At a picnic behind the Paul W. Bryant Museum on Saturday afternoon, Chloe Hall called out to her brother to ask him where the trash can was.
“Bryant!” she yelled.
At least 15 heads turned toward her.
Chloe, 9, was attending the 20th Bear Bryant Namesake Reunion, an event held annually on the day of Alabama’s football home opener to recognize people like her brother who are named for Paul William Bryant, the legendary coach of Alabama’s football team from 1958 to 1982.
This year’s event preceded the second-ranked Crimson Tide’s 37-10 victory over Middle Tennessee State, filling the sunny courtyard behind the museum with a multigenerational, crimson-bedecked collection of Bryants, Pauls and Williams, and at least one Bear.
Along with guests including Stuart R. Bell, Alabama’s president, and Mary Harmon Homan Hilburn, one of Bear Bryant’s granddaughters, 94 officially registered namesakes and their families celebrated their synonymy and the man who connects them — and who remains practically a deity in Alabama more than three decades after his death. The museum has registered a total of 602 namesakes.
In many cases, parents and family members did most of the celebrating. Seven-month-old Samuel Bryant McKenzie, for instance, was too busy teething to discuss past Alabama triumphs, and Steven Ballenger proudly spoke for his son, Bryant, by boasting, “He’s been in this club since he was born.” Bryant, 5, was more interested in seeking out the Crimson Tide’s elephant mascot, Big Al.
The idea for the Bryant Museum to register the namesakes came from Bear Bryant’s closest namesake, his son, Paul Bryant Jr., who is a current member and former chairman of Alabama’s board of trustees. The notion came to him in the late 1980s, he said, as he watched Alabama play Southern Mississippi. The Golden Eagles’ highest-profile player was quarterback Brett Favre, but Paul Bryant Jr. knew that their linebacker Bryant Medders had been named for Bear Bryant by his father, a former Alabama player.
“It turned out there were a lot of ’em — a lot that we’ve heard from, anyway,” Bryant Jr. said in a telephone interview.
The original plan was to stage the meeting just once. But it was so successful in its first year, 1996, that the museum has hosted a reunion every year since.
“You kind of have to be from here to understand,” Bryant Jr. said.
Many of the namesakes live in Alabama, while those who do not reported having had to defend their allegiance to the Tide. Andrew Bryant Madaris, 11, lives in Acworth, Ga.
“If someone brings up Alabama, they are like, ‘Georgia is better,’” he said, his red hair peeking out from under his houndstooth hat. “I’m like, ‘What are you talking about?’”
The namesakes are mostly male, although Bryant Phillips, 41, said his sister Paula was also named for the Bear. And the group skews young; Ken Gaddy, the director of the museum, estimated that the oldest member of the club was in his 50s (other than Paul Bryant Jr.).
“There’s not a lot of us who were named after him while he was still coaching,” said Bryant Phillips, who attended without his sister but with his son, Harrison Bryant Phillips, 13.
Young or old, they all revere the Tide. When Chase Bryant Duncan, 8, was asked if he was an Alabama fan, his father, Joey, playfully suggested: “Say, ‘Yes, sir, I don’t have a choice.’”
Austin Bryant Rogers, 19, an Alpha Kappa Lambda pledge at Alabama, showed up in coat and tie. It was his 20th reunion — which is to say, he has been to all of them, the first as an infant. William Bryant Odonnell, 22, who goes by Bryant, said his fellow Alabama students frequently asked if he was named after Bear Bryant, while many of his professors — out-of-staters, no doubt — routinely bungle his name by calling him “Bryan.”
Bryant, William and Paul Lambert — brothers age 22, 18 and 8 — attended with parents Pat and Tammie. Their grandfather Jimmy made only a brief appearance before slipping out to nearby Bryant-Denny Stadium: He and his brother, Gary, were primed to attend their 283rd consecutive Alabama football game, extending an uninterrupted streak of home, away and bowl games since the 1993 season.
Bear Bryant coached Alabama for 25 years, amassing six national championships, 13 Southeastern Conference titles and an overall record of 232-46-9. Yet those numbers only begin to explain the hold Bryant continues to exert over one of the most fanatical fan bases in American sports. His appearance was iconic: weathered countenance, trademark houndstooth hat. His persona was gruff and distant — “a magnetic, scary John Wayne type” is how the novelist Richard Price described him in a Playboy magazine profile — but he entered Alabamians’ living rooms every autumn Sunday afternoon via “The Bear Bryant Show,” in which Bryant, in his bass smoker’s voice, would go over the previous day’s game, which often had not been televised.
“That Sunday recap,” Gaddy said. “It was almost like he was talking personally to you.”
The importance of the television show to Bryant’s mystique was reinforced Saturday as Golden Flake potato chips were omnipresent, and every namesake received a small commemorative glass bottle of Coca-Cola printed with the words “Have a Coke with the Bear.” Each episode of “The Bear Bryant Show” began with Bryant twisting off the cap of a Coke bottle and opening a Golden Flake bag, in a nod to the program’s sponsors, who also sponsored Saturday’s reunion.
Several guests recalled the show and, specifically, the slogan that united snack, soft drink and coach: “A Great Pair, Says the Bear.”
It is hard to conceive of a reunion of people named for Alabama’s current coach, Nick Saban, being held 30 years from now. However, as Alabama continues its success under Saban — three national titles in the past six seasons — there is no reason to believe the practice will stop. Gaddy estimated that two or three new namesakes were added to the registry each year.
After all, naming a child after Bryant, who would have turned 102 on Friday, is by definition an effort to keep the past alive.
“Bear Bryant’s a legend,” Danyelle Whitt said as she held her grandson, Bryston Bryant Preston, 2. “Legends never die.”
