How a Legendary College Football Coach Became the “Bear”
“There is a touch of Shakespearean actor in his soul.” — Mickey Herskowitz, Houston Post sports writer on Paul W. “Bear” Bryant
By Ron J. Jackson, Jr.
No single moment in the illustrious life and career of the late University of Alabama football coach Paul William Bryant defined him more than the time he climbed onto a theatre stage as a teenager to wrestle a circus bear. For in that moment, the stunt gave birth to a living legend and the reclusive, country boy from “the Bottom” faded into yesteryear.
The mere act of tangling with a live bear showed courage, more than a touch of recklessness, and in Paul’s specific case, an emerging gift for showmanship. He would draw on all these qualities throughout his storied career to become the winningest coach in college football history. “Like other men of charm and persuasion, and great drive, Bryant has an instinct for the right moment, the right word, the right gesture,” Herskowitz wrote nearly four decades after Bryant’s bear-wrestling encounter. “There is a touch of Shakespearean actor in his soul.”
If Bryant didn’t discover his theatrical talents while staring into the eyes of a bear, he did afterward. Bryant arguably delivered his first…
