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Dalton
Roberts |
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I am from Alabama and I pull for the Crimson Tide in every game except when they play Tennessee. I believe Paul Bear Bryant was the best college football coach this country has seen. His true greatness was in the kind of person he was. This is borne out beautifully in a story Molly Sasse sent to me. When he first went to Alabama, he went to the southern part of the state to recruit a prospect. He became hungry and stopped at a place with a small sign outside that simply said “Restaurant.” He quickly noticed when he sat down that he was the only white person there. The food smelled good so he decided to stay. An old black man came up and said, “You probably won’t like it here today. We are having chitlins, collard greens and black-eyed peas with cornbread.” Bryant replied, “Sounds like I am in the right place.” The old man returned and said, “You ain’t from around here, are you?” and Bear explained that he was the new football coach at the University of Alabama and gave him the name of the boy he was there to recruit. The old man told him where to find the boy. He tried to give him his lunch but Bear said, “For a lunch that good, I feel like I have got to pay.” The old man asked Bryant if he had a picture he could hang on his wall and Bear admitted he had not been coach long enough to order his promotional materials, but he wrote down the old man’s name and address on a napkin and promised to send him one. When he got back to Tuscaloosa late that night, he laid the napkin under his car keys so he wouldn’t forget it and when he found a picture he sent it and wrote on it, “Thanks for the best lunch I have ever had, Paul Bear Bryant.” A few years down the road Bryant really wanted to recruit a promising offensive lineman in that same part of the country so he went back. The boy’s heart was set on Auburn. Bear left empty-handed and discouraged. Two days later as he sat in his office his phone rang and the boy said, “Coach, do you still want me at Alabama?” Bear said, “I sure do,” and the boy agreed to come. Bryant asked, “Son, what changed your mind?” He answered, “When my grandpa found out I had a chance to play for you and said ‘no’ he pitched a fit and told me I wasn’t going nowhere but Alabama and wasn’t playing for nobody but you. He thinks a lot of you and has ever since y’all met. You probably don’t remember him but you ate at his restaurant your first year at Alabama and sent him a picture that he’s had hung in that place ever since. That picture’s his pride and joy and he tells everybody about the day Bear Bryant came in and had chitlins with him. My grandpa said you kept your word to him and to grandpa that’s everything. He said you could teach me more than football and I had to play for a man like you, so I guess I’m going to.” Speaking to a TD Club years later Bear said, “When I went to sign that boy I looked up his grandpa. He’s still running that place but it looks a lot better now. He didn’t have chitlins that day but he had some ribs that would make Dreamland proud. I posed for a lot of pictures and left him a signed football. I told my assistants to keep this story in mind when they are on the road recruiting.” Yes, Bryant taught that boy more than football. He taught him to be kind and to be a man of his word. What we are speaks so loudly that people hardly hear anything else. ~~~~~ Give chunks of D.R. for Christmas. To order him by PayPal go to www.ipspress.com/publishing.htm. To order him by check go to
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