25 years, yet he still looms larger than life...

25 years ago today the legendary coach Paul William 'Bear' Bryant died.

Bryant said one time, "I'd probably croak in a week if I ever quit coaching." He was off by a little bit. Just 37 days after retiring, coach Bryant died of a heart attack at the age of 69.

His funeral was fitting for a President. So many people showed up in downtown Tuscaloosa that they filled three churches. The five-mile procession rolled slowly down tenth street, past the stadium where he coached for 24 years, past Memorial Coliseum where his office was. Then on to I-59, where all traffic stopped to allow its passage. People lined the interstate from Tuscaloosa to Birmingham to pay their final respects. Officials estimated nearly one million people lined the 53 mile stretch from Tuscaloosa to Elmwood Cemetery in Birmingham, just blocks away from Legion Field which was a home away from home for Alabama.

Homemade banners hung from overpasses, construction workers in hard hats held up messages of "Bear, We Love You and We'll Miss You." Dozens of former players along with other famous coaches mourned his death. Eight players from his last team carried the coffin to the grave site.

Bryant grew up poor as the eleventh of twelve children in Arkansas. Years of hard work had made Bryant strong and hard headed. One day, a man in a covered wagon came to Fordyce, Arkansas offering a dollar a minute to anyone who would wrestle a bear. Young Bryant jumped at the chance since it was better than picking cotton all day for 50 cents. He entered the ring and quickly charged the bear and got it into a bear hug. The bear broke free and bit Bryant on the ear. When he saw blood he quickly left the ring and the man skipped town before Bryant could collect his money. But that was when he became known as "Bear" Bryant.

One afternoon while he was in eighth grade he watched a varsity football practice. The coach walked up to him and asked if he knew how to play. Bryant explained that it was his first time seeing the game. Then the coach told him "See that man down there with the ball? You just go down there and try to kill him." Bryant knew how to do that. When the player caught the ball, Bryant ran him down and destroyed the poor safety. The following Friday he was in the starting lineup. Soon he was an all-star on the very talented team and won a state championship in 1930.

Bryant was enamored with the University of Alabama. He had heard about the Crimson Tide and coach Wallace Wade who had taken his men to three Rose Bowls. Bryant was offered a scholarship to Alabama, the only problem was he was one class short from graduating. It didn't matter, he jumped at the chance to play for the Crimson Tide. He moved to campus in 1931 and attended and graduated from Tuscaloosa High while practicing with the team. Then he enrolled soon after.

Bryant was a good football player but was overshadowed by the legendary Don Hutson, his former high school rival. He was known as "the opposite end" but earned a reputation as a tough player. During a game against Tennessee in 1935, Bryant would reaffirm this reputation by playing with a broken leg. He had the game of his career and an Atlanta new paper requested and received an x-ray to prove his leg was broken.

While as a player at Alabama, he did not win a National Championship but in 1933 and 1934 Alabama captured the first two SEC championships.

Head Coach Frank Thomas hired him as an assistant coach when his playing days ended. Bryant was 23 years old. He married his college sweetheart Mary Harmon and they would have two children. After four years as an assistant coach, Bryant took a job at Vanderbilt and earned the reputation as a demanding coach and strict disciplinarian.

After the 1941 season, Bryant was invited to be interviewed for the head coaching job at Arkansas. The job was his at 28 years old. But Bryant was driving home and was proud. But the day was December 7, 1941 and he overheard on the radio that the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. The next day he became Leuteniant Commander Bryant in the US Navy.

After four years in the Navy, he came home and eventually became head coach at Maryland. Bryant got into a dispute with the president at Maryland after he fired one of his assistants without telling him and reinstated a player that had been kicked off the team. He quit and took the coaching job at Kentucky.

Quickly Kentucky turned into winners going 7-3 in his first season. He led them to their only SEC title in 1950 with an 11-1 record after an upset over Oklahoma in the Sugar Bowl and snapping their 31 game winning streak. In 8 years at Kentucky he took them to four bowl games. However, Kentucky was a basketball school led by Adolph Rupp and football was rivaling basketball in popularity. Rupp wanted basketball to be number one and Bryant wanted football to be number one. During a Kentucky sports banquet, after both teams won the conference championship, the university presented Rupp with a brand new Cadillac and presented Bryant with a brand new cigarette lighter. He knew it was time to move on.

