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Alabama Football Legend Paul Bryant’s Death Was 34 Years Ago

Related Topics: Bear Bryant, Alabama, Howell Raines

Today’s heroes mostly have a shelf life of days, some only hours. I guess if you measure by tweets perhaps it is often only minutes. Today Alabama Football honors a lasting hero.

Very few American heroes transcend average popular passions and powerfully impact lives decades and generations after they have gone. Paul Bryant was such a man.

He touched and shaped lives that never got any closer to him than a television screen. In building some of the greatest college football teams the game has ever known, he also taught life lessons.

Lessons for his coaches, his players, his fans and even followers who rooted for his rivals.