🏈 Article on Coach Bryant, players drug use, and discipline.

[TerryP]

It's from last year, but it is a story I hadn't heard before. In light of the recent events, I found this very interesting.

When famed football coach Bear Bryant was chosen as the Most Influential Person in the 75-year history of the Southeastern Conference, I was hardly ready for the electric reaction to a story I wrote last week about the first time I ever met him.

It wasn’t so much the way the story was written, nor was it the tale itself. Instead, there is a rapt fascination and a deep devotion shared by those who sent me over 250 e-mails in the past week and, partially by demand and partially in gratitude, allow me to offer yet another look at one of the most legendary characters of all time.

A big thing, as many of Coach Bryant’s biographical writers have noted, is that when Coach arrived to take over the team in 1958, the state of Alabama itself hadn’t had a whole lot to cheer about.

So when he took a bunch of country boys and molded them into one of the greatest athletic programs in the nation before he died in 1983, the pride he instilled throughout the whole state was huge. That respect and admiration had by then spread like wildfire and, judging from my e-mails this week, it is still so very prevalent today.

His method was surprisingly simple – he had a plan for everything. He had a plan if Alabama won, he had a plan if they lost. He thought things out and then he carried them through.

That he was so driven, so unyielding on himself, was a given. It seemed he never forgot his humble beginnings in tiny Moro Bottom, Ark., but maybe that was where he got his rarest gift, his most unique quality, which was that he knew how to get the most goodness out of another human being better than anybody who ever was.

Coach Bryant and Redemption

 

[It Takes Eleven]

Thanks for sharing, and thanks a whole bunch for making me tear up in my office.

RTR,

Tim

 

[TerryP]

Thanks for sharing, and thanks a whole bunch for making me tear up in my office.

RTR,

Tim

You needed a good cry...nut up and admit it!

 

[It Takes Eleven]

Thanks for sharing, and thanks a whole bunch for making me tear up in my office.

RTR,

Tim

You needed a good cry...nut up and admit it!

I was just momentarily verklempt, not really a good cry.

 

[Guest]

A great read. I first saw this last summer and spent a lot of time trying to figure out who the player was, but I never could narrow it down.

It is too bad that "sullying the program" is not looked down on so much any more.

 

[Kirk Van de Graaff]

I forgot when I read this last but never the less it is a great story. Thanks TP.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for sharing Terry.

I'd love to know who it was. To many fit the honors and awards description to narrow it down though.

 

[Guest]

He was from South Alabama, and he played defense during the seventies. That eliminated Robin Parkhouse, who had gotten in trouble once with Coach Bryant, since he was from Orlando. Lee Roy Cook was from Elba, DuBose was from Opp, but both were well behaved during their college years.

 

[TerryP]

He was from South Alabama, and he played defense during the seventies. That eliminated Robin Parkhouse, who had gotten in trouble once with Coach Bryant, since he was from Orlando. Lee Roy Cook was from Elba, DuBose was from Opp, but both were well behaved during their college years.

The key to figuring it out has to be the award given to him last year. Who was inducted in to the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame last year?

 

[Guest]

He was from South Alabama, and he played defense during the seventies. That eliminated Robin Parkhouse, who had gotten in trouble once with Coach Bryant, since he was from Orlando. Lee Roy Cook was from Elba, DuBose was from Opp, but both were well behaved during their college years.

The key to figuring it out has to be the award given to him last year. Who was inducted in to the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame last year?

Here are last years inductees

MODERN CATEGORY


WILBUR JACKSON

BUCK JOHNSON

BARRY KRAUSS

DAVID MARSH

SONNY SMITH

GENE WASHINGTON


OLD TIMERS CATEGORY

JERRY DUNCAN

AL LARY (posthumously)

 

[Guest]

If memory serves, Wilbur Jackson was from Ozark, but he played offense. Barry Krauss was from out of the state.

 

[It Takes Eleven]

He was from South Alabama, and he played defense during the seventies. That eliminated Robin Parkhouse, who had gotten in trouble once with Coach Bryant, since he was from Orlando. Lee Roy Cook was from Elba, DuBose was from Opp, but both were well behaved during their college years.

The key to figuring it out has to be the award given to him last year. Who was inducted in to the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame last year?

Here are last years inductees

MODERN CATEGORY


WILBUR JACKSON

BUCK JOHNSON

BARRY KRAUSS

DAVID MARSH

SONNY SMITH

GENE WASHINGTON


OLD TIMERS CATEGORY

JERRY DUNCAN

AL LARY (posthumously)

The article inferred that the award had a humanitarian factor with it:

Then word trickled down that at one point just this summer, the guy who had once erred but who had later starred for “The Bear” had been given this huge honor. Again, if I said what it was you might be able to figure it out so let’s just leave it, other than to say the honor is given only so often to that rare somebody who does a whole lot for folks who can’t help themselves.

 

[It Takes Eleven]

Here are the defensive All-Americans from Bama in the early 70's:

Leroy Cook, DE, 1974-1975 (Abbeville)
Mike Washington, CB, 1974 (Montgomery)
Woodrow Lowe, LB, 1973-1975 (Phenix City)
John Mitchell, DE, 1972 (Mobile)

Other multiple year defensive lettermen from south Alabama during that time include:

Mike Dubose 72-74 (0pp)
Paul Harris 74-76 (Mobile)
Edward Hines 70-72 (Lafayette)

In the final analysis, it really doesn't matter who it was. Young men can be shaped and redeemed through the firm hand of a mentor, and through their personal experiences while facing the consequences of their actions.