Review of Chasing the Bear: How Bear Bryant and Nick Saban Made Alabama the Greatest College Football Program of All Time, by Lars Anderson

Anyone even casually familiar with college football history knows the names of Paul W. “Bear” Bryant and Nick Saban, the coaches of the University of Alabama’s Crimson Tide who have together won more than a dozen national championships for the school on the gridiron. For a long time among Tide faithful—and many fans of college football in general—it stood unquestioned that Bryant, who coached at Alabama for a quarter century and achieved success across four decades in his long career, was the greatest coach of all time. Nobody seemed positioned to match his success, and certainly not his influence on the university and the sport. In recent years, however, the phenomenal success of Nick Saban has called that assertion into question. At coaching stops at several universities, the last fifteen of which have been in Tuscaloosa, he has amassed an incredible seven national championship trophies and odds are he has a chance to collect even more before he retires.

In an avalanche of hagiography about Bryant and Saban which has been issued over the past decade now comes journalist Lars Anderson with a unique take on these iconic coaches. In Chasing the Bear, Anderson offers up a study of the two men with an eye towards identifying their incredible similarities in leadership style. While radically different in almost every way—physical appearance, personality, habits—Anderson shows the parallels in their unusual ambition. The “x’s and o’s” are a backdrop to the story, which he crafts as more focused on the inner drive and the methods of his subjects than any on-the-field exploits. The book is essentially a study in leadership styles, revealing the similar backgrounds and career arc of the two coaches and how they chose to motivate and instruct the young men in their charge.

Chasing the Bear is organized as alternating chapters on Bryant and Saban chronicling their careers and highlighting the shared traits and the remarkably similar turning points on which their continued success hinged. Both won flurries of championships before being forced to accept radical changes in strategy that few of their peers have ever been able to successfully navigate. In other words, Anderson seeks to explain not why each of these legendary football coaches won individual championships, but how they managed to stay in the hunt for them continuously over such a long period of time even as everything within and surrounding the game they coached seemed to change. At the same time the book contains a number of lesser-known stories about the private lives of the coaches that enables readers to better understand their personalities off the field and the sources of their motivation. The book is a fast-moving and entertaining read for anyone with an interest in college football, although it will surely receive the bulk of whatever attention it does garner within the cottage industry of publications celebrating the success of Alabama football.

JMB

Camp Blount Reborn

Camp Blount was the mobilization point for Tennessee militia prior to their entry into the Creek War. Three thousand men assembled at this location in October 1813 along the banks of the Elk River in Fayetteville, Tennessee, to put down the Red Stick Rebellion that had begun in earnest with the attack on Fort Mims, located in what is today south Alabama, in late August of that year. These men would serve under Andrew Jackson, who led them until they achieved final victory at Horseshoe Bend the following March.

For years, the site in Fayetteville had only been marked with an historic marker in a Walmart parking lot. As the bicentennial of the War of 1812 approached, many concerned citizens and historians sought to rectify matters with the creation of park to commemorate this significant historic site. Funds were acquired and forty acres were purchased in 2015/2016. Today, the park consists of historic trails, a large pavilion, interpretive signage and a magnificent bronze statue by Wayne Hyde of an unknown Tennessee volunteer. Considered the second most important venue memorializing Tennessee’s involvement in the Creek War (The Hermitage being #1), Camp Blount Historic Site is a wonderful addition to interpretation of one of this nation’s most unknown conflicts. Visiting this site and walking its grounds makes me so proud and happy as the number one reason Mike and I wrote Battle for the Southern Frontier was to raise awareness of this extremely significant event and the sites those interested in discovering this landmark in regional history could visit to learn about its course. Congratulations to the Tennessee Historical Commission, the Camp Blount Bicentennial Commission, Tennessee Wars Commission, the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation.

CPW