Word: bryants
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Just one thing has never changed: Bear Bryant has always won football games. In 35 years as a head coach, Bryant has won 298 games, lost 77 and tied 16. Before the 1980 season reaches its midpoint, he will become only the third coach to win 300 games. Late next year he should pass Pop Warner (313) and Amos Alonzo Stagg (314) to become the coach with the most victories in college-football history. His teams have won 23 games in a row, currently the longest winning streak in big-time college football. Bryant has taken teams to bowl games...
...football coach and athletic director at Alabama, Bryant earns $54,000 a year, but he is a self-made millionaire, an astute businessman whose real estate purchases and stock market advice are carefully watched by businessmen across the state. Part owner of a meat-packing firm and a lumber company, he has negotiated shrewd deals with the soft-drink and potato-chip companies that sponsor his TV show, and his picture has adorned billboards across the South-for a fee, of course. His Sunday-afternoon television program during the football season has drawn better ratings than professional football broadcasts...
With the exception of a few weeks' vacation after the bowl games have been won and the new recruits signed, Bryant works year round at football. He likes to go to a dog-racing track near Tuscaloosa run by his only son, Paul Jr., a successful businessman who likes football but never played the game. The Bryant football tradition is kept alive by Marc, 17, the only son of Bryant's daughter, Mae Martin Tyson. When Marc injured his knee and required surgery last season, the grandfather was openly worried: "I wonder if everybody expects too much...
...Bryant hunts and goes fishing, plays golf and a little bridge. "But half the time when we go hunting, he never fires a shot," says Jimmy Hinton, a business adviser. "He mostly just likes to ride a horse and watch the dogs work." He plays bridge well enough, but does not care for the game's social aspects. Says Mary Harmon Bryant: "He doesn't like 'visiting' bridge. He wants to bid and win and skip the talk...
...Bryant was hospitalized last spring with fluid in his lungs. He has since given up chain-smoking unfiltered cigarettes and has begun swimming daily to build his stamina. Says one friend: "He'll never admit it, but he wants those records so bad he can taste it. He's got himself into the best shape he has been in for years because he has to have good health if he is going to win football games...