Bear Bryant was a great man and coach, and he changed his life and college football forever with the decisions that he made. Paul Bryant (Bear) was born into a poor family and was the eleventh of twelfth children. Paul William Bryant was born in Moro Bottom in Arkansas. It's a small, unknown city. Legend has it Bryant got his nickname around the year 1927 by wrestling a bear from a carnival. People say that he only did it to impress a girl! From then on he was called "Bear Bryant" and that's where his legend begins. While the bear's owner left town without paying Bear got to take something home with him better than money... a story to tell your kids in the future. (100 years of Bear). When he was young every morning he would plow the fields …show more content…
of his family's farm and then doing it again when he came home from school in the afternoon. Bear started playing football in eighth grade when he was just watching his school's football team play and the coach had him put on some gear and he destroyed (metaphorically).Soon after Bear went on and made an all-star team that won state champion in 1930. Bryants' nickname was "The other end". Bear Bryant was offered a spot on the Crimson Tide in 1931. When he retired from college football head coach Frank Thomas hired him for assistant coaching, and that's how his coaching career started. After the season of 1941 he was invited to be interviewed to become the head coach of the college of Arkansas. Frank Thomas offered Bryant a job as an Alabama assistant making $1,250 a year, plus housing and transportation. He became a line coach for the varsity team in 1936, that same year his first child was born. Bear Bryant was a great coach While at the Rose Bowl with Alabama's team in 1937, Bryant got a screen test with Paramount Studios to become an actor. He was offered a contract, but his wife wouldn't move to California..
Bryant took an assistant coaching job at Vanderbilt in 1940 under Red Sanders. He had a falling out with Sanders after one year and, with the help of New York Yankees catcher Bill Dickey, had the inside track for the Arkansas job. (100 years). Bear Bryant got the job, but heard on the radio, soon after that the Japanese bombed pearl harbor. Bear joined the Navy for a couple year, putting his football coaching career on hold (The story of Bear Bryant). After the Navy, Bear Bryant turned the wildcats into winners. His stats were 7-3 his first year coaching them. In 1954, he packed up and headed west to Texas A&M. He had the master formula for success, and wanted to test it out at another school. But Bryant inherited an awful program with few good players. Texas A&M was a tough place to lure players to. No girls, no glamour, military uniforms and, at first glance, the school looked more like a penitentiary than a college campus. Bryant knew he had to force discipline and strictness in order for A&M to compete. One day during summer practice, he loaded the unsuspecting Aggies in two buses to Junction, Texas for what was arguably the toughest training camp in football history. Bear Bryant was …show more content…
great. Bryant started with 48 players but only came back with 29.
Gene Stallings, who was one of Bryant's players at the time, said, "We left in two buses and came back in one, and that one was half full." Bryant put his team through hell at Junction because he wanted to build character and have his players realize that things were going to be done his way. They finished the season 1-9, Bear's only losing record as a head coach! The foundation had been placed and in 1956, the Aggies won the Southwest Conference championship. In 1957, halfback John David Crow received the Heisman Trophy, the only player coached by Bryant to receive the award. After a few years in 1958 Bear Bryant joined Alabama, but this time...he was head coach. Bear once said “What are you doing here? Tell me why you are here. If you are not here to win a national championship, you’re in the wrong place. You boys are special. I don’t want my players to be like other students. I want special people. You can learn a lot on the football field that isn’t taught in the home, the church, or the classroom. There are going to be days when you think you’ve got no more to give and then you’re going to give plenty more. You are going to have pride and class. You are going to be very special. You are going to win the national championship for Alabama.” Bear knew how to give moving pre game speeches. It makes you think abut how much he cared for his football player. Bear dedicated his life to football, but he
was criticized every step of the way by people who didn't even know him (50 quotes). Bryant was criticized for coaching dirty play when Alabama's Darwin Holt smashed into Georgia Tech's Chick Graning on a punt return in 1961. Bryant insisted he did not encourage such behavior. With attention focused on the Granting play, Bryant had an Alabama assistant show Alabama reporters all of Georgia Tech's violations.Bryant said years later, doing that "showed no class. If I had to do it over, I wouldn't, but our people thought the Atlanta writers were trying to destroy me." (Bryant)The play contributed to a feud between Bryant and Georgia Tech coach Bobby Dodd. Alabama and Georgia Tech stopped playing when the Yellow Jackets left the SEC.. Years later, Bryant offered to sponsor Georgia Tech to return to the SEC. Bryant's 1961 team won the first of his six national championships