Careful Hal, you're talking about the best coach that ever lived. Joe Namath came from Beaver Falls, Penn. I never want to hear another word cutting Coach Bryant...Seems to me Coach Bryant could get anybody he wanted. If anybody ever says anything against "Bear" I don't care if I get banned, I will stand up...Don't take away from the topic of this post...:BigA:
Lynyrd:
Good point about Joe Namath -- AND Coach Bryant.
However. . . .
Howard Schnellenberger made a special trip to Pennsylvania to pick up Joe Namath. Namath had not been able to pass his board exams to get into Maryland, I believe it was, and maybe Notre Dame, or some Big Ten team.
I'm talking about a consistent, systematic practice of going all over the country picking up recruits. Bryant did NOT do that, but Saban seems to be doing that very thing -- at least incipiently. You have noticed he's gone to California in this class for one or two recruits -- right?
Paul Bryant was a great coach. Probably the greatest. But Bryant never was in the pros. He started to go in about 1970 to Miami, at Namath's suggestion, by the way. But Bryant never had the experience in the pros like Saban has had. Saban has been an assistant AND a head coach in the pros. This has given him a perspective that Bryant did not quite have. In the pros, they pull in players from all over the country, not at all primarily from the region where the team/school is.
Yes, when Bryant was at Kentucky, he ran a tryout system, according to George Blanda, that resembled a pro tryout camp. Bryant must have brought in players from all over to that camp. Before that, when he was at Maryland, he surely brought with him from Georgia Pre-Flight, a World War II military outfit, players who were not 'regional.'
But I am talking about the perspective that Nick Saban, himself, has. We cannot expect Saban to be limited to what another man has done. You know it, I know it, everybody here knows it. I don't want to so set up Bryant's shadow as to restrict what Saban does. No one here does, including you.
My point is, has been, and will be, that we have been witness to two great coaching phenomenons at Alabama during my lifetime. You can't be in that category without having your OWN unique strong points. A real part of this Saban-phenomenon centers around his ability to RECRUIT. The pro game actually hindered him in that regard. As a college coach, at this point in his career, he has the best of both worlds -- a country-wide perspective and the freedom to go all over it without being put at the back of the line if he wins, which is the restriction put on NFL recruiters.