So, in 1954 he moved west to Texas A&M. He thought he had the formula for success and wanted to test it out at another school. He inherited an aweful program with few good players. Texas A&M was a tough places to lure players to. No girls, no glamor, military uniforms and at first glance it looked like a penitentiary instead of a college campus.

Bryant knew that he had to instill dicipline and toughness in order for them to compete. So one day during summer practice he loaded up the unsuspecting Aggies into two buses and headed to Junction, Texas. This practice is arguably the toughest training camp in football history. He started with 48 players and came back with 29. Gene Stallings, one of the Junction Boys was quoted saying, "We left in two buses and came back in one, and that one was half full." He put them through hell to build character and to make them realize that things were going to be done his way. While that team had heart and determination they finished the season 1-9, Bryant's only losing record as a head coach. The next season Texas A&M won the Southwest Conference Championship.

During this time the once proud Alabama football program had fallen on tough times, winning only 4 games in the previous 3 years. They fired coach Ears Whitworth after losing 40-0 to Auburn. A press conference was held in Houston, Texas and Paul "Bear" Bryant was announced as the new head coach at Alabama. He called a meeting beforehand with his A&M players and said simply "Gentlemen, I've heard Mama calling and now I'm going home." Crimson Tide football was about to enjoy an era that may never be matched again in the history of college football.

Alabama players had heard how tough he was and how things were going to change. It wasn't long before they saw it first hand. Bryant called a meeting for the afternoon and were warned not to be late. One of Alabama's best players showed up late and was locked out. After a few minutes of him pounding on the door, coach Bryant turned to his assistant and said, "Go see who that is. And tell him, whoever it is, that we don't need him." Then he spoke to the players saying this.

"I'm not worried about whether I'm going to win or lose. I know I'm going to win. I know that. And I'm not worried about my assistant coaches. I know they're winners. And I'm not worried about whether Alabama is going to win. I know that. The only thing I don't know is how many of you in this room are winners, and how many of you will be with us."

While recruiting his first class of players he told his freshmen that if they followed his rules and played the way he demanded, they would win the National Championship before they graduated.

He instantly turned the program around with a 5-4-1 season, which was more wins that in the previous 36 games. His second year they went 7-2-2 and earned a trip to the Liberty Bowl. Then in 1961 he went 11-0 and won the National Championship after beating Arkansas in the Sugar Bowl. His promise to his freshmen proved accurate. It was Alabama's sixth National Championship and Bryant's first.

Then a young quarterback from Pennsylvania was impressed by Bryant's reputation and decided to sign with the Crimson Tide in 1962. He was Joe Namath. He threw three TD's in his first game beating Georgia 35-0. Alabama won the National Championship in 1964 with Namath and repeated in 1965 with Steve Sloan as quarterback. Kenny Stabler then succeded Sloan in 1966, but the undefeated Crimson Tide lost the National Championship to Notre Dame team with an inferior record. If you want to read about this story, look for the book "The Missing Ring: How Bear Bryant and the 1966 Alabama Crimson Tide Were Denied College Football's Most Elusive Prize."

Alabama would field good teams through the 60's going 90-16-4. But a 6-5 season in 1969 was the only disappointment. Alabama was named team of the decade and Bryant coach of the decade.

Another disappointing season in 1970 going 6-5-1 had critics and fans wondering if Bryant's magical touch had aged too much. Bryant himself had wondered if the college game had passed him by. He considered retirement and even offers from the NFL. He knew he had to do something different.

The 1971 season would be a turning point for Alabama. First, Bryant was credited with helping to stimulate the integration of southern college football by recruiting Alabama's first black player. Secondly, Bryant would engineer an offensive change from the pro-attack to the wishbone and setting us the dominance of the 70s.

While the University of Alabama and other southern schools had an integrated student body for years, no SEC school had a black athlete on their team. Bryant was by no means a racist but simply did not pay much attention to the issue of integration, mainly because he continued to win with his formula. His formula needed some adjusting.

Bryant saw good black players moving out of state, then coming back and beating his teams. He knew this was an unfair advantage and the trend had to change. Within a year all of the other SEC schools had black athletes on their roster.

