Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Bear The Hard Life Good Times of Alabama's Coach Bryant by Paul W. Bryant Bear : The Hard Life and Good Times of Alabama's Coach Bryant. John Underwood is an award-winning, author and journalist who has covered everything from space shots to murders at sea and written about sports figures and major sporting events throughout the world. His bestsellers include My Turn at the Bat and The Science of Hitting , coauthored with Ted Williams; The Death of an American Game ; Spoiled Sport ; Tales Out of School ; and Manning . His last book was It’s Only Me , a reminiscence of his adventures with Williams. The father of six, He lives in Miami. A disillusioning conversation with The Great Bear Bryant. Alabama kicked off its 2018 campaign with a 51-14 victory over Louisville on Saturday night. The Crimson Tide is ranked No. 1 in most preseason polls and an early favorite to repeat as college football's national champion. Should that happen, it will be Nick Saban's seventh national title as a coach and his sixth at Alabama. Saban's accomplishments have placed him in sports lore alongside the man who is regarded by many as the greatest college football coach of all time: Paul "Bear" Bryant. That, in turn, brings back memories of a long-ago conversation I had with Bryant. The 11th of 12 children, Bryant was born in Moro Bottom, Ark., on Sept. 11, 1913. He was a large man, 6 feet 3 inches tall, whose nickname derived from his having wrestled a bear at a carnival when he was 13. Bryant played football at Alabama from 1933 through 1935. He later reigned as head coach at Maryland (1945), Kentucky (1946-1953), Texas A&M (1954-1957) and his alma mater (1958-1982). During Bryant's years at the helm, the Crimson Tide won six national championships. At the time he retired, his 323 victories were the most for a coach in modern college football history. In 38 seasons as a head coach, he had one losing season (his first year at Texas A&M). Bryant epitomized an era when college football coaches were regarded as gods. Men like Bud Wilkinson (Oklahoma), Woody Hayes (Ohio State), Bob Devaney (Nebraska), Darrell Royal (Texas) and Ara Parseghian (Notre Dame) were larger-than-life figures who could do no wrong in the eyes of their supporters. They were admired and adored the way military generals who lead troops into battle were venerated by previous generations of Americans. The thought that one of these men might be suspended as head coach or have his contract terminated because he failed to report inappropriate conduct by an assistant coach to the proper authorities was unheard of. Woody Hayes, despite a long record of physically abusive acts, wasn't relieved of his coaching duties until he was shown on national television sucker-punching a Clemson defensive lineman who intercepted a pass in the closing minutes of the 1978 Gator Bowl. As for a coach's contract being terminated because he evinced a lack of concern for the physical well-being of his players; the cornerstone of the Bear Bryant legend was his first year as head coach at Texas A&M. One hundred eleven players were on the Aggie squad when preseason workouts began. After 10 days of brutal workouts beneath the broiling Texas sun, there were 35 survivors. The widespread assumption was that, had Bryant chosen to run for governor of Alabama in the 1970s, he would have been elected. Flashback now to the mid-1970s. Bryant had won four national championships at Alabama. I was a young lawyer working as a litigator for the Wall Street law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore. One of my responsibilities was defending against libel suits brought against the media conglomerate then known as Time Inc. The Time Inc. empire had its origins in 1923 when Henry Luce and Britten Hadden published the inaugural issue of Time. In later years, more than one hundred publications were added to the fold, including Sports Illustrated, People and Fortune. In 1968, Little, Brown & Company (a major book publisher) became part of Time Inc.'s expanding portfolio. In 1974, Little, Brown published Bear Bryant's autobiography, written with John Underwood. In the book, Bryant said uncomplimentary things about a former player at Alabama. He didn't identify the player by name. Instead, he referred to him as "a cute little red-headed kid with freckles and big thick glasses . A tough little linebacker from Florida named — well, call him Danny." That description narrowed the identification of "Danny" down to a field of one. Sammy Gellerstedt was a 5-foot-8-inch, 196-pound nose guard (not linebacker) who played one season of varsity football (1968) at Alabama. Despite his size, he earned first-team All-American honors and was named United Press International's "Lineman of the Week" after the Crimson Tide's victory over Mississippi State. Gellerstedt left the University of Alabama after his sophomore season amidst rumors