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Paul Bryant was the 11th of 12 children born to William Monroe and Ida Kilgore Bryant, a farming family, in Moro Bottom, Arkansas, USA.
His nickname stemmed from his having agreed to wrestle a captive bear during a theater promotion when he was 13 years old. 1
He attended Fordyce High School in Fordyce, Arkansas , where 6-foot-1 Bryant began playing on the school's football team as an 8th grader. During his senior season, the team, with Bryant playing offensive end and defensive line, won the 1930 Arkansas state football championship.
Bryant accepted a scholarship to play for the University Of Alabama in 1931 . Having left high school before completing his diploma, Bryant had to enroll in a Tuscaloosa high school to finish 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. Socially, Bryant pledged Sigma Nu and, as a senior, married Mary Harmon, who bore him a daughter nine months later.
After graduating in 1936 , Bryant took a coaching job at Union University in Jackson, Tennessee , but left that position when offered an assistant coaching position at The University Of Alabama . Over the next four years, the team compiled a 29-5-3 record. In 1940 he left to become an assistant at Vanderbilt University under Henry Russell Sanders . Following the 1941 season, Bryant was offered the head coaching job at the University Of Arkansas ; however, following the bombing of Pearl Harbor , Bryant joined the United States Navy . He served in North Africa, seeing no action, before being granted an honorable discharge to train recruits and coach the football team at North Carolina Pre-Flight . One of the people he coached in the Navy was Otto Graham . While in the Navy, he attained the rank of Lieutenant Commander .
In 1945 Bryant accepted the job as head coach at the University of Maryland. In his only season with the Terrapins, Bryant led the team to a 6-2-1 record. However, there was a struggle for control of the football program with former Terrapin coach and then University President, Harry C. Byrd. In the most widely publicized example of the power struggle between the two, Bryant suspended a player for violating team rules only to discover that Byrd had the player reinstated while Bryant was away on vacation. Bryant left Maryland to take over the head coaching position at the University of Kentucky.
Bryant coached at the University Of Kentucky for eight seasons. Under Bryant, Kentucky made its first bowl appearance ( 1947 ) and won its first (and only) Southeastern Conference title ( 1950 ). The 1950 Kentucky team concluded its season with a victory over Bud Wilkinson 's #1 ranked Oklahoma Sooners in the Sugar Bowl , to which many agree that Kentucky is deserved a share of the National Championship. The living players were honored for their National Championship during halftime of a game during the 2005 season. Bryant also led Kentucky to appearances in the Great Lakes Bowl , Orange Bowl , and Cotton Bowl . Kentucky's final AP poll rankings under Bryant included #11 in 1949, #7 in 1950 (before defeating #1 Oklahoma in the Sugar Bowl), #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.
In 1954 Bryant accepted the head coaching job at Texas A&M University . He also served as Athletic Director while at A&M.
The Aggies suffered through a grueling 1-9 initial season which began with the famous training camp in Junction, Texas . The “survivors” were given the name “ Junction Boys ”. But only two years later, possibly a result of the Junction experience, Bryant led the team to the Southwest Conference championship with a 34-21 victory over the University Of Texas at Austin . The following year, 1957, Bryant's star back John David Crow won the Heisman Trophy (the only Bryant player to ever earn that award), and the Aggies were in title contention until they lost to the #20 Rice Owls in Houston, amid rumors that Alabama would be going after Bryant.
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, as well as the athletic director job at Alabama.
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Bryant took over the Alabama football team in 1958 . After winning a combined four games the previous three years, the Tide went 5-4-1 in Bryant's first season. The next year, in 1959, Alabama beat Auburn and appeared in a bowl game, the first time either had happened in the previous six years. In 1961, Alabama went 11-0 and defeated Arkansas 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 victory in the Orange Bowl over Bud Wilkinson 's University Of Oklahoma Sooners. The following year ended with a victory in the 1963 Sugar Bowl. In 1964, the Tide won another national championship but lost to The University Of Texas in the Orange Bowl in the first nationally televised college game in color. The Crimson Tide would repeat as champions in 1965 after defeating Nebraska in the Orange Bowl. Coming off of back-to-back national championship seasons, Bryant's Alabama team went undefeated in 1966 and defeated a strong Nebraska team 34-7 in the Sugar Bowl. However, Alabama finished third in the nation behind Michigan State and Notre Dame.
The 1967 team was billed as another national championship contender with star quarterback Kenny Stabler returning, but the team stumbled out of the gate and tied Florida State 37-37 at Legion Field . The season never took off from there, with the Bryant-led Alabama team finishing 8-2-1, losing in the Cotton Bowl 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 Missouri 35-10 in the Gator Bowl. The 1969 and 1970 teams finished 6-5 and 6-5-1 respectively.
In 1971, Bryant installed the Wishbone Offense . That change helped make the remainder of the decade a successful one for the Crimson Tide. That season Alabama went undefeated and earned a #2 ranking, but lost to #1 Nebraska, 38-6 in the Orange Bowl. The team would go on to win national championships in 1973 (which led the UPI to stop giving National Championships until after all the games for the season had been played--including bowl games), 1978 and 1979.
