Bear Bryant's Winning Ways (Electronic book text)

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Like a young entrepreneur with nothing but an idea, the iconic Alabama football coach Paul "Bear" Bryant used his will and talent to escape hardscrabble poverty and invent himself as an American monument. His secret: He was able to learn from his mistakes, adapt to change, and earn the devotion of his players.

Bear Bryant's life was football, and he once predicted that he would ""probably croak in a week"" if he ever stopped coaching. In an ending that no self-respecting scriptwriter would have concocted, Bryant died of heart failure at 69, just a month after announcing his retirement and 37 days after coaching his last game, a 21-15 victory over Illinois in the 1982 Liberty Bowl. In Alabama, the impact of his death was so great that three Tuscaloosa churches were needed to hold the 1,500 mourners at his funeral, and people lined the highway for 53 miles as the cortege traveled to the cemetery in Birmingham. President Ronald Reagan called Bryant ""a hero who always seemed larger than life.""

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