Leading up to the '71 season he secretly worked on the new offense. Even putting up tarps to hide it from the public and the press. When they did invite the press to watch some practice they would show the old pro-attack offense until they left. Alabama surprised the heavily favored USC Trojans and won 17-10.

The wishbone triggered Bryant's dominance of the 70s where he won three more National Championships in 73, 78 and 79 and won 8 SEC championships. Alabama finished the decade with an incredible 103-16-1 record. Considering 1970 was 6-5.

On November 28, 1981 when Alabama rallied with 2 touchdowns in a 28-17 win over Auburn, Bryant surpassed Amos Alonzo Stagg's record of 314 wins.

The Liberty Bowl was a fitting place to end his career. It was his first bowl game as the head coach at Alabama and the last. After a disappointing season in 1982 he announced that he was retiring at seasons end because he wasn't pleased with himself anymore.

"This is my school, my alma mater. I love it and I love my players. But in my opinion they deserved better coaching than they have been getting from me this year."

That last game was a win over Illinois 21-15. A fitting end for the legend. It capped off 323 career wins, at that time the winning coach in college football history.

Paul "Bear" Bryant concluded his Tide career with a 232-46-9 record with an 82.4 winning percentage, six national championships, 25 winning seasons, 24 bowl game selections, national coach of the year 3 times, SEC coach of the year 10 times, and broke Stagg's record of 314 victories. He was inducted into the National Football Foundation College Football Hall of Fame in 1986.

Bryant was more than a coach, he was a motivator. He knew people and he knew how to get them to play above their expectations. William Poling said, "Coach Bryant knew more about you than you knew about yourself, he knew when to give you hell, and he knew when to pat you on the back." Florida A&M coach, Jake Gaither said of Coach Bryant, "He can take his'n' and beat you'rn', and he can take you'rn' and beat his'n'." Former Kentucky player, George Blanda often stated, "This must be what God looks like. He'd walk into the room and you wanted to stand up and applaud."

The lives that he touched were probably the most telling witness to his greatness. He understood that there were more to a player than a strong arm or fast legs. Building character was essential to the building of a winning team. His intentions over the years were to help the players to be better persons every day, to help themselves, to teach a lesson on and off the field.

Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant. The name es an inspiration in itself, conjuring images of a man in a hounds tooth hat standing by the goal post, coaching his team to yet another victory. Years of experience were etched in his gentle face, but behind the grand fatherly exterior lay what could 'be described as the right stuff, the stuff that created a legend.

They feared him as a coach but were the best of friends after graduating. He knew what his former players were doing and would be the first to call them to congratulate them, or the first to call to console them.Bryant's last game.

The Bear watching his players before a game.


For Jeremy, the 'bama twins.

Latest Jags Football update

Athletic Director Joe Gottfried would like to name the first head coach for USA by early February but the list of people who have been interviewed is fairly impressive. So far he had met with Alabama's defensive coordinator Kevin Steele, Auburn running back coach Eddie Gran, Clemson wide receivers coach Dabo Swinney, Clemson defensive coordinator Vic Koenning, South Florida assistant head coach Dan McCarney, Birmingham Southern head coach Joey Jones, Tulane coach Chris Scelfo and former Southern Miss coach Jeff Bower.

Whoever would be the first head coach, they would have a pretty decent situation to start up a football program. If you look at the local area, its very rich with football prospects. The florida panhandle, southern Georgia, southern Alabama, southern Mississippi and over to New Orleans areas has lots of good players. There is Ladd-Peebles stadium which seats over 40,000 with artificial turf for home games. Plus the sun belt conference isn't that bad of a conference.

Gottfried should widdle down the list to 3-5 soon and probably will announce a hire in early February. It will be interesting to see who is hired.

Dodd earns my respect

Senator and former Presidential Candidate Chris Dodd really earned my respect. Watch the video on this website where he strongly voices his opposition to telecom immunity.

Welcome our new traffic camera overlords...

I was stopped at the traffic signal at Airport Blvd and Hillcrest Rd and noticed some construction going on. New lighting had been erected and were being worked on. Then I noticed on the top of the pole was a nice new traffic camera aimed at the intersection. Then I looked at the poles and noticed the same cameras mounted on them pointed at the intersection.

I then realized that what we had feared and loathed was happening right here in the middle of WeMo (West Mobile for those who do not read the Lagniappe. We thought it was relegated to places like London and New York but alas, it is right here in Mobile. I took a photo with my phone but I do not have a way to get it on here yet but when I do I will post it.