Bryant coached at Alabama for 25 years, winning six national titles ( 1961 , 1964 , 1965 , 1973 , 1978 , and 1979 ). Bryant's win over in-state rival Auburn University , coached by former Bryant assistant Pat Dye in November 1981 was Bryant's 315th as a head coach, which was the most of any head coach at that time.
Bryant announced his retirement as head football coach at Alabama effective with the end of the 1982 season. His last game was a 21-15 victory in the Liberty Bowl in Memphis, Tennessee over the University Of Illinois . When asked in a post-game interview what he intended to do while retired, Bryant sarcastically replied that he would "probably croak in a week."
Bryant died on January 26 , 1983 at age 69 after checking into Druid City Hospital in Tuscaloosa with chest pains. His death came 28 days after his last game as a coach.
He is interred at Elmwood Cemetery in Birmingham , Alabama .
Many prominent coaches played or worked as assistant coaches under Bryant. The following is an incomplete list:
- Bill Battle , end (head coach at Tennessee , 1970-1976)
- Jim Blevins, lineman (head coach at Jacksonville State , 1965-1968; line coach at UTEP )
- Danny Ford , Head Coach at Clemson (1979-1991) and Arkansas (1993-97), won 1981 National Championship at Clemson
- Jerry Claiborne , end and back, Hall of Fame coach at Virginia Tech (1961-1970), Maryland (1972-1981) and Kentucky (1982-1989)
- Sylvester Croom , center, head coach at Mississippi State , 2004-present.
- Paul Dietzel , head coach of LSU (1955-1961), Army , and South Carolina , served as an assistant coach to Bear Bryant at Kentucky from 1951-52. http://www.pauldietzel.com/
- Mike DuBose (head coach at Alabama, 1997-2000, head coach at Millsaps College 2006-present)
- Pat Dye , assistant coach (head coach at East Carolina , 1974-79; Wyoming , 1980 and Auburn , 1981-92)
- Charlie McClendon , head coach at LSU, 1962-1979; assistant coach at Kentucky and Vanderbilt .
- Curley Hallman , assistant coach (head coach at Southern Mississippi , 1988-90 and LSU , 1991-94)
- Jim Owens ,(head coach, University of Washington, 1957-1974)
- Jack Pardee , player at Texas A&M. Linebacker for Los Angeles Rams and Washington Redskins from 1957-73, played in Super Bowl VII with Redskins. Later served as head coach for Chicago Bears , 1975-77; Redskins, 1978-80; Houston Gamblers , 1984-85; University Of Houston , 1987-89; Houston Oilers , 1990-94
- Charley Pell (head coach at Clemson , 1977-78 and Florida , 1979-1984)
- Ray Perkins , end (Bryant's successor head coach at Alabama, 1983-1986; head coach with the New York Giants , 1979-82 and Tampa Bay Buccaneers , 1987-90)
- Bum Phillips , assistant coach (head coach of Houston Oilers , 1975-80 and New Orleans Saints , 1981-85)
- Mike Riley , defensive back (head coach for the San Diego Chargers , 1999-2001; head coach at Oregon State University , 1997-1999, 2003-present)
- Howard Schnellenberger , head coach of the Baltimore Colts , University Of Miami (national champions, 1983); University Of Louisville , University Of Oklahoma and Florida Atlantic University , and assistant coach for the undefeated 1972 Miami Dolphins team
- Jackie Sherrill , fullback (head coach at Washington State , Pittsburgh , Texas A&M and Mississippi State, 1976-2003)
- Steve Sloan , quarterback (head coach at Vanderbilt, Texas Tech , Ole Miss and Duke , 1973-1986)
- Gene Stallings , player at Texas A&M, assistant coach at Alabama (head coach at Texas A&M, 1965-1971; St.Louis/Phoenix Cardinals , 1986-1989; and Alabama, 1990-1996, national champions, 1992)
- Richard Williamson , receiver and assistant coach at Alabama (head coach at Memphis St. , 1975-80; Tampa Bay Buccaneers , 1990-91)
In his career, Bryant participated in a total of 31 post-season bowl games including 24 consecutively at Alabama. Bryant won 15 bowl games (including eight Sugar Bowl s)
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1945
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Maryland
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6-2-1
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3-2
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5
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1948
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Kentucky
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5-3-2
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1-3-1
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9
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1952
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Kentucky
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5-4-2
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1-3-2
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9
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19
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1955
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Texas A&M
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7-2-1
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4-1-1
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2
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14
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conference
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1956
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Texas A&M
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9-0-1
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6-0
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1
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5
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1958
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Alabama
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5-4-1
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3-4-1
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6
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Alabama
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'''232-46-9'''confrecord=
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- ) Prior to the 1974, the final coaches poll was released ''before'' the bowl games, so a team that lost its bowl game could still claim the national championship.
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