TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/caps/83/83capmil.2

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                                                                                February 7, 1983

Tears Fall on Alabama

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 minute 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 post-retirement 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