Is Bush trying to make Strait of Hormuz like the Gulf of Tonkin Incident?

Ron Paul spoke about his fears of something like this happening two years ago:

South Alabama Football

Well, Joe Gottfried is roaming about interviewing candidates for the first head football coach in the history of the University of South Alabama. Earlier this week he traveled up to Birmingham to interview Joey Jones. Coach Jones was hired in June 2006 by Birmingham Southern to start their football program, which debuted this past season. Coach Jones is a Murphy High graduate and former University of Alabama standout.

In his 13 year career his record was 125-38 as a High School coach. From 1996-2005 he was at Mountain Brook High School and had a record of 101-27. Previously MBHS had endured 9 consecutive losing seasons and he turned them around to win the 1996 6A state championship. Birmingham Southern's record was 3-7.

Next on Joe Gottfried's list of interviewees is Clemson assistant and former University of Alabama player Dabo Swinney. He joined Tommy Bowden's coaching staff in 2003 and was promoted to Assistant Head Coach after the 2006 season. He has also served as the Wide Receivers coach. "He has had a receiver finish first or second in the ACC in receptions each of the last three years. In his first year, he had three of the top-10 receivers in the ACC, a first in Clemson history." Plus he has the reputation of being one of the top recruiters in the nation.

Swinney was a walk-on at Alabama and quickly earned a scholarship. He was coached by Tommy Bowden at his position while at Alabama. He previously coached at Alabama under Gene Stallings from 1993-1995 as a graduate assistant coach, from 1996 - 2000 he served as either Wide Receivers coach and/or Tight Ends coach in each season. Then in 2003 he joined the staff at Clemson.

Of the two candidates we have heard about thus far. I think Swinney might be a better fit for USA. He is young and energetic. He is a good recruiter (ranked 5th on the Rivals.com list for the last couple years). I am always hesitant about hiring someone who is so quick to jump around. Nothing against Joey Jones, this is his hometown and he certainly knows the area but he has barely been at BSC for a year and a half and is entertaining the idea of going to USA.

On the flip side of things. Swinney has not been a head football coach anywhere so this could be a daunting task to ask him to be a new coach and start a program all in one. But he does exude the youthful energy which could be harnessed to get this program up and going.

Other names that have been mentioned as possibilities for this position were Jeff Bower, who was let go from Southern Miss this season and former Georgia head coach and current ESPN analyst Jim Donnan.

Iranian speedboats, primaries, and FISA....oh my!

Yeah, 'Oh my' is my reaction because if anyone has watched the video you have to have some doubt about it. The supposed Iranian voices do not have a very good accent. On top of that, it sounds like an amateur phone prank. It was on the level of calling up your neighbor across the street, while peeking through your blinds, and asking them if their refrigerator is running and then advising them that they had better go catch it. I strike it up to FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) by the pentagon trying to let us bomb Iran.

But after the pentagon and the press has reported on the initial video about 'the speedboaters threatening our warships' they are quietly saying that....maybe, just maybe the voices on the recording may not have been from the Iranian speedboats. This comes from ABC News which is linked here.

I recently saw a very good video about Frank Luntz and his polls for Fox (faux) News. He twists the questions in such a way that he can get whatever answer he wants then pick and choose what he wants to use to support whatever he wants.

On the topic of Faux News, their snubbing of Ron Paul in New Hampshire hasn't looked very good for them. The 'not enough room' argument was obviously not the case. Gretta Van Susteren actually supported the idea of having Paul at the debate (if she truely felt this way or if it was a way for them to use the 'not enough room' argument I don't know).

In the New Hampshire primaries there have been some grumblings about odd vote counts and missing votes. Mr. Kucinich has sent a letter to the New Hampshire Secretary of State asking for a recount in what he says, "unexplained disparities between hand-counted ballots and machine-counted ballots." There have been testimony from a person who worked on some of the software used on these electronic voting machines about how he was asked to make a back door way to make someone win. I am not alleging fraud but there must be checks and balances to ensure a completely fair process. I applaud Mr. Kucinich and hope that NH will conduct a recount.

