The Last Coach: A Life of Paul Bear Bryant |
Buy The Last Coach: A Life of Paul Bear Bryant here, one of 655 Basketball History books offered for sale at discount prices here in the history books section at R bookshop. There are currently 75177 history books in our history books section, and over 1,000,000 books listed in our book store. We greatly appreciate your patronage at R bookshop and look forward to offering you a large selection of great books at discount prices now and in the future. Thank you for shopping at R Bookshop!
|
You Are Here: Home > History Books > Basketball History > Item 131
 |
The Last Coach: A Life of Paul Bear Bryant
|
by Allen Barra
Sales Rank: 400742
|
Discount: 27 %
List Price: $26.95
$19.67
At Amazon
on 6-21-2008.
|
|
|
|
Features
Cover Type: Hard Cover with 608 pages
Published by: W. W. Norton September 11, 2005
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0393059820
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0393059823
Book Dimensions:
9.2 x 6.4 x 1.6 inches
Weighs: 2.1 pounds
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. This meticulous, fascinating look at the life of the legendary "Bear" Bryant (1913–1983), longtime head football coach of the University of Alabama's fearsome "Crimson Tide," will further enhance the reputation of Barra (Clearing the Bases) as one of America's finest sportswriters. It begins with a powerful and unsentimental view of Bryant's difficult childhood in Moro Bottom, Ark., an area Barra describes as "the reality of which Al Capp's Dogpatch, the home of L'il Abner, was the hideous caricature." It ends with a moving description of Bryant's death, just 27 days after his final game and retirement, and the three-mile-long funeral procession viewed by an estimated quarter of a million people. In between, Barra covers Bryant's rise as a cultural and sports icon whose influence helped transform college football "from a game with a large cult following into the most lucrative spectator sport in the world." Among the many incidents Barra deftly explores are Bryant's hesitancy—followed by his thoroughness—in integrating the Alabama team (in 1971), and his visionary use of televised games in the early 1960s—which he accomplished with ABC sports broadcasting superstar Roone Arledge, then a 29-year-old rookie—to establish himself and his team (including flamboyant players such as Joe Namath) in the minds of a national sports audience. Throughout, Barra illuminates the complexities of what he sees as Bryant's legacies: "his intensity and will to win and his unshakable belief that these qualities, when applied to a higher purpose, can make you a better person." Photos.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Bear Bryant, who won more games as a college football coach than anyone except Joe Paterno, died in 1983, but he was recently catapulted back into national prominence via Jim Dent's best-selling Junction Boys (1999), an account of Bryant's first year at Texas A&M, and by the well-received HBO adaptation of Dent's book. Bryant was born in 1913 in a tiny Arkansas hamlet called Moro's Bottom. He was educated in nearby Fordyce, where he wrestled the vaudeville animal that earned him his nickname. Football got him into college, and he graduated to coaching, making stops at Kentucky and Texas A&M before moving to Alabama, where he earned his legendary status. Barra, a regular contributor to the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, meticulously researched Bryant's life, but his subject somewhat eludes him, perhaps because Bryant kept everything other than his public persona so well hidden. Still, anyone interested in the history of college football will want to read at least some of this book. Wes Lukowsky
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Reader Reviews
For those how have lived in the State of Alabama during the last half of the 20th Century, there is no escaping the presence of Coach Paul W. "Bear" Bryant. As a fan of the University of Alabama's sports programs, a graduate of the University, a football season ticket holder, friend of the author, and a person who assisted the author in obtaining a minor amount of the information that went into this ambitious undertaking, I am somewhat hesitant to publicly write anything about it. However, it is also with that particular knowledge, that I know what I say may mean more to others. I have always had an interest in biographies. Whether they be of Eddie Rickenbacker, George F. Kaufmann or, even, Harpo Marx, biographies held my facination from an early age. With Coach Bryant, the books purporting to give one the "insight" into his persona could fill-up several shelves in ones bookcase. Some retell the story John Underwood undertook in the 1970's with Coach Bryant in BEAR. Others talk of specific instances and moments the author and Coach Bryant shared. Still, others discuss his humor, his quotations, his ______ (you fill-in the blank). With THE LAST FOOTBALL COACH, Allen Barra has taken a very complex man, who had values that he adhered to throughout his life, and has written as thorough a book on Coach Bryant as will ever be written. As a biography, it is not a book that dwells on the Coach's life as one who is infallible, yet it does not shy away from those infamous qualities Coach Bryant's detractors were quick to bring-up: his brutal practices, his drinking, his mistakes. Allen Barra, whom I have known since his days as the Entertainment Editor of the UAB KALEIDOSCOPE in the early 1970's, is a gifted writer, but I have to tell you, most of his stuff is complicated as heck. The comparison of this baseball player from this era with another player from another era. I mean, I understand him, but if I am going to be using that much energy understanding what I read, I might as well be picking-out stocks that will produce a 200% profit in two years. HOWEVER, and this is a big, in more ways than one, "however," with THE LAST FOOTBALL COACH, Allen Barra has crossed the threshold to being an author who will make a difference in other's lives: those young men and women who read this book, whether they be football players or not, will understand just a little bit better, what went into being the "Last Football Coach," a man not too big to climb down from his tower to show a guard or an end how to "do it right." I would recommend this book to anyone who loves the college football game and would like to have a lot of insight into what made Coach Bryant click. As a bonus, well to me it's a bonus, you get to read how Coach Bryant gave one ten-year-old, me, a "try out," as I imagine he gave a thousand other boys try outs, with an intensity and focus that made one ten-year-old boy want to "do it just a little bit better for the coach."
Comment | |
(Report this)
Back To Top
|
The Last Coach: A Life of Paul Bear Bryant
Available from Amazon
Price: $19.67
Updated on 6-21-2008.
|
NOTICE: All prices, availability, and specifications
are subject to verification by their respective retailers.
| We offer The Last Coach: A Life of Paul Bear Bryant and other related Basketball History Books here at Rbookshop.com. To view more books about Basketball History please use the previous and next buttons near the top of this page.
|
|
Search for books at
