Scarlett O'Hara On Prozac

The Bear

Okay, its been a couple of weeks since I posted, which is a cardinal sin in blogland, because if you don't keep your blog current, nobody will come read it. But, after battling gastroenteritis and my daughter's severe sinus infection, and the birth of my stepson's first child (at age 15, no less) I think I can be forgiven for my lapse in Yankee-bashing.

Yesterday was the 24th anniversary of the death of Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant. All the Yankees around here are all up in the air because the Bears are going to the Super Bowl to get their ass kicked by Peyton Manning's Colts. You'd think it was the second coming of Coach Ditka or something, the way they're all waving flags and hootin' and hollerin'.

Maybe it's just me, but I can't get excited about Da Bears when comparing Yankee football to The Bear. But then again, nothing and no one compares to The Bear.

Coach "Paul" Bear Bryant. There's a wealth of tradition, respect, and character in that name. It rings through the halls of football fame with a clarity unreachable by any other, no matter how many games they may win. Other coaches may surpass his winning record. Other coaches may set traditions and build football dynasties. But there can, and always will be, only one Bear.

If asked, I could not explain what it is that makes him so special. I only know that when the man walked, mountains moved out if his way like the Red Sea before Moses. When he talked, everyone paused to listen. Rival football teams respected him and loved him. His opponents always shrugged sheepishly when crossing the field to shake his hand, as if they were ashamed at having won.

Bear Bryant always believed in the team. There was no one man any more or less great or special on an Alabama Football team, which is why none of them won the Heisman Trophy. Some may have been nominated, and some may have distinguished themselves, but they were always willing to sacrifice personal glory for the glory of the team. It wasn't Bart Starr's team or Joe Namath's team or anybody else's team. It was the Alabama Crimson Tide, every last one of them playing their hearts out, win or lose. And they did lose, but they did it with grace and dignity.

Alabama faced and toppled Titans: Notre Dame, USC, Penn State, Ohio State, Tennessee, LSU, and countless others. Some years they won, some years they lost, but they always played with the best they had. Some say that winning tradition is gone, that Bear Bryant was too good, that no one will every fill his shoes and that the athletic department is spending too much time trying to resurrect him. I disagree.

There are generations of pride, tradition, and spirit in the Crimson Tide, and when they take the field, you can feel it rising up with the roar of the crowd. For just a moment, there's the ghost of a man with a checkered cap standing next to the goal post. I can still hear his rough, gravelly voice talking about each player as he names them, their parents, their home town, and what he had for dinner when he went to recruit them. Because that's the kind of man he was.

I'm sure he had faults. He was no saint. He drank, he cussed, he had some racist attitudes common for his day and age. No one's nominating him for sainthood, although it does seem that football in Alabama is more religion than sport. But there's a melancholy sweetness at remembering the man and his times and what he brought to our state and our team.

Coach Bear Bryant was one of the few men my father ever respected. He was quite vocal about men he of whom he did not approve: F.D. Roosevelt, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (that's another post) and whoever coached for Auburn topping the list. But when he spoke of Bear Bryant, he lowered his voice, removed his hat and placed it over his heart, and bowed his head reverently.

"You see that, Scooter," he'd point at the TV screen, "Bear's putting his second team in. He ain't gonna run up the score on his opponents. That shows respect!"

And sure enough, as soon as Alabama had a two or three touchdown lead he'd put in his skinny, uncertain, deer-in-the-headlights-can't-believe-I'm-playing-for-the Bear freshmen and sophomores and let them get some field experience. Sometimes they'd score a few points, sometimes they'd let the other team score, but Bear did not believe in running away with a football game.

My dad lived to watch Bear Bryant coach each year. And I still remember where I was and what I was doing on the day Bear Bryant died. I was a junior in high school, and my mom had just picked me up from school. We were riding down the hill past the Oxford High School athletic building (in Oxford, Alabama) when the radio announcer came on and said that Bear Bryant had passed away earlier that day.

"That's not true!" I cried out.

But my mother assured me it was. Bear was gone, and with him, a generation of football greats. Later that evening we drove to my grandmother's house. I sat on her sofa late into the night and watched the television coverage. All across the state the death of this man was reported and covered the way the death of a president would be by the nation. Flags flew at half-mast. Grown men cried. And late in the night, as i lay in the dark, I mourned my childhood passing.

Later that same year I moved to Tennessee, and for the first time for as long as I could remember, Tennessee beat Alabama on the third Saturday in October. It was fitting, I thought, that I leave my home state once its greatest legend was gone. It was also fitting, I thought, that nothing seemed right to me since.

My father passed away in December of '05. He lived 79 years, the majority of them happy ones. He waited until after football season to go, and even though it wasn't a stellar one, I know he enjoyed it.Somewhere up there, I hope he and Bear Bryant are talking over past games and having the time of their afterlives.

And so Da Bears will play the Colts next Sunday, and I'll be hoping that a Mississippi boy who played for the Vols will make mincemeat of the Yankee infidels while my husband embraces his SuperFan roots. Because if there is one thing Alabama football taught me, its that the War was never really over. And the South will Rise Again.

posted by Zoe Richardson @ 7:08 PM