Paul "Bear" Bryant

High school

Fordyce High School

College

University of Alabama

Paul William "Bear" Bryant was born on September 11, 1913, in Moro Bottom, Arkansas (Cleveland County), and grew up in nearby Fordyce, where he earned the nickname "Bear" as a teenager by reportedly wrestling a carnival bear. He played as an offensive end at the University of Alabama and was part of the 1935 national championship team. Though he is best known as a coach rather than a player, Bryant's Arkansas roots are inseparable from his identity — he often credited the hardship of rural south Arkansas with forging the toughness and relentlessness that made him the dominant force in college football for three decades. As head coach at Maryland, Kentucky, Texas A&M, and then Alabama from 1958 to 1982, Bryant compiled a record of 323 wins, 85 losses, and 17 ties — six national championships, 13 SEC championships, and an almost mythological status in the American South. The Bear Bryant Award, given annually to the nation's top college football coach, is named in his honor.