Bear Bryant
Paul William "Bear" Bryant was a prominent American college football coach best known for his remarkable tenure at the University of Alabama, where he led the Crimson Tide to six national championships between 1961 and 1979. Born on September 11, 1913, in Arkansas, he earned his nickname after a childhood incident involving a bear in a traveling circus. After playing college football at Alabama, he began his coaching career as an assistant at the university before taking roles at various institutions, including Vanderbilt, Maryland, Kentucky, and Texas A&M, where his coaching style drew both accolades and criticism.
Bryant returned to Alabama in 1958, where he revitalized the football program and became a symbol of coaching excellence, amassing a record of 323 wins and numerous conference titles over his career. His methods were sometimes controversial, particularly during his initial years at Texas A&M, which involved harsh training regimes. Despite facing challenges, including criticism for the late recruitment of Black athletes, he eventually embraced inclusivity, leaving a lasting impact on the sport. Bryant's legacy is commemorated in various ways, including his induction into the College Football Hall of Fame and a museum dedicated to his life and career at the University of Alabama. He passed away shortly after retiring in 1983, leaving behind a profound influence on college football that endures today.
Bear Bryant
American college football coach
- Born: September 11, 1913
- Place of Birth: Moro Bottom, Arkansas
- Died: January 26, 1983
- Place of Death: Tuscaloosa, Alabama
- Education: University of Alabama
- Significance: Bear Bryant was an American college football coach who won six national championships at the University of Alabama. He retired in 1983 with a record 323 wins (a record that has since been surpassed).
Background
Paul William "Bear" Bryant was born on September 11, 1913, in the small Arkansas community of Moro Bottom. Bryant was the eleventh of William Monroe and Dora Ida Kilgore Bryant's twelve children. By the time he turned thirteen, Bryant was already an imposing size—he stood more than 6 feet tall and weighed 180 pounds. It was around this time that he earned the nickname "Bear" because he agreed to wrestle a bear in a traveling circus. (During the match, the bear's muzzle came off, and Bryant jumped out of the ring.)
Bryant began using his size on the football field as an offensive lineman and defensive end for Fordyce High School, earning all-state honors in 1931. After his high school career, he played football at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, where he was named to the All-Southeastern Conference third team twice and to its second team once.
After seeing success on the football field as a player, Bryant went on to become an assistant coach at the University of Alabama after graduating in 1936. He remained in this position for four years before coaching at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee. He then took a brief break from collegiate coaching when he joined the US Navy after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, though he had stints in the service as the coach of pre-flight training school football teams. After his time in the Navy, Bryant was head coach at the University of Maryland for a year before joining the University of Kentucky for a successful eight-year run. Bryant then served as head coach at Texas A&M University in 1954. It was there that he had his only losing season as a head coach, ending with a 1–9 record when two-thirds of his players quit after a brutal training camp.
Life's Work
Bryant returned to the University of Alabama in 1958 to become the head football coach and athletic director at a time when the team needed rebuilding. In his first season, the team only tallied five wins, but this surpassed what it had accomplished in the previous three seasons. Under Bryant's watchful eye—as he paced the sidelines in his iconic houndstooth hat—he led the Crimson Tide college football team to national championship wins in 1961, 1964, and 1965.
The program began to sputter in the late 1960s, but returned to dominance after Bryant updated the offensive system and gave into mounting pressure to recruit the school's first black players. The changes resulted in national championship wins in 1973, 1978, and 1979.
Bryant wrapped up his coaching career in 1982. At his retirement, he had amassed a then-college football record of 323 victories, a record-tying six national titles, and 15 conference championships and was named the College Football Coach of the Year three times. A little more than a month after coaching his final game, Bryant died after suffering a heart attack at the age of sixty-nine. He had been a heavy smoker and drinker, and his health began to decline in the 1970s.
Despite his record-breaking successes, Bryant's coaching career was not without controversy. His tough tactics for whipping players into shape came into question, particularly after he took over as head coach for the Texas A&M Aggies. His first preseason camp there in 1954 became known as a boot camp, where in the 100-degree heat in Junction, Texas, his tests of toughness included banning water breaks for his players. Bryant started the camp with 111 players, and all but 35 quit within ten days.