at Alabama. Bear turned their statics around fast. When Bear started coaching them again he turned them around very quickly. Alabama played in the Super Bowl in 1961 and won 11-0. They beat Arkansas to win the national championship. They won the Sugar Bowl again in 1963. The Saturday Evening Post published a story in 1963 accusing Bryant and Georgia athletics director Wally Butts of having fixed the 1962 Alabama-Georgia game. Butts won a lawsuit against the magazine, and Bryant settled for $360,000. The cases helped put the magazine out of business. During the problems, Bryant met with U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy in 1963. Bryant said Kennedy told him he thought there was nothing to the game-fixing allegation.Bryant's meeting in 1963 with Kennedy occurred as the attorney general was waging an intense fight with Alabama Gov. George Wallace and the University of Alabama over integrating the university where Bryant coached.Bryant would wake up in a cold sweat many nights during the game-fixing ordeal and often slept alone. (Angelfire) "I didn't want Mary Harmon to know what I was going through," Bryant wrote in his autobiography. He got a lot of attention off the field and it resurfaced even more when Bryant suspended quarterback Joe Namath for his behavior. Bryant received criticism from some Alabama fans for the first time. Bear was having a very hard time at this time because he was being criticized left and right about everything that he did. Coach Bryant was talked about very highly and respected by a lot of coaches. "Paul Bryant was just tougher than the rest of us. That, plus his ability to make everybody believe in him, made his teams hard to beat."(Texas coach Darrell Royal) "He wasn't just a coach. He was the coach." (USC coach John McKay). People believed very highly in him because of his coaching abilities. While called him a terrible coach that didn't mean anything. If you look at his stats then you would see that he was an outstanding coach. Bear Bryant was an amazing coach and he said very meaningful things. Bear Bryant went above and beyond for his players and was an extraordinary coach. His love for football will always be with college football. Everybody that has even heard about college football has heard about the legacy of Bear Bryant. Bear fought a lot of accusations of him being racist. Many people accused him of convert racism (using an excuse to cover racism). Bear defended these accusations by saying that " social climate didn't allow him to go after black players" (Espn). Many people at that time weren't accepting blacks onto their football teams, especially in the south. Bear just got the criticism because he's a more known coach and people tend to ignore less famous ones and criticize the ones they know. Finally, in 1970 Bear accepted Wilbur Jackson as Alabamas first black scholarship earned player. "While Bryant's 323 major-college victories" (Espn) Bear lead his team to so many wins, and so many loses. While the goods out weigh the bad, his career did have to end eventually. The fabled Bama coach concluded his Tide career with a 232-46-9 record (.824 win %). That's outstanding. His 1961, 1964, 1965, 1973, 1978, and 1979 teams all won National Championships. In 1981, he broke Amos Alonzo Stagg's record of 314 coaching victories and finished a combined career record of 323-85-17. Under Bryant, Alabama had 25 winning seasons and was selected for bowl games 24 times. He was named national coach of the year 3 times, SEC coach of the year 10 times and was inducted into the National Football Foundation College Football Hall of Fame in 1986. (Wikipedia) As William Poling said, "Coach Bryant knew more about you than you knew about yourself, he knew when to give you hell, and he knew when to pat you on the back." Florida A&M coach, Jake Gaither said of Coach Bryant. Bear Bryants' football players loved him. Many of his players spoke very highly of him.Bear also spoke highly of his players. “I have always tried to teach my players to be fighters. When I say that, I don’t mean put up your dukes and get in a fistfight over something. I’m talking about facing adversity in your life. There is not a person alive who isn’t going to have some awfully bad days in their lives. I tell my players that what I mean by fighting is when your house burns down, and your wife runs off with the drummer, and you’ve lost your job and all the odds are against you. What are you going to do? Most people just lay down and quit. Well, I want my people to fight back.” Bear taught his football players very valuable lessons that they wouldn't only take on the field to "fight" with, they would take in the real world. Not even two months after retiring he passed away due to a heart attack. I guess you could say...ball is life. Many people acknowledged what a good coach he was. So now every year the Bear Bryant award is given to the best football coach of that year. "They'll forget me as soon as I croak and am buried" (I remember Paul Bear Bryant) but we didn't. Bear Bryant will always be a legend in American football because of his strict way of coaching and his results. Bear Bryant was a great coach. His football players adored him. Even though he was very strict and hard on them all those sweat and tears payed off when they would win back to back games. Bear was probably one of the greatest college football coaches to live, he changed the face of college football forever.
