Paul Bear Bryant

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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 never played professional football.

Coaching career

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 Uraguay, seeing no combat action. On 12 February 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.

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.: 94

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.

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.

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. Years after leaving Lexington, Bryant had a better relationship with Rupp. For instance, Bryant was Alabama's athletic director in 1969 and 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.

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

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.

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 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 season ended with a 17–0 victory in the Orange Bowl over Bud Wilkinson's Oklahoma Sooners. The 1963 season 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 20 years, and only the second in 30 years. In 1964, the Tide won another national championship, but lost 21–17 to Texas in the Orange Bowl, in the first nationally televised college game in color. 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. The AP ceased this practice before the 1968 season, but the UPI continued until 1973. The 1965 Crimson Tide repeated as champions after defeating Nebraska, 39–28, in the Orange Bowl. Coming off back-to-back national championship seasons, Bryant's 1966 Alabama team went undefeated in, beating a strong Nebraska team, 34–7, in the Sugar Bowl. However, Alabama finished third in the nation behind Michigan State and champions Notre Dame, who had previously played to a 10–10 tie in a late regular season game. In a biography of Bryant written by Allen Barra, the author suggests that the major polling services refused to elect Alabama as national champion for a third straight year because of Alabama Governor George Wallace's recent stand against integration

The 1967 Alabama team was billed as another national championship contender with star quarterback Kenny Stabler returning, but they stumbled out of the gate and tied Florida State, 37–37, at Legion Field. Alabama finished the year at 8–2–1, losing 20–16 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 Missouri, 35–10, in the Gator Bowl.

The 1969 and 1970 teams finished 6–5 and 6–5–1 respectively. After these disappointing efforts, many began to wonder if the 57-year-old Bryant was washed up. He himself began feeling the same way and considered either retiring from coaching or leaving college football for the National Football League (NFL).

For years, Bryant was accused of racism for refusing to recruit black players. (He had tried to do so at Kentucky in the late 40s but was denied by then University President, Herman Donovan) . Bryant said that the prevailing social climate and the overwhelming presence of noted segregationist George Wallace in Alabama, first as governor and then as a presidential candidate, did not let him do this. He finally was able to convince the administration to allow him to do so, leading to the recruitment of Wilbur Jackson as Alabama's first black scholarship player who was recruited in 1969 and signed in the Spring of 1970. Junior-college transfer John Mitchell became the first black player for Alabama in 1971 because freshmen, thus Jackson, were not eligible to play at that time. They would both be a credit to the University by their conduct and play, thus widening the door and warming the welcome for many more to follow. By 1973, one-third of the team's starters were black, and Mitchell became the Tide's first black coach that season. In 1971, Bryant began engineering a comeback. This included abandoning Alabama's old power offense for the relatively new wishbone formation. Darrell Royal, the Texas football coach whose assistant, Emory Bellard virtually invented the wishbone, taught Bryant its basics, but Bryant developed successful variations of the wishbone that Royal had never used. The change helped make the remainder of the decade a successful one for the Crimson Tide.

The 1971 Alabama Crimson Tide football team went undefeated in the regular season and rose to #2 in the AP Poll, but were dominated by top-ranked Nebraska in the Orange Bowl.

Bryant's 1973 squad split national championships with Notre Dame, who defeated Alabama, 24–23, in the Sugar Bowl. The UPI thereafter moved its final poll until after the bowl games.

The 1978 Alabama Crimson Tide football team split the national title with USC despite losing to the Trojans in September. The Trojans would lose later in the year to three-loss Arizona State and drop to number 3. At the end of the year, number 2 Alabama would beat undefeated and top-ranked Penn State in the Sugar Bowl, with the famous late-game goal line stand to preserve the victory.

Bryant won his sixth and final national title in 1979 after a 24–9 Sugar Bowl victory over Arkansas.

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, coached by former Bryant assistant Pat Dye on November 28, 1981, was Bryant's 315th as a head coach, which was the most of any head coach at that time. His all-time record as a coach was 323–85–17.

Source

• Inducted into Omicron Delta Kappa at the University of Kentucky in 1949
• 12-time Southeastern Conference Coach of the Year
• On October 7, 1988 the Paul W. Bryant Museum opened to the public. The museum chronicles the history of sports at The University of Alabama.
• The portion of 10th Street which runs through the University of Alabama campus was renamed Paul W. Bryant Drive.
• Three-time National Coach of the Year in 1961, 1971, and 1973.^: 517 The national coach of the year award was subsequently named the Paul "Bear" Bryant Award in his honor.
• In 1975, Alabama's Denny Stadium was renamed Bryant–Denny Stadium in his honor. Bryant would coach the final seven years of his tenure at the stadium, and is thus one of only four men in Division I-A/FBS to have coached in a stadium named after him. The others are Shug Jordan at Auburn, Bill Snyder at Kansas State and LaVell Edwards at BYU.
• 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 1979, Bryant received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement. His Golden Plate was presented by Awards Council member Tom Landry.
• 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. Some of his former Alabama players were on the rosters of both teams, including Miami Dolphins nose tackle Bob Baumhower and running back Tony Nathan, and Washington Redskins running back Wilbur Jackson. Also, at the end of Leslie Easterbrook's performance of the National Anthem, several planes from Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama did the traditional missing-man formation over the Rose Bowl in his memory.
• The extinct shark Cretalamna bryanti was named after Bryant and his family in 2018, due to their contributions to the University of Alabama and McWane Science Center where the type material is held.