Chasing the Bear by Lars Anderson

Author:Lars Anderson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: None
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2019-03-08T16:00:00+00:00

It was completed in the spring of 1963, a $1 million athletic dormitory that featured a lounge with a color television, wall-to-wall carpeting, and a dining hall where the players could order steak. Up to that year, no building in Alabama had been named after a living person, but the politicians in the state legislature in Montgomery voted unanimously in 1965 to grace this plush living space for the Crimson Tide football players with but one name: “Paul W. Bryant Hall.”

The brick colonial dorm, which had massive Greek columns and looked like an antebellum mansion, was air-conditioned and housed one hundred football players. It featured a library, two study rooms, a rec room, a large fireplace, four luxury guest rooms for visiting parents, and two full-time dieticians in the dining room to make sure all the players’ nutritional needs were met. Bryant wanted his boys—many of whom came from poor families—to feel like they had ascended to royal life now that they were playing for Alabama. Some called the dorm “the Bear Bryant Hilton.”

For a few months, Joe Namath had to move out of Bryant Hall. But before the end of spring practice in 1964, Namath had exhibited enough good behavior that his sentence was commuted: He was allowed back into the dorm—and onto the roster. In front of 14,500 fans at Denny Stadium for the annual spring scrimmage, Namath led the Red team to a 17–6 win over the White team. Namath had played with an injured arm and a bruised foot, but Bryant expected—demanded—that anyone wearing the Alabama uniform play through pain. “Namath was terrific,” Bryant said, “particularly when you consider that he’s all banged up and shouldn’t even have been playing.” Bryant didn’t say it, but his complimenting Namath’s toughness and character in the media was his way of expressing how proud he was of his quarterback for sticking with him when he could have transferred.

In the season opener against Georgia, Namath’s gifts were on full display: He completed 16 of 21 passes and ran for three touchdowns in the 31–3 victory. Namath looked like a future Heisman Trophy winner, but then in the fourth game of the season at home against North Carolina State, Namath took off on a scramble to his right. Not seeing any of his receivers open, he tucked the ball in his arm and started running. But then, with no defender close to him, he fell to the ground after hitting a clump of turf that had been torn up from the Denny Stadium grass field. Namath grabbed his knee. A trainer ran onto the field. Then Bryant came. After a few minutes, Bryant walked back to the sideline in the quiet stadium, his face expressionless. Namath hobbled off the field—no player of Bryant’s was going to get a free ride on a stretcher if he was able to stand—and in the locker room his knee was wrapped in ice. After the 21–0 victory, a team doctor called the injury a “twisted right knee” and said Namath should be able to play the following week.

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