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The Alabama Crimson Tide has been blessed with lots of winners in football throughout the years, and has produced a number of great players that have impacted the NFL greatly, not one of them can compare to one coach who changed the face of college sports forever, and that is Paul “Bear” Bryant.

Paul “Bear” Bryant

The first person that you most likely think of when you hear something about Alabama football, it is likely you think of Bear Bryant. At one point, Bear Bryant was the winningest coach in college football ever. This legendary coach served the Crimson for 25 years. In this period of time, Brian was phenomenal with six national championships and 13 SEC conference championships.

As a head football coach, Paul Bryant went through several university head coaching jobs such as the University of Maryland, University of Kentucky, and Texas A&M University before he finally had the break to give back to his alma mater, Alabama. So motivated was Bear Bryant, that he distinctively was quoted as saying, “Mama called. And when Mama calls, you just have to come runnin’.”

It was the year 1958 that Paul Bryant took over the helm of Bama, and started leading it to its past Rose Bowl-style brilliance but accomplished even more. Coaching renowned players like Joe Namath, Pat Trammell, Billy Neighbors, Big John Hannah, snake Stabler,Lee Roy Jordan, Johnny Musso, Bob Baumhower, and many others.

Overall, Bear Bryant was a great motivator and understood how to make his players to do what he wanted them to do. Florida A&M coach, Jake Gaither said of Bear Bryant, “He can take his’n and beat you’n, and he can take your’n and beat his’n.” The motivation wasn’t just on the turf, the motivation passed into real life as well by the nature he instilled in his players like big John Croyle, who founded the faith-based Christian Big Oak Ranch for troubled boys and girls in Springville, Alabama.

The last year that he coached the Crimson Tide, 1982, was a down year for Alabama and Bear couldn’t see himself coaching Alabama into mediocrity. He constantly said that if he quit coaching that he “wouldn’t last a week.” In truth, he didn’t last a lot longer than that, only 37 days. On January 26, 1983, Bryant died of a heart attack at age 69 and many attended his funeral. Officials projected that between a half-million to a million people were lined all along the 53 mile stretch from Tuscaloosa to the graveyard in Birmingham that was mere blocks from Legion Field.

The Legendary Man Changed Alabama and The World

Bear’s legacy lives in the players that are now growing older and the fans that recollect his championship spirit. Not only that… He helped smash segregation in the South’s football universe, and in doing so, turned the state around from bigotry to magnificence. Not only that, he changed the world to a better place. Roll Tide!