners.
January 1, 1952 – Bryant leads Kentucky to a 20-7 win over TCU in the Cotton Bowl. As a player and a coach, he has already competed in the four major games of the era – Rose, Sugar, Orange and Cotton.
1953 – After a 7-2-1 season and a second place finish in the SEC, Bryant leaves Kentucky for Texas A&M.
September 1, 1954 – In his first year at Texas A&M, Bryant loads his team on buses and takes off for Junction, Tex., for pre-season training. The Aggies go 1-9 with the lone win being a 6-0 upset of Georgia.
November 12, 1955 – Trailing Rice 12-0 with two minutes to go, Bryant calls his team together and says, “There’s still time. You can still win – if you believe you can. Suck up your guts and win.” The Aggies rally and win 20-12. For years the game would become Bryant’s standard for others to live by.
1956 -Texas A&M goes 9-0-1 and wins the Southwest Conference, beating Texas 34-21 in the season finale in Austin. It is the first time ever the Aggies had beaten the Longhorns on their home turf.
1957 – John David Crow wins the Heisman Trophy for Texas A&M but the big news is that Paul Bryant is leaving after the Gator Bowl to coach his alma mater The University of Alabama. He finishes with a record of 25-14-2 at College Station.
Sept. 27, 1958 – The Bryant Era begins in earnest when the Crimson Tide faces eventual national champion LSU at Ladd StadiumBryant Hat in Mobile. Despite being out manned, the Tide takes a 3-0 lead into the locker room at halftime, prompting a standing ovation from the Bama crowd. Although the Tigers win 13-3, there is no doubt it won’t be long before Alabama is back. Fred Sington, Jr., kicked the field goal for the first points.
November 28, 1959 – Alabama beats Auburn 10-0 for the first win over the Tigers since 1953 and the Tide has definitely turned. A month later Bama is back in the bowl business, losing 7-0 to Penn State in the inaugural Liberty Bowl, held in Philadelphia’s Franklin Field.
1961 – After telling his new team in 1958 that if they believed in themselves and his plan they’d be national champions in 1961, Alabama does just that as Bryant becomes national coach of the year and the Tide has its first AP national title.
January 1, 1962 – Alabama caps off the ’61 run with a 10-3 victory over Arkansas in the Sugar Bowl, the first ever victory for the Crimson Tide in the Crescent City Classic.
January 1, 1963 – With President John F. Kennedy looking on, the Crimson Tide beats Oklahoma and Bud Wilkinson 17-0 in the Orange Bowl. Bryant’s favorite linebacker Lee Roy Jordan is credited with 31 tackles while sophomore passing sensation Joe Namath dissects the Sooner defense.
1964 – Alabama returns to the national championship throne with a November run that included a 17-9 win over unbeaten LSU at Legion Field, a 24-7 stinging of Georgia Tech in Atlanta and a 21-14 Thanksgiving feast over Auburn at Legion Field.
January 1, 1966 – Paul Bryant’s Tide claims the national title for 1965 on the first day of 1966 when Alabama stuns unbeaten Nebraska 39-28 in the Orange Bowl. It was the first ever night bowl game. Steve Sloan is the MVP. Bama had entered the game No. 4 and climbed over Michigan State (losers to UCLA in the Rose), Arkansas (losers to LSU in the Cotton) and Nebraska to claim the title.
1966 – Alabama goes perfect in ’66 but the polls elect Notre Dame No. 1 despite the Irish’s decision to refrain from appearing in bowls. In one of the most draining games in Tide history, Paul Bryant’s Tide rallies behind Kenny Stabler for an 11-10 victory over Tennessee on a rainy day in Knoxville.
1968 – Paul Bryant makes news away from the football field when he receives 1 1/2 votes for the Democratic Presidential nomination at the convention held in Chicago.
1971 – It was sink or swim, according to Paul Bryant, after his teams suffered from his standards sub par seasons from 1967-70. Visiting with Darrell Royal in Austin, Bryant decides to go to the wishbone and elicits vows of secrecy from all connected to the program.
September 10, 1971 – Alabama unveils the wishbone at the Los Angeles Coliseum on a Friday night and the Bryant Magic is back as the Tide stuns the college football world with a 17-10 victory over John McKay’s Trojans. It was the 200th career win for Bryant and probably none was sweeter than this one. It returned Alabama to its rightful spot in college football and quelled the rumors of the demise of Bryant, a day before he turned 58 years old.
1975 – Bryant tells his friend Aruns Callery of the Sugar Bowl in March that he wants to play in the first ever classic in the newly built Superdome; and he wants a name opponent. On December 31, 1975, the Crimson Tide plays Penn State and beats the Lions 13-6.
