Who is Bear Bryant?
Paul William “Bear” Bryant was a college football player and coach from the United States. Many regard him as one of the greatest college football coaches of all time, and he is best known as the head coach of the University of Alabama football team.
Paul Bryant was the 11th of 12 children born in Fordyce, Arkansas to William Monroe and Ida Kilgore Bryant. [1] He got his nickname after agreeing to wrestle a captive bear during a theater promotion when he was 13 years old. [2]
He attended Fordyce High School, where 6 ft 1 in (1.85 m) tall Bryant, who would eventually stand 6 ft 3 in (1.91 m) as an adult, began playing football as an eighth grader. During his senior year, the team won the 1930 Arkansas state football championship, with Bryant playing offensive line and defensive end.
In 1931, Bryant accepted a scholarship to play for the University of Alabama. Bryant had to enroll in a Tuscaloosa, Alabama high school to finish his education during the fall semester while he practiced with the college team because he chose to leave high school before completing his diploma. Bryant was an end for the Crimson Tide and a member of the team that won the National Championship in 1934. During his time with the team, Bryant was the self-described “other end,” playing opposite the big star, Don Hutson, who later became an NFL Hall-of-Famer. Bryant was named second team All-SEC in 1934 and third team All-SEC in both 1933 and 1935. Bryant played with a partially broken leg against Tennessee in 1935. Bryant joined the Sigma Nu social fraternity and married Mary Harmon as a senior. Bryant was drafted in the fourth round of the 1936 NFL Draft by the Brooklyn Dodgers, but he never played professionally.
Bear Bryant Cause of Death
Bryant, who turned 69 that September, announced his retirement after the 1982 season, stating, “This is my alma mater, my high school. I adore it, and I adore my teammates. However, they deserved better coaching than they have received from me this year, in my opinion.” His last regular-season game was a 23-22 loss to Auburn, and his last postseason game was a 21-15 victory over the University of Illinois in the Liberty Bowl in Memphis, Tennessee. Bryant was asked what he planned to do now that he was retired after the game. “I’ll probably die in a week,” he said. His response was foreboding.
Bryant checked into Druid City Hospital in Tuscaloosa on January 25, 1983, four weeks after making that remark and just one day after passing a routine medical checkup. He died a day later, while being prepared for an electrocardiogram, from a massive heart attack. Bert Bank (WTBC Radio Tuscaloosa) and the NBC Radio Network were the first to report Bryant’s death (anchored by Stan Martyn and reported by Stewart Stogel). At the time of his death, the only piece of jewelry he had ever worn was a gold ring inscribed “The Junction Boys. “He was laid to rest in Birmingham’s Elmwood Cemetery. President Ronald Reagan posthumously awarded Bryant the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, a month after his death. Prior to Super Bowl XVII, which was played four days after Bryant’s death, there was a moment of silence.
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