Grandfatherly bear of a man

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I spent the afternoon drinking with Paul Bryant once.

I had been to Athens with him for an autographing session for the book he did with John Underwood of Sports Illustrated.

We returned to the old Atlanta Airport. There were still a couple of hours before his plane back home to Tuscaloosa.

“Let’s get a drink,” he said.

The weather was awful. Rain. High winds. Lightning and thunder. Bad flying weather. Good drinking weather.

He took me into the Eastern Ionosphere Lounge.

He ordered Double Black Jack and Coke. He ordered two at a time. I drank beer.

I probably got the best interview of my life. But I don’t remember any of it. You can drink a lot of double Black Jack and Coke and beer in two hours.

I do remember leaving the lounge and walking to the Southern gate where his flight awaited, however.

At the gate, the Bear ran into a doctor from Tuscaloosa who was also booked on the flight. The doctor was also a part-time pilot.

“Coach,” said the doctor. “I don’t like this weather.”

“You a drinking man, son?” Bryant asked him.

“Yes, sir,” said the doctor.

“Well, let’s go get a couple of motel rooms and have a drink and fly home tomorrow.”

There were 50 or so other would-be passengers awaiting the same flight to Tuscaloosa. When they noticed Bryant turning in his ticket, all but a handful did the same.

“If Bear Bryant’s afraid to fly in this weather,” a man said, “I ain’t about to.”

Tom McCollister of the sports department stuck his head in my office Wednesday afternoon and said, “The Bear just died.”

I immediately thought of a friend of mine. She wouldn’t want me to use her name, so I won’t.

She first met Bear Bryant several years ago. At first their relationship was purely professional. But it grew past that. I’m not talking about hanky-panky here, however. Grandfathergranddaughter comes the closest to describing how they felt about each other.

They were an unlikely pair. He the gruff, growling old coot of a football coach. She a bright, young, attractive woman with both a husband and a career and with a degree from the University of Texas of all places.

He would call her even in the middle of football season, and they would talk, and he would do her any favor. Once, a friend of hers, a newspaper columnist, was having heart surgery.

She called the Bear and had him send the columnist a scowling picture with the autograph, “I hope you get well soon - Bear Bryant.”

The picture still hangs in the columnist’s home.

I called her the minute I heard the news. I didn’t want her to get it on the radio.

She cried.

“I loved him,” she said. “And he loved my baby.”

My friend had a baby a few years back. Had it been a boy she would have named him for the Bear. David Bryant. But it was a girl, and she was called Marissa.

“I had no problems with naming my son ‘David Bryant,’ but I wasn’t about to name a little girl ‘Beara,’ ” said my friend later Wednesday.

Of course, a busy big-time college football coach like Bear Bryant didn’t give it a second thought that somebody else’s little girl wasn’t named for him.

He still sent her gifts. Gifts like a child’s Alabama cheerleader uniform, and then an adult-size uniform for use later. He sent her footballs, dolls and probably a dozen or so letters that her mama read to her.

It’s funny, though. When he sent his packages and letters, he always addressed them not to Marissa, but “To Paula.”

Jan. 27, 1983

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