In 1961, Bryant was criticized for coaching dirty when an Alabama player smashed into a Georgia Tech player on a punt return, but Bryant insisted he did not encourage those tactics. The following year, an article in the Saturday Evening Post Magazine claimed Bryant and Georgia head coach Wally Butts had arranged to fix the result of a game in 1962, with Alabama winning the game 35–0. Both coaches sued the magazine, with Butts winning his libel suit against the publisher and Bryant winning a $360,000 out-of-court settlement.
Bryant began recruiting Black players in the early 1970s, but he was often criticized for not doing so earlier. In 1969, the African-American Student Association at Alabama (AASA) sued Bryant, the university, its president, and the board of trustees. The group alleged Alabama did not recruit Black athletes with as much diligence as White athletes. Bryant later admitted in his 1974 autobiography that he delayed recruiting Black players because he believed the time was not right in the mid-1960s.
Impact
Bryant was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1986 and the College Football Coach of the Year Award was renamed in his honor. He was named the coach of the Sports Illustrated all-century college football team in 1999. During his tenure at the University of Alabama, Bryant became instrumental in recruiting Black athletes after originally facing backlash for not doing so sooner. To many in the football community, Bryant remains the ultimate symbol of coaching excellence at the collegiate level. He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1983 by President Ronald Reagan.
Bryant’s imprint on the University of Alabama and college football remained strong more than four decades after his death. A museum dedicated to Bryant is located on Alabama’s campus in Tuscaloosa. Bryant has also been depicted in several films, including 1994’s Forrest Gump and 2002’s The Junction Boys, about his controversial training methods at Texas A&M University.
Personal Life
At the time of his death, Bear Bryant left behind his wife, Mary Harmon Bryant, two children, Paul William Jr. and Mae Bryant Tyson, and four grandchildren.
Legacy
Head coaching record
Overall: 323–85–17
Bowl games: 15–12–2
Championships
National: Six titles in 1961, 1964, 1965, 1973, 1978, and 1979
Southeastern Conference: 14 titles in 1950, 1961, 1964–1966, 1971–1975, 1977–1979, and 1981
Southwestern Conference: 1 title in 1956
Awards
American Football Coaches Association Coach of the Year: Won three times in 1961, 1971, and 1973
Southeastern Conference Coach of the Year: Won 12 times in 1950, 1959, 1961, 1964, 1965, 1971, 1973, 1974, 1977-1979, and 1981
Bibliography
Adelson, Eric. "Paul 'Bear' Bryant's family remembers the legend, and the person behind it." Yahoo! Sports, 11 Sept. 2013, sports.yahoo.com/news/ncaaf--paul--bear--bryant-s-family-remembers-the-legend--and-the-person-behind-it-183115689.html. Accessed 1 Oct. 2024.
"Coach Paul Bear Bryant." Paul W. Bryant Museum, 2024, bryantmuseum.com/traditions‗alabama/coach‗paul‗bear‗bryant/. Accessed 1 Oct. 2024.
Dunnavent, Keith. Coach: The Life of Paul 'Bear' Bryant. Macmillan, 2005.
Durso, Joseph. "Bear Bryant is dead at 69; won a record 323 games." New York Times, 27 Jan. 1983, www.nytimes.com/1983/01/27/obituaries/bear-bryant-is-dead-at-69-won-a-record-323-games.html?pagewanted=all&mcubz=3. Accessed 1 Oct. 2024.
Puma, Mike. "Bear Bryant 'simply the best there ever was.'" ESPN, www.espn.com/classic/biography/s/Bryant‗Bear.html. Accessed 1 Oct. 2024.
Solomon, Jon. "100 years of Bear Bryant; 100 facts you may not know." AL.com (Alabama Media Group), 11 Sept. 2013, www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2013/09/100‗facts‗about‗bear‗bryant‗yo.html. Accessed 1 Oct. 2024.