Roll Tide!!!!

The last quote is NOT Bear Bryant. Coach Duffy Daugherty of the Michigan State Spartans said that quote after the 1966 infamous 10-10 tie with Notre Dame. The game was tied and Notre Dame had the last possession of the game, and opted not to go for the game winning field goal kick. Instead they sat on the ball.

At the press conference afterward, a reporter asked Daughterty what he thought of the tie. Daugherty was known to be humorous and a bit of a charmer, and he said to the reporter, “A tie is like kissing your sister.”

Of course, I could get into how horribly overrated SEC teams are in general, buuuut I won’t fuel the flames. ;)

@J.Lynne: Reggie Jackson, Sammy Sosa, and Jose Canseco are in the top five for most career strikeouts. However, Amos Alonzo Stagg is has the most losses (329-190-35) but was at one time the winningest coach. Bear’s record is 323-85-17.

Yes Bear had great personal faults and, as one poster mentioned, tried to rectify what he could when the wisdom of age settled upon him. I do not look for perfection in men. I look for the wheat I can take from their example and resist adding the chaff to my life.

As for his personal life, well, I reckon he probably wasn’t the nicest, easiest man to live with, to deal with. Men in power, men under great pressure to succeed, great men in history rarely were saints. Though that’s not an excuse; just an acknowledgement. My first thought, when someone vehmenently crucifies a deceased “role model”, is always “Let ye who is without sin cast the first rock.” After all, the deceased person isn’t around to defend himself so you have to give him a little advantage.

By the way, I found your site thanks to Lifehacker and as a Bama Alumn could not resist stopping in to see what you had to say about Bear Bryant. The polar comments make me feel about 20 years younger and nine states closer to the Bible Belt. It seems as though if you’ve ever lived in or around that state, you likely caught a special syndrome that just won’t let grudges, sore spots, or old rivalries die; for a period of my life, I felt it was safer to simply not talk about Bama college politics (“The Machine”), George Wallace, LSU, the Confederate Flag, the KKK, and the Iron Bowl — which I discovered was the one day in the whole state where “mixed marriages” meant Bama fans married to Auburn fans. ;) Today, when I look on Facebook at all the Alumns from the 90′s I’m shocked at all the people still griping about nitpicky things I’d long ago forgotten about.

The funny thing is that when I arrived in Alabama in 1989, I had no idea who Bear Bryant was; now I can recognize his picture, that hat, with just a glance. And, yes, I do find there’s some inspiration in the belief that you can be “the winningest” simply by staying in the game longer than anyone else; you might lose a lot along the way, make mistakes (big and small), but the rule of averages is that you will win a lot more in the end if you just keep picking yourself up and keep going.

btw the last game he coached against Auburn…well you know

and if you want to talk about cheating, let’s do go on…$100k for lineman Means?