COMMENTARY

At Bama, they still look to the Bear

— Howard Schnellenberger was in Beaver Falls, Pa., for nearly a week.

He had run out of clothes, then out of money. He would be there as long as it took to persuade a quarterback named Joe Namath to come to Alabama.

The order came from the boss, head coach Bear Bryant. It was not optional.

Schnellenberger brought Namath home, and they walked onto the practice field together.

Bryant was on top of his 40-foot coaching tower, and, 51 years later, Schnellenberger still hears that voice.

“The bullhorn came on: ‘Send that boy up here,’ ” Schnellenberger said Friday. “And Namath went up in that tower.

“Now, the governor of the state hadn’t been in that tower. Neither had the president of the university. The players were all wondering: ‘What was Namath doing in the tower?’

“They came down and Coach Bryant said, ‘Well, he’s committed to Alabama.’ To this day, I don’t know what was said.”

Namath was such a mythic passer that he threw for 25 touchdowns. In three years.

Then came the New York Jets and a Super Bowl guarantee, and equally mythic Manhattan evenings. But Namath never outgrew Bryant. Neither has Alabama, 30 years after his death.

Bryant went 76-8-4 in 1960-1967. He went 97-11 in 1971-1979.

So when Nick Saban goes 60-7 in a five-year span, everyone else in America calls him dominant. In Alabama, they just call him appropriate.

This Crimson Tide-zilla claims 14 national titles and can win its third BCS version Monday night against Notre Dame. Alabama had won before Bryant, but he was the first coach who became a graven image.

“Big, tall, good-looking guy,” Schnellenberger said. “Women loved him. Men respected him. He knew you could make young men think they were better than they were, by getting them together and beating the hell out of them. The ones that stayed knew they were stronger than mortal men.”

Yet, during the season, Alabama rarely wore pads to practice. Bryant had the offensive players sit in chairs and point to the places where the defense was soft. Fortunately they never had to play against their own. In 1961. the Crimson Tide gave up no more than seven points in any game and 25 overall.

Schnellenberger has his own charisma, of course.

He took Miami from oblivion to the 1983 national title, then catapulted Louisville into the Fiesta Bowl.

He also established the program at Florida Atlantic, from a point where “we didn’t have a nail to hang a jockstrap” to two bowl victories, Conference USA membership and a 40,000-seat on-campus stadium.

These days everyone asks him about Florida Atlantic alum Alfred Morris, the sixth-round draft choice who has rushed for 1,613 yards for the Washington Redskins, second in the NFL this season.

“There’s no excuse for teams not knowing about him,” Schnellenberger said. “We sold him as hard as we sold anyone. Alfred has clarity of purpose, great intelligence.Football is his first and only love, other than his 1990 Mazda.”

Schnellenberger is 78 now and serves as Florida Atlantic’s “ambassador,” which means he’s raising money. He laughs at TV guys who talk about “eight in the box” and “setting the edge,” but he still watches and doesn’t doubt that Bryant would have won regardless of trends.

“He had a father-son relationship with all of us,” Schnellenberger said. “But he was always the coach.I never remember him letting his hair down. People talk about Bear Bryant stories, but there aren’t any. You’d have to make them up.

“He wanted me to help with the passing game. I finally persuaded him to let us split one of the ends out. Then we lost to Georgia Tech and the world nearly came to an end, so he let me split out two guys, and then he let Namath actually drop back. Later he won with the Wishbone.”

Namath had signed with Maryland, but was rejected academically. A panicked Tom Nugent, the coach, begged Bryant to sign Namath before an Eastern school did.

“I found Joe downtown wearing a Zoot suit, flipping a key chain in front of the pool hall, like the Fonz,” Schnellenberger said. “I was having to write hot checks to get us home. I thought, ‘I sure hope he doesn’t want a cup of coffee in the morning because I only had 50 cents.’

“But the NCAA wouldn’t let us pay for him to come to school. So we had to send him home and have him come back. Actually he only got as far as Birmingham. Some of Coach’s friends entertained him for a few days.”

The old coach shook his head and smiled. For Schnellenberger and Saban and the rest, there will always be an older coach.

Sports, Pages 20 on 01/06/2013

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