Now my last bit of news I want to write about has to do with FISA and the phone companies. I have voiced my opinion about warrantless wiretaps and the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Survellance Act) courts. Then I ran across this article. It appears that telephone companies have cut off FBI wiretaps that have been used to eavesdrop on suspected criminals because they have repeatedly failed to pay their phone bills on time. I have not heard this mentioned on television or in the main stream media but I saw this on Yahoo news after checking my email. Its funny if you ask me.

Here is a question that was not part of the re-airing of the South Carolina debates for some odd reason:


Also another link to a site with a video.

Its 2008....thats double 1004! Oh and computers too.

Another year has passed and a new year has hit us square in the face. This is the time that college football hits its finale with the bowl games. People make new years resolutions that last anywhere from a couple weeks to a couple months on average. People puts out those top whatever lists. You hears the top 100 songs for the year countdown on the radio.

Obviously of all those that I mentioned, my favorite is college football. But let me ramble some more here before I get to that.

-Computer Section-

I carried both of my desktop computers with me when I went to see mom so I could reinstall Windows on it. So, I formatted and reinstalled Windows and my applications on Christmas Eve. One of the applications that came with the motherboard was Gigabyte's @BIOS which allows you to flash your BIOS within Windows since floppy drives are getting more and more scarce. I was having problems with keyboards on this particular motherboard so I thought, maybe one of the newer BIOS releases might fix it. So I download the update and use the @BIOS utility to start the flash. At about 87% it had a write error. Now, this motherboard has a dual BIOS since the BIOS chips are not socketed like many other motherboards and so you can recover from problems like this. Well, just in case I try to flash different BIOS versions but each one would error out at 87%. I prepare a floppy as a system disk and added the BIOS file and flash utility.

When I restarted finally it started to hang up at the nVidia RAID detection screen which comes up just after the POST. After hitting up several forums I pull the CMOS battery to reset the CMOS. I could then get into the BIOS without having to hit the nVidia RAID detection. After looking around I found the Dual BIOS/Q-Flash utility in the BIOS but it would freeze at the confirmation prompt before entering it. So after contacting Gigabyte, I applied for an RMA number, got the reply and packaged it to ship off today.

So what did I learn from this? Keep a floppy drive around because you still need it. But I also have to say that the new AMD Socket AM2 dual core processor with DDR2 ram and a raptor hard drive makes for a mighty sweet machine.

-Alabama Football Section-

The first 20 minutes of the Independence Bowl was great, Alabama jumped out to a 27-0 lead but then quarterback J.P. Wilson made a mistake and threw an interception. From that point on the team was fighting an up hill battle even though they were winning handily. For the remainder of the game Alabama can only muster a field goal but hold on to win 30-24. So Alabama avoids back to back losing seasons for the first time since the early 50's pre-Bear Bryant era. Recruiting will be helped by this too I'm sure.

Rich Rodriguez jumped ship from WVU to take over at Michigan next season. He had all but signed with Alabama last year before the governor of West Virginia and WVU helped to up his salary. Now Rich Rod is trying to weasel out of his buyout clause which will cost him $4 million. He might have been able to negotiate his way through it but now that he left and is trying to squirm out of it from Michigan I'm sure they are not going to let him off too easy. He signed the contract and I don't feel any bad thoughts about WVU trying to get their money.

-Fiesta Bowl Section-

As I'm writing this I'm also watching the Fiesta Bowl between West Virginia and Oklahoma. Now, if any of you that read this watched it too I have some criticisms to make. If OU looses the game its because of the coaches bad calls. They have a change to cut the lead down to 4 points early in the 3rd quarter but he opts to go for two and fails (score is 20-15 at this point). Then on the very next play he calls an on-sides kick which they do not recover. Two big plays that takes your team, who desperately needs the momentum, and completely deflates them and gives the momentum back to WVU.

Later, OU scores again and goes for two again. Guess what....they do not make it again. Coach Stoops, you are harming your team more than helping.

Finally OU scores and kicks the extra point to make the score 41-28 with 10:14 left in the 4th quarter. Lets see if they can win the game.

Well, I scrolled up to write something else and WVU scored again to make it 48-28 with 7:02 left in the 4th quarter. I think its over with now. Yep its over, 48-28. Congratulations to WVU who came in a big underdog after losing their coach. But I still make the case that Stoops kept his team out of the game and didn't give them a chance to win.