of lifestyle issues. More specifically, it was said that Bryant kicked him off the team because he believed Gellerstedt was smoking marijuana (which Bryant strongly implied in his book). In an earlier era, Joe Namath (who played quarterback at Alabama from 1962 through 1964) had clashed with Bryant over lifestyle issues. But those issues involved drinking, not drugs. Namath was suspended for two games and stayed the course. However, as the 1960s neared an end, recreational drugs were becoming more prevalent. Indeed, several years after Gellerstedt's departure, Bryant drew a line in the sand. On one occasion, as recounted in his autobiography, he ordered a search of every player's dorm room and found evidence of marijuana use by seven players. In his words, "We told the seven that they could withdraw from school or we would just let the law handle it. They all withdrew." Bryant also made it clear in his autobiography that, to his way of thinking, one of the keys to a young man's character was whether he had a "good mama and papa." Then, after noting that "Danny's home life was sad," he offered the opinion, "The biggest mistake coaches make is taking borderline cases and trying to save them. I'm not talking about grades now. I'm talking about character." Gellerstedt sued for libel. I was assigned to the defense team on the case. Several years later, I would leave law to pursue a career as a freelance writer. I would work with Muhammad Ali and Arnold Palmer on biographies of their respective lives and interact with countless sports legends. But in 1974, that was in my future. I was excited then by the fact that I was about to talk with the great Bear Bryant to construct our defense against Gellerstedt's claim. An appointment was set up. I was to call Bryant at his home telephone number, which I did at the appointed hour of 5 p.m. The passage of more than four decades has dimmed my memory of the conversation. I remember making the call from my office on the 57th floor at One Chase Manhattan Plaza. Bryant answered the phone, and I introduced myself. Bryant was no stranger to the law of libel. In 1962, he had sued The Saturday Evening Post for publishing an article that accused him of encouraging his players to play with intent to injure in a 1961 game against Georgia Tech. Thereafter, the magazine published a second article that accused Bryant and Georgia athletic director Wally Butts of conspiring to fix the 1962 Alabama-Georgia game in favor of the Crimson Tide. A second claim by Bryant followed. He settled with The Saturday Evening Post in 1964 for a total of $300,000. Bryant confirmed to me on the telephone that he had, in fact, been talking about Gellerstedt in his book. "If I'd known it was gonna cause all this trouble," he said, "I never would have mentioned him." But it was hard to get the factual underpinning for the passages in question out of Bryant; particularly his references to Gellerstedt's family life. His memory of details, as well as larger issues, seemed foggy. He broke off in mid-sentence again and again and kept repeating himself. The 1970s were a more sheltered time for public figures than the world today. There was no prying social media. By and large, sports heroes were allowed to do as they pleased and remain untarnished. In wasn't until 1995 that Keith Dunnavant, in a book entitled Coach, would write of Bryant, "His tendency to drink to excess was well known among his friends and among the news media, yet no one ever reported a word about this. Although he never drank at work or let it affect his job, the coach often overindulged in social situations. Whether he was an alcoholic depends on one's definition. But he liked to drink to have a good time, and it was difficult for him to stop before he got sloppy drunk." Not long into our conversation, I realized that The Great Bear Bryant was drunk. Or to use Dunnavant's phrase, "sloppy drunk." There wasn't much of use that I could learn from him. I thanked him for his time and said goodbye. Gellerstedt enrolled at the University of Tampa after his two years at Alabama and continued to enjoy gridiron success. He graduated from Tampa in 1971 and, 13 years later, would be inducted in that university's Hall of Fame. His lawsuit had been filed in Florida, where both he and Underwood were residents. After some preliminary motions, the case was settled. In the spring of 1978, Bryant entered an alcohol rehabilitation program in a clinic located in Shelby County south of Birmingham but resumed drinking soon after his stay there ended. He retired from coaching following a Dec. 29, 1982, victory over Illinois in the Liberty Bowl. Four weeks later, he died after suffering a massive heart attack. Our sports gods aren't always what we think they are and want them to be. Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant’s gift that keeps on giving at Alabama. Anyone with even a passing interest in college football is probably familiar with the incomparable legacy of Paul “Bear” Bryant, the late, legendary Alabama coach. The stadium in Tuscaloosa where Coach Nick Saban’s No. 1-ranked Crimson Tide plays its home games is named in Bryant’s honor. As are a conference center, a street, a bridge, an academic center and a high school, among other landmarks. At the Paul W. Bryant Museum, where a reunion is held annually for the more than 500 people named for the former coach, Bryant’s achievements can be broken down numerically: six national championships, 14 conference titles, 323 victories, 29 bowl appearances, three unbeaten seasons. Perhaps equally impressive is this: Nearly three decades after his death, Bryant still touches the lives of the players who helped make the houndstooth-loving coach an Alabama icon. An unusually generous scholarship fund established by Bryant at the height of his success in the early 1970s is earmarked to benefit the sons and daughters of everyone who ever suited up for the coach during a 25-season run at Alabama that ended in December 1982, a month before he died from a heart attack. More than 700 children of former Tide players have attended their fathers’ alma mater on a Bryant Scholarship, says Alabama Athletic Director Mal Moore, who estimates that about 90 were enrolled during the fall semester. All they have to do is apply and, upon admission, they are awarded as much as $4,000 a year to defray tuition costs, Moore says. This is true, the athletic director says, whether their father was an All-American linebacker or a fourth-string long snapper, a five-star recruit or a walk-on. If their father has died, Moore notes, they get a full ride. “The Bryant Scholarship,” says former Alabama quarterback Scott Hunter, whose three grown children all took advantage of it, “is as important as anything he left us.” Paul Bryant Jr., a banker and the coach’s only son, says his father established the fund in 1973. “On a cumulative basis,” notes Bryant Jr., who administers the program, “he donated more to the university than the university paid him during his career.” Originally, the Bryant Scholarship was designed to serve any student in need, the coach’s son says. Its focus shifted in the late 1970s to benefit the children of former players, Bryant Jr. notes, when the son of a late Alabama quarterback enrolled. Pat Trammell, who was Bryant’s first star player at Alabama and led the Tide to a national championship in 1961, had died of metastatic testicular cancer in 1968, only two years after earning his M.D. from the Medical College of Alabama. Only 28, he left behind a wife and two young children. In his biography, “Bear,” Bryant called the day Trammell died “the saddest day of my life.” About 10 years later, when Pat Trammell Jr. reached college age, Bryant added funds to the scholarship endowment he had established years earlier and asked that, in the future, priority be given to the children of former players. Since then, Moore says, daughters of Joe Namath and Ken Stabler have attended Alabama on Bryant scholarships, as have children of other former Tide stars such as Major Ogilvy, Tony Nathan, Richard Todd and Jeff Rutledge, as well as sons and daughters of former players far less famous. “It’s especially good when they can meet each other,” Bryant Jr. says of the recipients. “Teammates have a bond, and the children of teammates can too. Actually, there have been a few occasions where children of teammates got married.” Moore, who played and coached under Bryant for 24 years, says an annual banquet thrown by the athletic department to welcome the recipients helps to strengthen their connection. Not all Bryant Scholarship winners, however, are children of former Tide players. Three years ago, a Bryant Scholarship was awarded for the first time to a child of a Tide opponent . Trey Waldrep is a son of Kent Waldrep, a former Texas Christian defensive back who suffered a broken neck and was paralyzed during a 1974 game against Alabama. Bryant had taken a special interest in the elder Waldrep, even making him an honorary member of the “A Club.” “Although we beat TCU that day,” Moore said in 2006, when Trey Waldrep was awarded a scholarship, “it was a most difficult afternoon for our players and our coaches.” Moore calls the financial-aid program established by Bryant a fitting tribute to a “most generous, caring man.” It certainly is unique. The late Charlie McClendon, a former Louisiana State coach who played for Bryant at Kentucky, established a similar scholarship endowment at LSU to benefit his former players. Such programs, however, were later banned by the NCAA, which calls them an “extra benefit” and a recruiting inducement. 