Paul William "Bear" Bryant (September 11, 1913 – January 26, 1983) 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, the Alabama Crimson Tide, 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 Saban Field at 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 tall Bryant, who as an adult would eventually stand , 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 was hired as the line coach under head coach 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 1937, he was offered a position as the line coach for VMI under Pooley Hubert, but Bryant ultimately declined the offered and signed a two-year contract to stay with Alabama. In 1940, he left Alabama to become the line coach at Vanderbilt University under first-year Red 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 the ends coach for 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 Salmonie suffered a steering fault and accidentally rammed the SS Uruguay amidships. The tanker's bow made a 70-foot (21m) hole in Uruguays hull and penetrated her, killing 13 soldiers and injuring 50. The Uruguays crew contained the damage by building a temporary bulkhead and three days later she reached Bermuda. President Franklin D. Roosevelt decorated Uruguays 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 No. 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 No. 6 in the final 1977 AP Poll.
Though he led Kentucky's football program to its greatest achievement, Bryant resigned after the 1953 season because he felt that Adolph Rupp's basketball team would always be the school's primary sport. The point shaving scandal that rocked the basketball program had Kentucky focus their energy on basketball, keeping Rupp on even after it had broken the rules in 1951, causing the Wildcats to be given the death penalty for the 1952–53 season. Bryant tried to resign that year for Arkansas but the school did not let him. Once it was confirmed that Rupp would not resign, Bryant was even more determined to leave. Years after leaving Lexington, when Bryant was Alabama's athletic director in 1969, he called Rupp to ask if he had any recommendations for Alabama's new basketball coach. Rupp recommended C. M. Newton, a former backup player at Kentucky in the late 1940s. Newton went on to lead the Crimson Tide to three straight SEC titles.
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". In a 1980 interview with Time magazine, Bryant admitted that he had been too hard on the Junction Boys and "if I'd have been one of those players, I'd have quit too."
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 an 8–1–2 record and a #9 ranking in the final AP Poll. In 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.
The next three years (1962–1964) featured Joe Namath at quarterback and were among Bryant's finest. The 1962 Crimson Tide went 10–1, and the season ended with a 17–0 victory in the Orange Bowl over Bud Wilkinson's Oklahoma Sooners. The Crimson Tide finished No. 5 in the AP Poll. The 1963 Crimson Tide went 9–2, and the ended with a 12–7 victory over Ole Miss in the Sugar Bowl, which was the first game between the two Southeastern Conference neighbors in almost twenty years, and only the second in thirty years. Alabama finished No. 8 in the AP Poll In 1964 the Tide went 10–0 in the regular season and won another national championship, but lost 21–17 to Texas in the Orange Bowl. The Tide ended up sharing the 1964 national title with Arkansas, as the Razorbacks won the Cotton Bowl Classic, and had beaten Texas in Austin. Before 1968, the AP and UPI polls gave out their championships before the bowl games (with the exception of the 1965 season). The AP ceased this practice before the 1968 season, but the UPI continued until 1973.