Charley Johnson is a very talented NFL quarterback from NMSU that not many people know about. Having accomplished so much, I feel that people should. Bleacher Report’s Brendan Majev, ranked him the 91st greatest quarterback of all time. He was drafted 10th round by the St. Louis Cardinals. After playing with them and the Oilers, he ended his career with the Denver Broncos in 1975. Topics gone over in this essay include his early life, his college football career, his NFL career, his army career, and his education.
When Boone was appointed to the position of football coach at T.C. Williams High School, he became the visionary of success to the program. His vision for the team from the beginning was to win a state championship. As a leader one must be a visionary and have an ultimate goal that needs to be accomplished. Difficult situations continuously present themselves and need to be handled effectively in order to accomplish the leader’s vision, which often occurred during Boone’s journey with his team. Throughout the film, no matter what circumstances Boone encountered, he was able to stay focused on the goal of winning a championship which consequently allowed the team to
CRAFT KEVIN, “The Enduring Lesson of Michigan's Fab Five: Winning Really Isn't Everything.” APR 10, 2013.
I very much enjoyed The Legend of Colton H. Bryant by Alexandra Fuller. It captured me right away in the beginning scene of Colton racing away from the Kmart Kids on his bicycle. I loved how Colton could take a sad event and turn it into a lighter topic. For example, in the first chapter, Colton was being bullied and harassed. Even though he was crying, he made it lighter by chanting his mantra “‘Mind over matter. I don’t mind so it don’t matter.’” (Fuller 7) There are other examples of Colton behaving in this matter. This is an aspect that I enjoyed in reading this book. How she developed her characters and so on made me fascinated.
Bill Belichick got most of his education on football coaching from his father Steve Belichick. Compared to Bill, his dad was not a famous football coach although he was known for his incredible ability to break down and exploit game film. Bill as a football player himself learned a lot from his coach and father, Steve Belichick. With this knowledge and his genius, he made a lot of his dreams and the dreams of the fans' come true.
Frederick “Fritz” Pollard, the first African American to ever play in the Rose Bowl and the first African American to ever coach an NFL team, changed the history of football and America while enduring different racial criticism. Pollard faced many difficulties throughout his childhood and adulthood. Pollard was not like the typical “black star” of the 1890-1910 time period. Pollard was raised in a nice home, instead of the “ghetto”, and was able to acquire higher education than that of the average African-American child of his time period. Pollard was racially criticized throughout his amateur and professional life. One incident being the time Pollard got into an argument with a child on whether or not he was a football player, “There I was,
Not many people think Arkansans are smart or will be famous, but there are some famous Arkansans. He was born on September 11, 1913 at Fordyce, Arkansas, and he died on January 26, 1983, in Tuscaloosa, AL and was buried at Elmwood Cemetery, Alabama. He became a college football player, and later to become a college football coach. He was known as the longtime head coach of the University of Alabama football team. His name is Paul William 'Bear' Bryant (Hendricks).
