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A Tribute With Bear In Mind

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By JOHN PANCAKE, The Washington Post

Published: January 6, 2008

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - In Tuscaloosa, they like to tell this story about legendary University of Alabama football coach Paul "Bear" Bryant.

It seems Bear had just gotten home after beating the tar out of Penn State. As he climbed into bed, his wife exclaimed, "God, you've got cold feet."

After a pause, he replied: "Mary Harmon, in the bedroom you can call me Paul."

Although Bear Bryant was not God, in Alabama he was a god. Football fans who find themselves in the vicinity of Tuscaloosa won't want to miss one of America's most unusual shrines, the Paul W. Bryant Museum. A lot of college football museums can be found across the country, but none so dedicated to one man's legend.

When I was growing up many years ago in Tuscaloosa, I thought people were obsessed with the football team because everything else in town was so drab and small. That, of course, was wrong. Time has helped me see Tuscaloosa as a shady city with quiet charms, sly storytellers, tortured history, a semi-secret art museum and some of the world's best barbecue.

The Bryant museum, on the east side of the University of Alabama campus, isn't just about the Bear. It tells the whole history of Alabama football. Battered leather helmets, old jerseys, a lumpy ball from the 1894 Auburn game (Alabama won, 18-0) fill cases alongside scores of trophies.

(According to the museum, Alabama has won more games in the past 65 years than any other college football team. It lists 12 national titles, including six during Bryant's 25-year reign. On the Saturday I was at the museum, a flat-screen TV showed highlights from the previous week's game.)

But almost one-third of the museum is about Bryant, who died in 1983 at age 69. You get the story of 13-year-old Paul wrestling a carnival bear in Fordyce, Ark. Bryant needed money, and the carnival paid a dollar a minute to stay in the ring with the bear. (He never actually got the dollar, but he did wind up with a nickname.)

You hear about his playing days on the Alabama teams from 1933 to 1935. He was the less famous of Alabama's two ends during those years. The other, Don Hutson, is in the college and pro football halls of fame.

But Bryant wasn't entirely overshadowed. He prided himself on his toughness, once having a cast cut off so he could play against Tennessee with a broken leg. He had one of the best games of his career, and the Crimson Tide won, 25-0. When the university put out word Bryant had played with a busted fibula, a sports editor from Atlanta drove over and looked at the X-rays.

After college, Bryant became an assistant coach, earning $1,250 a year. He served in the Navy during World War II, then went on to become a successful head coach at several schools, including the University of Maryland and Texas A&M University.

Football at Alabama meanwhile deteriorated. The saddest display in the museum is dedicated to J.B. "Ears" Whitworth, who coached from 1955 to 1957, once going winless over a 10-game season. There is nothing mean-spirited in the Whitworth display, but if you look through the books in the gift shop, you will find that Whitworth is best remembered for benching senior quarterback Bart Starr, who went on to win five NFL championships and two Super Bowls as a professional.

In that dark hour, Bryant returned to his alma mater.

"Mama called, and when Mama calls, you have to come running," he said.

You'll see trophies and film clips of his signal victories. In one corner, there's even a re-creation of his office, with the original low-slung couch where he sat people down for a talk. (Bear glowered down on them from behind a massive desk.) One wall bears an advertising poster with Bryant plugging Coca-Cola and Golden Flake potato chips.

People who admired what the Bear stood for fastened on the coach's signature houndstooth snap-brim hat as a symbol of how much they venerated him. It is as much a talisman of Alabama football as are the school's crimson and white. In the museum, almost as many hats are on display as there are footballs. The strangest of all is a Waterford crystal number sculpted in glass.

In the gift shop, you can buy houndstooth visors, umbrellas, earrings, hair bands, purses, string ties, key chains, scarves, beer-can holders, notecards and, of course, hats.

You can do the museum in about an hour, although devout Crimson Tide faithful will take longer. Just don't miss the video right inside the entrance. It tells Bryant's life story and closes with a quote from him:

"I'd like people to remember me as a winner because I ain't never been nothing but a winner."

IF YOU GO

Bryant Museum: The Paul W. Bryant Museum, on the University of Alabama campus in Tuscaloosa, is open daily from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. For details, call 1-866-772-2327 or go to www.bryant.ua.edu.

Barbecue: Tuscaloosa has a lot of great barbecue spots. The most famous is the original Dreamland, 5535 15th Ave. E. ( www.dreamlandbbq.com). It's hard-core: It serves ribs (about $20 for a full rack), sauce, white bread, banana pudding, cold drinks. That's it. You want hush puppies or something, go somewhere else. If you have friends in town, get them to take you across the river to Northport to the equally Spartan Archibald's, 1211 MLK Blvd., which many locals think is better than Dreamland.

Foster Auditorium: One of the most dramatic moments in the civil rights struggle took place when Alabama Gov. George Wallace made his famous "stand in the schoolhouse door" to block two black students from entering the University of Alabama on June 11, 1963. Federal marshals and members of the Alabama National Guard forced Wallace to stand aside, delivering an important blow against institutional segregation in the South. A plaque at the north entrance commemorates the event. The building is on Sixth Avenue between University Boulevard and Ninth Avenue.

Westervelt Warner Museum of American Art: Tucked far back in a subdivision on the north side of town, this relatively small museum has an extraordinary collection of American paintings, including works by Albert Bierstadt, John Singer Sargent, Childe Hassam, Winslow Homer, Edward Hicks, George Catlin, Thomas Cole, Asher Durand, Frederic E. Church, Mary Cassatt, James A. McNeill Whistler and others. Admission is $7. For details, call (205) 343-4540 or go to www.warnermuseum.org.

Tuscaloosa Information: 1-800-538-8696, www.tcvb.org.

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