My first encounter with Bear Bryant...

[Rick Cleveland]

...on the occasion of his 100th birthday.

http://msfame.com/ricks-writings/happy-100th-birthday-bear-bryant/

 

[bulldognation]

Very nicely done Rick. Terrific work as usual.

 

[Shmuley]

I think I would have eaten the ribs, Rick.

 

[was21]

Seems like he could have at least offered you a coke to wash the damn ribs down.....good memory..thx

 

[patdog]

Great story. Probably my favorite Bear Bryant quote is the "because I was trying to win the damn game" quote.

 

[The Peeper]

As a young boy in the '70s I would go to the Fred Walters Wild Game Cookout in Laurel every year and Coach Bryant was more often than not there along w/ professional baseball and football players, coaches from all the MS universities, Auburn, Bama, the Saints coaches and players, etc etc. I'll never forget sitting there one year only two tables away and watching him chain smoke filter-less Chesterfields and pouring Jim Beam from a bottle on the table into a glass and drinking it straight all evening. I guess I was young and naive at that time and remember being kind of disappointed, I had no idea that coaches were human beings too......

 

[was21]

On one of his coaches shows after a game with Vandy, he kept talking about how good the Vanderbilt punter was and how he was a great for "us." His sidekick on the show finally said: "Coach Bryant, he's the Vanderbilt kicker..he plays for them." Bryant paused a second or two and said: "Well, he shoulda' signed with Alabama."

 

[BigMotherTucker]

I have an apperently odd and radical view of all things Bear Bryant...

Piss on him. He didn't coach for my school or in my state. I think the Bama sidewalk fans worship of this man is unhealthy and borderline insane. I have cousins who are Bama fans because they liked the Bear in the 70's and 80's. You're ******* Mississippians people... What the 17!

17 the Bear...

 

[Maroon Eagle]

Like you, there are quite a few people from my neck of the Mississippi woods who are Alabama and Bear Bryant fans.

Unlike you, I want to think their fandom is almost justified since quite a few of them knew and/or went to high school with Terry Rowell who was an undersized and all-SEC defensive lineman for Bear Bryant back in the late 60s and early 70s.

 

[mjh94]

no golden flakes and dr. pepper with them ribs?

 

[was21]

and the horse he rode in on...damn drunk to boot

 

[Maroonthirteen]

I understand who he was. But yeah, I agree BMT.

 

[coach66]

One of my frat brothers was from Tuscaloosa and he and his family were good

friends with the Bears family. He said he was a true gentlemen and one of the nicest guys you would ever meet. He added that few knew how to have a better time than the Bear.

 

[Rick Cleveland]

Y'all weren't in the locker room after 6-3 in 1980 when Bryant came in and congratulated State's players. You could have heard a pin drop. Classiest thing I ever saw. Made it all the more special to State's players. Just ask em.

 

[Macthebulldogfan]

His signing of Forrest Gump goes down as the greatest recruiting coup of all time. Just wondering if Bear thought that Forrest's mama really cared about his education.

 

[SkullCandy.sixpack]

Lighten up, Francis. Rick tells a great story about how kind he was, and you hate him because he didn't do anything for you or your school? Can't you admire him, foe or otherwise, because he was great at what he did?

 

[Maroonthirteen]

I wasn't in the locker room

And I never met him. I am sure if I had met him as you did maybe my view changes. But he has never meant a thing to me. If anything I associate him with all those non-college grad Mississippians who "Roll Tide" all across the state after a victory over a MS university.

 

[anon1787432961]

forget the ribs, we all want to know what flavor of Golden Flakes was his favorite. Spit it out Rick.

 

[EurekaDog]

Bryant's image...

Bryant was smart and clever. There's no argument that those traits helped him build the Alabama football program into the juggernaut it was in the late 1970's.

However, he was not a paragon of sportsmanship. His signing of hundreds of players (many of which never saw the field) just so he wouldn't have to face them on the gridiron is reminiscent of the robber barons during the Industrial Revolution and their desire to build monopolies.

His fishing trips with SEC refs were rewarded during the fall.

His reasons for refusing to play MSU and Ole Miss on their campuses were inane and (obviously) self-serving for the moment and for the future. Just consider how much money the towns of Starkville and Oxford DIDN'T take in on those "game weekends" over the years. Think how much those two towns would have grown if that money had been spent locally rather than in Jackson and/or Alabama. If you have any doubt, take a look at the growth Tuscaloosa experienced once Bama stopped playing games in B'ham.)

Nobody writes extensive, in-depth columns about the "non-choir boy" side of Bryant and the effects it had on the other southern colleges/universities, their communities, and the players who were signed just to keep them off of other teams.

 

[anon1787432961]

when legend becomes fact.... print the legend.

Nobody writes extensive, in-depth columns about the "non-choir boy" side of Bryant and the effects it had on the other southern colleges/universities, their communities, and the players who were signed just to keep them off of other teams.

when legend becomes fact... print the legend.

 

[dogmatic]

I'm not a Bryant defender, but creativity is rewarded in life and in football. If there's no limit on scholarships, sign up all you can fund, then rattle donors to fund more. Same with greasing the officials. If their rules permit the contact, make the contact.

As far as playing in Jackson goes, you do know that as recently as 1991 we played one of our home SEC football games at Florida because LT had sold it to them, allowing it to be played on their campus, right? With that kind of track record, I don't buy Bryant influencing the game to Veterans Memorial so much as I suspect our own leadership of being sackless and allowing it to happen. I'm sure the total seating advantage Veterans Memorial offered at the time could have been parlayed into an attractive deal that was better for our bottom line at the moment, and that has to have been the rub.

 

[Todd4State]

I always thought that was kind of weird that he did that

Y'all weren't in the locker room after 6-3 in 1980 when Bryant came in and congratulated State's players. You could have heard a pin drop. Classiest thing I ever saw. Made it all the more special to State's players. Just ask em.

If I was a player I would have been like- what is HE doing here?

I've heard that story and I've always thought it was kind of condescending in a way. In other words- "you guys really aren't good enough to beat us, so congratulations on your "Super Bowl" win."

I think he did things like that to perpetuate his image though. No doubt he was a master at that.

 

[noxdog]

Only a dubmass like you

Would think such a thing. You truly are an idiot and I say that with some respect. Damn.

If I was a player I would have been like- what is HE doing here?

I've heard that story and I've always thought it was kind of condescending in a way. In other words- "you guys really aren't good enough to beat us, so congratulations on your "Super Bowl" win."

I think he did things like that to perpetuate his image though. No doubt he was a master at that.