Football's Supercoach

Changing with the times, 'Bama 's Bear Bryant dominates the college game

He is a man of dimension, there can be no disputing that, and over the years his friends and foes have praised or damned him in outsize terms. To the rabid, almost reverential followers of his University of Alabama football teams, Paul William ("Bear") Bryant is a nearly mythic figure, a man who embodies the traditional American values: dedication, hard work, honesty and, above all, success. To the frustrated fans of the legions of teams he has defeated, he is a relentlessly slippery recruiter, a ruthless win-at-all-costs tyrant. To some, he is the demigod of the autumn religion, the finest coach of a uniquely American game. To others, he is the proselytizer of a brutal sport, a symbol of a national fixation on violence.

The exaggerations miss the point. For all his drill-field discipline, Bryant is not John Wayne with a whistle, a link to vague frontier tenets presumed lost. The most closely scrutinized coach in America, he could not get away with being a bagman for postadolescent jocks even if he tried. Nor is he a helmet-bashing maniac who views Saturday afternoons in the stadium as the moral equivalent of Dday. He is, at times, treated a bit too royally by those who vest football with more importance than it deserves. But he is also scorned too savagely by those who do not understand that the game has a rightful place in the life of small towns, schools, city back lots, the nation.

Today Bear Bryant unquestionably is the dominant figure in college football, but he began to make his mark in another age—the late 1940s, when Harry Truman was still in the White House. Bryant is that rare man who has changed with his times, the only one of his generation to coach as successfully in an era when football players use hair dryers in the locker room as he did when they wore crew cuts. "Thirty-five years makes a long time," he reflects. "A lot of good, a lot of bad, some things you did that were smart, some things you did that were plain stupid. Thirty-five years makes a lot of changes."

Just one thing has never changed: Bear Bryant has always won football games. In 35 years as a head coach, Bryant has won 298 games, lost 77 and tied 16. Before the 1980 season reaches its midpoint, he will become only the third coach to win 300 games. Late next year he should pass Pop Warner (313) and Amos Alonzo Stagg (314) to become the coach with the most victories in college-football history. His teams have won 23 games in a row, currently the longest winning streak in big-time college football. Bryant has taken teams to bowl games 26 times (a record); last season's Sugar Bowl appearance was the 21st consecutive postseason trip for Alabama's Crimson Tide (also a record). Under his stewardship, the polls gave Alabama the national championship six times. Bryant's teams have won 14 Southeastern Conference titles and a Southwest Conference crown.