Paul W. "Bear" Bryant

was the greatest coach in SEC history. That's some mighty fine company right there to be better than: Bob Neyland,Adolph Rupp and even Skip Bertman to name a few.

If you were to say the best in college football history,it'd be hard to argue with you. Could have some legitimate debate if you said he was the best coach,period,ever,but only coaches like John Wooden, Vince Lombardi, Joe McCarthy (of NYY 30's-40')would be ahead of him.

I know there's another thread below (or at least at 7:40 a.m. its below ),but lately there have been a surprising number of threads alluding to suggestions of his "cheating" and "corruption" which I thought needed its own "non-Tide fan" rebuttal.

The man did get caught "cheating" for recruiting violations at Texas A&M in 1955 which prevented A&M from going to the Cotton Bowl following their 1956 SWC title.Honestly, that violation and subsequent penalties should remove any suggestion that he was "hands off by the NCAA". In fact, coaching contemparary Woody Hayes and Ohio State were penalized around the same time period and put on probation.

But think about the time period that Bryant took Alabama to incredible heights in the 1960's with SEC and National Titles. The expression "politically correct" was still 30 years away, but the South was still white meat in the media's eye. Do you honestly think that if the most recognizable sports figure in the South and his football team had been pulling cute ones,it wouldn't have been exposed and reported ?

Now, I admit this is pretty "trivial geeky" ,especially at 8 in the morning , but its in line with what I'm trying to convey.From 1946 to 2000, the Rose Bowl was played between a Big 10 team and a Pac 10 team (each conference actually having gone by different names during this time frame). Note I said "team" and not "champion". Actually it wasn't until the mid 1960's when an agreement between the two was put togethor. Before then there was a series of agreements with each conference member on its own as to if it wanted to abide by it--but the Rose was still the only bowl it could play in.(LOTS,LOTS more stuff of relevance went in to all of this and the makeup ,but that's for another time....)

This brings me to the 1961 regular season.UCLA won the "Athletic Association of Western Universities" title (forerunner to Pac 8)and secured a Rose Bowl berth. Ohio State won the Big 10 title. UCLA-Ohio State Rose Bowl,right ? No. The Ohio State faculty senate, because of financial concerns and some concerns over a "pay for play" scandal with the West coast teams voted not to allow the Buckeyes to travel to Pasadena.Big 10 runner-up Minnesota had played in the Rose the previous year.The Big 10 had a "no repeat" precluding a team from consectutive Rose Bowls.

Enter Alabama,and LSU,for that matter.The Tide and Tigers were SEC co-champs and Alabama was #1 and unbeaten while LSU was #3 and once beaten.The Rose Bowl couldn't really have a UCLA scrimmage game,so the committee looked to Alabama and LSU focusing mainly on the Tide to come to the Rose.The Tide had already won the National Title,with the polls being awarded before bowls. UCLA-Alabama would work out pretty sweet for the Rose.

When the national sports media got wind of this,it died on the vine.Led by local sports columnist of the Los Angeles Times and syndicated nationally Jim Murray, he others vehemently opposed a southern team playing in the Rose,going into the litany of racial turmoil and no blacks on SEC teams (Murray hated all things Southern and piled on everytime he got including the aftermath of the 1970 Southern Cal-Alabama game).In 1961,think of Jim Murray like Jim Rome,ESPN and Paul Finebaum combined. Murray's sentiments went nationwide and the Rose dismissed the notion of Alabama,and LSU for that matter.But no where in Murray and his supporters was any addendum to their contempt of Alabama with "oh,by the way,Bryant is a dirty,cheating SOB !" Trust me,it wouldn't have been overlooked if true.

The Big 10 compromised and allowed Minnesota to return to Pasadena and they beat UCLA, 21-3.

There were too many opportunities in the 1960's for the sports world to have tried to expose Bryant.Again,he did get "caught" at A&M and several high profile West coast teams were busted for cheating the 50's. Bryant's second stop Kentucky,had its basketball program shutdown in 1953 for a scandal. With the sentiment about racial unrest in the South,the media would have loved Bryant's head on a platter for cheating at Alabama.Didn't happen.The Saturday Evening Post found out the hardway going out of business after Bryant and Wally Butts of Georgia sued them for printing an article suggesting just that on flimsy evidence.

Give it up. He won fair and square.

For those with the attention span of a gnat:CLIFF NOTES-- Bryant did not cheat.