Bryant is anti-Civil War and pro-unity but pro-Lincoln. Bryant sent many opinionated letters to Lincoln, which were greatly appreciated by the President, but Bryant spoke out against the Civil War, which Lincoln supported. Although Bryant is anti-slavery, the abolitionists were tearing the United States apart, so he is anti-abolitionist. However, he is also anti-abolitionist persecution because freedom of speech is very important to him. His father is a physician, and Bryant started out as a lawyer but decided to pursue his literary desires. His mother is a Puritan, but Bryant is a Calvinist. Although Calvinist, Bryant has opposing view regarding death. Instead of believing in condemnation to hell, he believes in “[mixing] forever with the elements” and with no trace of humanity: achieving perfection(Bryant, Thanatopsis” 27). His strong individualism causes isolation at times and while he is “lone wandering, but not lost,” trying to solidify his opinions: While flow the heavens with the last steps of day, / Far, through rosy depths, dost thou pursue / Thy solitary way?”(Bryant, “To a Waterfowl” 2-4). Bryant’s sturdy, individualistic beliefs determines why he was separated from other Romantic
"It's about heart. It's about who can go out there and play the hardest. Who can go out there and play the smartest." Spoken by Don Haskins. He said these words before the 1966 NCAA championship, in which he won.
Bryant should go to trial. He will have to defend himself against the accusation of having raped a 19-year-old girl on June 30, 2003, when he was in a hotel in the tourist area of Colorado.
To start with, Desmond Bryant’s mother was not able to be there for Bryant and his siblings. Notably, NFL online source explains when Dez was only eight years old he witnessed his mother get taken to jail. His mother would serve an 18 month prison sentence putting Dez and his sibling into jeopardy. Hence, Dez used perseverance to focus on his dreams even though he was going through a hard time. In other circumstances, the children Dez Bryant has put into this world have a father figure. For example ESPN online source states that Dez is a great father, and role model for his kids. Given these points, Dez used perseverance to succeed in becoming a good dad. In addition, coming into the NFL Bryant was a troubled player, and got himself into a little bit of trouble. To illustrate, Yahoo sports online source reports that when Dez Bryant was at OSU he accepted lunch from Deion Sanders resulting in a suspension consequence. This affecting his draft stock, causing NFL teams and scouts to view him as a troubled player. In conclusion, although Dez had a label of a trouble maker. Dez would persevere to become one of the league’s top
When it came to football, Tillman busted his butt everyday in practice to prove himself. During the off season he was always doing something active from climbing giant cliffs to running in marathons. He was also hard working in the classroom. He graduated college in three and a half years with a 3.85 GPA. There were many close games and all Tillman’s team needed was one touchdown to win. He would turn to his coach and say “coach, give me the ball, I’ll get it done.” And almost every time, he did get the job done. If you ever knew or heard the story about Tillman, you would know that he was very hard
Mr. Griffin begin his speech with ethos by convincing us that receiving this award was "unbelievably believable". He convinces us that it’s unbelievable when your shock as great things happen and believable when you work for it. He says “Baylor we are and Baylor we'll always be, but it's up to us to define what that means, and this Heisman Trophy is only the beginning of that process” which is logos. It’s a logos because he is expressing why he deserve to get the trophy or claims. He mentions a saying that him and his teammates say to each other, "The hotter the heat, the harder the steel. No pressure, no diamonds. We compete, we win. We are Baylor" which is pathos. This pathos because in his speech as he said this it showed motivation and
He became the first ever basketball coach, he is known as the father of basketball, even though his record as a coach at the University of Kansas was a mediocre fifty five wins and sixty losses. There are many sports to coach, so choosing the right sport to coach is the first test for any coach. Naturally, one would want to coach a sport that you know the most about. For example, if an athlete decided he wanted to get into coaching he would most likely choose to coach the sport he had once played.
As a child Bryant was forced to work on a farm, he spent most of his time outdoors. Due to being outdoors a majority of his life, Bryant was able to obtain his transcendental view of nature. Also, later on in Bryant’s life he wasn’t able to provide for his family and fill the role as father. Typically the role of a father is to be the bread winner of the family while taking care of the wife and children. Bryant lacked the necessary means in supplying his household’s income. This led Bryan to take a lot of desperate measures in order to provide for his family. A bad investment in a merchant ship landed him in “debtor’s prison”. Debtor’s prison is a prison specifically for people who cannot pay on the debt that they have collected. Death played a major role in Bryant’s life as well. He had to cope with the loss of so many family members due to the outbreak of typhoid fever. His experiences of death allowed him to write with different viewpoints of death. Bryant struggled with the thoughts of an “after life” that were related to God.