Tears Fall on Alabama

By Tom Cailahan

Paul William ("Bear") Bryant: 1913-1983

When he retired only five weeks ago as the winningest college coach of all, the gentle testimonials from North and South had the unintended timbre of eulogies. Alabama Football Coach Paul ("Bear") Bryant was a man whose life's work and life could scarcely be thought of separately. He died last week at 69 from a heart attack, but really a mix of illnesses that he had been fighting for three years (heroically, said his doctor), all the while he was pursuing Pop Warner and Amos Alonzo Stagg right up to his 323rd victory in the Liberty Bowl Dec. 29.

Of course, Bryant hardly chased them. He caught up to history's most successful coaches with a mumbled apology. "Warner and Stagg are like Babe Ruth or Huckleberry Finn," he said. "I don't compare to them." This is how Bryant talked, and prophetic lines muttered by him over the past year or two could be repeated last week without a chill. Coming from him they were not ghoulish: they were true. What would Bear do if he ever quit coaching football? "Probably croak in a week." Where would he go? "I imagine I'd go straight to the graveyard."

From the three downtown Tuscaloosa churches, where 1,500 listened to the simple 18-min. service, it is 51 miles to Birmingham, where Bryant was buried. On the cold Friday morning, Alabamans lined the first mile of the route four deep, and all of the way in ones and twos. When the white hearse, followed by hundreds of cars, came to the hospital where Bryant had died, scrub-suited surgeons stepped outside with masks dangling. The cortege passed the university where Bryant had played his college football and where he coached 25 of his 38 head-coaching seasons, winning the national championship six times. Students pressed together beneath buildings whose antebellum columns were draped in black.

On every bridge and overpass along the route, at every entrance and exit ramp, in rest areas and upon medians people were standing. Among the mourners were his players, present and past, including Joe Namath, Richard Todd, Lee Roy Jordan, John David Crow; and his coaching colleagues, like Bud Wilkinson, Darrell Royal, Eddie Robinson, Woody Hayes. "When I heard, it was like March 31, 1931," said Hayes, 69, the historian. "I was on the practice field. Someone came over to me and said, 'Rockne is dead.' Rockne was the great coach of his era; this man is the great coach of this era." Five thousand mourners were waiting at the cemetery.

Bryant liked to drawl, "I'm dumb, but I can take what somebody else invents and make it work for me." Though the coach realized he was not an innovator --in the sense of wishbone offenses -- he knew what he was. "God did give me the gift of leading men. I can do that. So I don't try to save the world. I just go at it one football player at a time."

In a letter Bryant wrote to one of his players, Dennis Homan from the championship team of 1965, two days after retiring, the coach told his old tight end: "As I contemplate my many years as a football coach during the postretirement period, it is not surprising that my former players and my former associates are the first people that come to mind. Since you are one of those people, I want to personally thank you for the contributions you have made to my happy, rewarding career. Also, I want to tell you how proud I am of you, and I want to challenge you to be come an even bigger winner in life.

"Frankly, I am sometimes embarrassed by the accolades that have been given to me, because never is enough said about the people who worked so hard for me, individuals like you."

He closed by saying that Mary Harmon, Bear's wife of 47 years, "sends her love." -- By Tom Cailahan. Reported by BJ. Phillips/Tuscaloosa

With reporting by BJ. Phillips/Tuscaloosa This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.