1977 – Paul Bryant’s Tide beats No. 1 Southern California in Los Angeles and rolls to No. 3 in the polls setting up a Sugar Bowl showdown with acclaimed Ohio State coach Woody Hayes. Alabama and the Tide beat the Buckeyes 35-6 on January 2, 1978, to finish the season 11-1 and ranked second in both major polls.
January 1, 1979 – For a game that forever became known for the goal line stand, Alabama beats Penn State 14-7 to clinch the national championship for the 1978 season. After the game, Bryant says, “There is only one team that could have stopped Penn State on the goal line and that team is Alabama.”
1979 – For the final time Bryant wins the national title, his sixth, as the Crimson Tide rolls through the season with a perfect 12-0 record, including a 24-9 win over Arkansas and Lou Holtz in the Sugar Bowl.
December 15, 1982 – Paul Bryant officially announces his retirement from the University of Alabama. Including the bowl win over Illinois, Bryant finishes with a record of 232-46-9 for his 25 years at the Capstone.
December 29, 1982 – Coaching in his final game, Paul Bryant and his Crimson Tide beat Illinois 21-15 at the Liberty Bowl played in Memphis, Tenn. Jeremiah Castille, a senior cornerback, is the MVP after intercepting three Illini passes. Craig Turner scores the final TD of the Bryant Era while Peter Kim’s PAT is the final point of the legendary coach’s career.
January 26, 1983 – Coach Paul Bryant dies at Druid City Hospital where he had entered the night before after suffering chest pains while visiting his friend Jimmy Hinton. The Coach was 69-years-old.
January 28, 1983 – Paul William Bryant is laid to rest at Elmwood Cemetery in Birmingham, Ala. Tommy Wilcox, Paul Ott Carruth, Walter Lewis, Jerrill Sprinkle, Mike McQueen, Paul Fields, Jeremiah Castille and Darryl White serve as the pallbearers.
Personal life and death
Bryant was a heavy smoker and drinker for most of his life, and his health began to decline in the late 1970s. He collapsed due to a cardiac episode in 1977 and decided to enter alcohol rehab, but resumed drinking after only a few months of sobriety. Bryant experienced a mild stroke in 1980 that weakened the left side of his body, another cardiac episode in 1981, and was taking a battery of medications in his final years.
Shortly before his death, Bryant met with evangelist Robert Schuller on a plane flight and the two talked extensively about religion, which apparently made an impression on the coach.
After a sixth-place SEC finish in the 1982 season that included losses to LSU and Tennessee, each for the first time since 1970, Bryant, who had turned 69 that September, announced his retirement, stating, "This is my school, my alma mater. I love it and I love my players. But in my opinion, they deserved better coaching than they have been getting from me this year." His final loss was to Auburn in Bo Jackson's freshman season. His last game was a 21–15 victory in the Liberty Bowl in Memphis, Tennessee, over the University of Illinois. After the game, Bryant was asked what he planned to do now that he was retired. He replied, "Probably croak in a week."
Four weeks after making that comment, and just one day after passing a routine medical checkup, on January 25, 1983, Bryant checked into Druid City Hospital in Tuscaloosa after experiencing chest pain. A day later, when being prepared for an electrocardiogram, he died after suffering a massive heart attack.
His personal physician, Dr. William Hill, said that he was amazed that Bryant had been able to coach Alabama to two national championships in what would be the last five years of his life, given the poor state of his health. 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). On his hand at the time of his death was the only piece of jewelry he ever wore, a gold ring inscribed "Junction Boys". He is interred at Birmingham's Elmwood Cemetery. A month after his death, Bryant was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award, by President Ronald Reagan. A moment of silence was held before Super Bowl XVII, played four days after Bryant's death.
Defamation suit
In 1962 Bryant filed a libel suit against The Saturday Evening Post for printing an article by Furman Bisher ("College Football Is Going Berserk") that charged him with encouraging his players to engage in brutality in a 1961 game against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. Six months later, the magazine published "The Story of a College Football Fix" that charged Bryant and Georgia Bulldogs athletic director and ex-coach Wally Butts with conspiring to fix their 1962 game together in Alabama's favor. Butts also sued Curtis Publishing Co. for libel. The case was decided in Butts' favor in the US District Court of Northern Georgia in August 1963, but Curtis Publishing appealed to the Supreme Court. As a result of Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts 388 U.S. 130 (1967), Curtis Publishing was ordered to pay $3,060,000 in damages to Butts. The case is considered a landmark case because it established conditions under which a news organization can be held liable for defamation of a "public figure". Bryant reached a separate out-of-court settlement on both of his cases for $300,000 against Curtis Publishing in January 1964.
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