Alabama Football and the "Bear"

Alabama is #1 in college football today.

That's not in dispute after last night's game with Notre Dame.

Legendary Coach Bear Bryant had a whole lot to do with that, and he had something important to say about football and sports back in 1974.

Notable & Quotable has the quote:

"Paul "Bear" Bryant, writing in "Bear: The Hard Life and Good Times of Alabama's Coach Bryant" (1974):

Football has never been just a game to me. Never. I knew it from the time it got me out of Moro Bottom, Arkansas—and that's one of the things that motivated me, that fear of going back to plowing and driving those mules and chopping cotton for 50¢ a day. I used to think it would be nice to wind up being one of those guys who gets up on a Saturday morning and goes fishing, but I know now it'll never be. . . .

I've found, over the years, that I'm not alone in my obsession. I remember that first year at Kentucky, 1946, when we were trying to determine which boys the game meant a lot to. It was difficult because so many were just coming out of the service. . . . I didn't know how a team was supposed to act before a game. But I knew this bunch was really fired up, really motivated.

I looked around the room, and I had a kid in there named Jess Tunsil who had been a prisoner of war for about three years, and another named Jim Babbs who's a principal of a high school in Lebanon, Tennessee, now. Babbs fought on Iwo Jima. And I got to thinking about it, looking around, and I said to myself, hell, here are all these guys and me who never fought anybody, and if they can get so emotionally worked up over a game of football after what they've been through, then football must be something pretty good."

Summing Up

Roll, Tide, Roll.

Looks like a genuine dynasty to me.

Thanks. Bob.