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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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1990-10-09
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74 lines
Tears Fall on Alabama
February 7, 1983
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 like 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 become 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 Callahan. Reported by B. J. Phillips/Tuscaloosa