News Article: The Great Bear Hunt

bama2112

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Nov 19, 2006
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https://www.si.com/vault/1993/08/30...uth-is-that-his-like-will-never-be-seen-again

I had never read this until today. Seems how the more things change the more they remain the same. Is it that CNS has modeled himself in CPB likeness or that many of us old timers just think it so.

Its a great article, when we did not have all the internet blogs. To get something published in SI back in 1993 like this , you just didnt google a bunch of articles. Oh and you did have to get your facts straight or the letters, not email could cost a writer his job. I do miss the old days of SI when it was great to see it in your mailbox a couple of days before it was on the news stand.

Damn I sound like my grandfather now and walking a mile in the snow to school in Alabama in the winter.

Roll Tide , and thank God for Bama football. RTR
 

selmaborntidefan

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Mar 31, 2000
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https://www.si.com/vault/1993/08/30...uth-is-that-his-like-will-never-be-seen-again

I had never read this until today. Seems how the more things change the more they remain the same. Is it that CNS has modeled himself in CPB likeness or that many of us old timers just think it so.

Its a great article, when we did not have all the internet blogs. To get something published in SI back in 1993 like this , you just didnt google a bunch of articles. Oh and you did have to get your facts straight or the letters, not email could cost a writer his job. I do miss the old days of SI when it was great to see it in your mailbox a couple of days before it was on the news stand.

Damn I sound like my grandfather now and walking a mile in the snow to school in Alabama in the winter.

Roll Tide , and thank God for Bama football. RTR


There are a lot of reasons those days are gone forever. Some of these were touched on by the standards of 1993.

1) Perpetual cameras and the Internet - I'll guarantee you that Coach Bryant did some things as a coach on the practice field that would get him fired nowadays for the mere event. It was an accepted part of life back then (hey, back in his heyday the military DIs could hit you in boot camp but that went out years ago, too). If that happened now the cell phone video would be uploaded within minutes and Tweeted to the press and then the Fourth Estate would be demanding his termination.

Woody Hayes's big 'mistake' back in the day was striking a player from ANOTHER team during a nationally televised game.

I'm not saying it's bad that we've gone beyond the striking of people, I'm just telling you reality.

2) Impatience

Bryant took over a team that had won four games in three years and won five the first year and a title his fourth. the BIG schools won't wait that long anymore, not since Stoops won a title his second year at OU and Urban his second year at Florida (and third year at Ohio St) and Saban his third year at Alabama.

A coach nowadays who has the dry spell Bryant had 1968-1970 (he'd have been spotted 1967) would be gone. FSU tried to get Bobby Bowden to leave for years once he slipped below his old status. Joe Paterno's name was mentioned prominently in the early 2000s as someone who needed to retire before he got it going again. Hell, look at Ole Miss with Cutcliffe......comes in and has their greatest success since they actually mattered and gets canned after ONE bad season. UGA fired Richt and LSU fired Miles despite them having among the highest pedigrees out there (they weren't Saban but they weren't bad).

3) Big contract buyouts give coaches financial security

While you are rewarded for winning (at least temporarily), losing no longer mandates that you go take a low-paying assistant job elsewhere. Gene Chizik was an awful head coach, probably the worst to ever win a national title. But his buyout secures him financially for life so the incentive and fear that used to be there is gone.

4) The NFL beckons.......

Another thing is that Coach Bryant stayed at the same school for 25 years, something almost unheard of nowadays. Guess which coach has been at his school the longest (FBS)? Well, Stoops just retired so there was one guy who is entering his 19th season at the same school - Kirk Ferentz at Iowa (and let's face it......if he coached at a blue blood, he'd be a former head coach).

If you're a bad coach, you get fired. But if you're a good coach nowadays the NFL offers you an opportunity. In Bryant's day (pre-1960) there was really only the NFL, which had 12 teams in 1959 (the AFL began the next year and was considered a minor league). We've gone from 12 teams to 32 and while the counter-argument will be "but there are more FBS schools nowadays," that's irrelevant since the NFL is going to lean very heavily on the Big 5 winners or the dynamic coach with a new philosophy they want to try.

Coach Bryant very nearly left Alabama for the Miami Dolphins - not once but twice. Coaches who might become iconic under the right circumstance - Jimmy Johnson at Miami is a good example - go to the NFL. Saban has had to dodge NFL rumors ever since he left Miami. I don't know about the others (does Urban's name come up in NFL searches? I've never really noticed it myself, but I don't pay that close attention).

So if you're bad you're gone and if you're good you're gone, too......

5) Ex-coach analysts

With ESPN paying top dollar for infantile analysis, there's a job for you. Maybe not as ESPN now but you get the idea. Back in the day if you quit and couldn't get a coaching job there were three networks, no ESPN, and a limited number of those jobs anyway since How-uhd Cosell seemed to be everywhere.

There are others but I must head to my employ....
 

cuda.1973

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Dec 6, 2009
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It was 3 miles barefoot in the snow and uphill both ways. Get your story straight. :wink:
One year, back in undergrad days, I had to hike 3 miles, each way. Yes, there was snow, once winter came, with several times the snow being knee-deep, and once when it was hip-deep.

Both uphill, and downhill, each way. So, there!

"Cuda, why would you do something that silly?"

Faster and cheaper than trying to ride the local bus. Plus, it was good prep for ROTC camp, which commenced a week after classes let out.

The next year I was no longer in ROTC, so things changed.

(Instead, I had to go up a very high hill, that had a concrete staircase, that was over 300 steps. I ran up it, taking 2 steps at one time. Some habits were hard to break.)
 

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