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"Bear" Bryant (1913–1983) Paul William “Bear” Bryant is one of America’s all-time most successful college football coaches. At the time of his death, he had won more games than any other coach, including the legendary Amos Alonzo Staggs and Pop Warner. Arkansas-born Bryant remains an icon not only for athletic accomplishments but for personal strength, determination, and the will to win. Paul William Bryant was born on September 11, 1913, near Kingsland (Cleveland County) in south central Arkansas, to William Monroe Bryant, a farmer, and Dora Ida Kilgore Bryant, a homemaker. Bryant was the eighth surviving child (three died at birth) of a total of nine. He had four brothers and four sisters and was the youngest boy, with one sister born four years after him. Their home was a three-square-mile area called Moro Bottom (sometimes referred to as Moro Bottoms), an unincorporated place where seven families lived. Due to his father’s ill health and the family’s poverty, Bryant often stayed with his grandfather, W. L. Kilgore, in nearby Fordyce (Dallas County), where he discovered football, playing for the Fordyce High School Redbugs. In 1927, he entered a contest at the Fordyce Theatre promising a dollar to anyone who could wrestle a bear. The teenage Bryant was never paid but acquired the nickname “Bear.” His 1930 Fordyce team had a perfect season and claimed an Arkansas high school football state championship. An assistant coach from Alabama came to Fordyce in 1931 to scout two other players (who decided to go to the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville) and ended up signing Bryant to an athletic scholarship for the University of Alabama. As an Alabama player, Bryant helped his team win the Southeastern Conference (SEC) championship during the SEC’s inaugural season in 1933, playing right offensive end. During a 1935 game against Tennessee, Bryant led Alabama to a 25–0 victory despite playing with a broken bone in his leg. That same year, he married campus beauty queen Mary Harmon Black, with whom he had two children, Mae Martin and Paul Jr. Before graduating from the University of Alabama in 1936, Bryant played in the Rose Bowl and helped his team claim the national title. In 1941, after coaching at Union College (now Union University in Jackson, Tennessee) and Vanderbilt University, Bryant was on his way to Arkansas, where he was being considered to be head coach of the University of Arkansas Razorbacks, when he heard that World War II had begun. He promptly enlisted in the Navy rather than join the Razorbacks. After his military service, he coached football at universities including Maryland, Kentucky, and Texas A&M, where his legend grew in a game when his Aggies trailed 12–0 in the final two minutes yet still managed to win. Bryant had told his team there was still time for them to win if they believed they could, and they went on to score twenty unanswered points, winning the game. In 1958, Bryant began his twenty-five year tenure as head coach of the University of Alabama. Under Bryant, the Alabama Crimson Tide won national titles in 1961, 1964, 1965, 1978, and 1979. Bryant won this last championship with a perfect season, including his defeat of Lou Holtz’s Arkansas Razorbacks in the Sugar Bowl. He announced his retirement in 1982, with the Crimson Tide winning his last bowl game, the Liberty Bowl in Memphis, on December 29. His record at Alabama was 232–46–9, with his team playing in twenty-four consecutive post-season bowl games. Bryant was Southeastern Conference Coach of the Year ten times, a three-time National Coach of the Year, and he received one and a half votes for the Democratic presidential nomination at the 1968 Chicago, Illinois, convention. His overall coaching record was 325–85–17. Less than one month after winning the 1982 Liberty Bowl, sixty-nine-year-old Paul “Bear” Bryant died of a heart attack on January 26, 1983. Following a funeral procession which ran for three miles, he was buried at Elmwood Cemetery in Birmingham, Alabama. A month after his death, he was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award, by Ronald Reagan. At the time of his death, he was the all-time most successful coach in American college football history. For additional information: Barra, Allen. The Last Coach: A Life of Paul “Bear” Bryant . New York: W. W. Norton, 2005. Briley, John David. Career in Crisis: Paul “Bear” Bryant and the 1971 Season of Change . Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2006. Bryant, Paul W., and John Underwood. Bear: The Hard Life and Good Times of Alabama’s Coach Bryant . Chicago: Triumph Books, 2007. Dunnavant, Keith. Coach: The Life of Paul “Bear” Bryant . New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996. Herskowitz, Mickey. The Legend of Bear Bryant. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1986. Puma, Mike. “Bear Bryant ‘Simply the Best There Ever Was.” ESPN Classic. http://espn.go.com/classic/biography/s/Bryant_Bear.html (accessed June 11, 2014). Roberts, Randy, and Ed Krzemienski. Rising Tide: Bear Bryant, Joe Namath, and Dixie’s Last Quarter . New York: Twelve, 2013.