Coach: The Life of Paul "Bear" Bryant

Front Cover
Macmillan, 2005 - 320 pages

"Revised & Updated"

More than two decades after his death, Paul "Bear" Bryant's imposing shadow still towers over the sport of college football.
For twenty-five years at the University of Alabama, and thirteen years before that at Maryland, Kentucky, and Texas A&M, Bryant pushed his players to excel with a combination of charisma and fear, winning 323 games and six national championships.
In this definitive portrait of a rough-hewn man with an extraordinary gift for leadership, Keith Dunnavant shows how Bryant survived headline-grabbing controversies and the vagaries of a changing social landscape to become college football's greatest coach and the foremost Southern icon of his time.
Coach is the epic story of a larger-than-life figure who overcame poverty and insecurity with intense desire and steely will, reflecting the transformational power of the American experience while emerging as a beacon of pride for Alabamians who felt defensive about their place in the world.

Praise for Coach

"The definitive Bear Bryant biography.... The first serious attempt to portray Bryant as he really was...."
---John Pruett, The Huntsville Times

"Bryant's story says volumes about America and that story is very ably told by Dunnavant...."
---Geoffrey Norman, American Way Magazine

"Balanced and intelligent."
---Kirkus Reviews

"A masterful job."
---The Christian Science Monitor

"Dunnavant skillfully raised my eyebrows...[in] a robust and revealing biography of college football's greatest coach."
---Paul Finebaum, Birmingham Post-Herald

"A thoroughly captivating read."
---Larry Woody, The (Nashville) Tennessean

"Thanks to Dunnavant, the Bear has a biography that does him justice."
---The Sporting News

 

Contents

Acknowledgments
11
Fordyce
13
BMOC
31
Coach
47
Kentucky
65
Junction
97
Aggie
113
Back to Bama
135
Motivator
225
Integration
245
Wishbone
267
The Number
291
As Long As They Want Me
307
Afterwards
323
Bryants Complete Coaching Record
329
Notes
351

Stormy Days
153
Southern Man
179
Arms and the Man
203

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About the author (2005)

KEITH DUNNAVANT, a native of Athens, Alabama, is the founder of four magazines and the author of three books. He has also been an award-winning writer and editor for the National Sports Daily, the Los Angeles Times, Sport magazine, Atlanta, BusinessWeek, Mediaweek, and the Birmingham Post-Herald. Since the original publication of this definitive biography, Dunnavant has been utilized as a creative consultant and expert commentator on Bryant documentaries produced by ESPN and CBS Sports.

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