Five Things To Know: D. Dewey Mitchell on Legendary University of Alabama Coach Paul ‘Bear' Bryant

D. Dewey Mitchell remembers well the coach who died in 1983, three weeks after he coached his last game.

Mitchell in the 70’s played for Paul William “Bear” Bryant at the University of Alabama, and he recounted for Brandon Rotarians at their Feb. 15 meeting at Center Place the things he learned from playing for the legendary coach, who died in 1983.

One moment stands out the most for Mitchell, a fitting remembrance, he said, given today's trying economic times, and it happened after a particularly grueling week of college football.

"You guys are tired," Mitchell recounted Bryant saying. "I know you're tired. I'm tired. Coaches are tired. We're all tired. (But) 25 years from now you're going to wake up one morning and you're going to be tired. Your kids are going to be sick. Your wife is going to be fed up. Your mortgage payment is going to be late. What are you going to do? Lie down in bed, or get up and fight?"

"I didn't understand what he was saying at the time, I was tired, my feet hurt, I was sore," Mitchell said. "But now I do. I appreciate him more and more from that single day."

Mitchell is broker/owner of Prudential Realty, at 20537 Amberfield Drive in Land O' Lakes, and at the Rotarian meeting he presented, "Bear Bryant and Lessons in Life and Business." From his presentation, five things about Coach Bear Bryant stand out:

1. Organization was key. “He was an extremely well-organized person. Never any wasted time with him,” Mitchell said. Every practice, every player had something to do at every moment. As Mitchell put it: “Never anyone standing around watching scrimmage.”
2. Examination was imperative. “He measured everything,” Dewey said. Graded all the scrimmages, all the games.” As Mitchell put it: “Little things added up to big things in his mind. 
3. Motivation was ongoing. “He was not one of those people who would stand up before a game and rah-rah,” Mitchell said. “He motivated you during the week. He had ways about him to motivate you to prepare.” To Bryant, “if you had to be motivated the day of the game it was too late,” Mitchell added. “In my mind, he shone on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.”
4. Strength was in the coming together. Coach Bryant would motivate you in lots of way and, yes, Mitchell added, one of those ways was fear. “He always wanted what he called a single heartbeat,” Mitchell said. Take, for example, the hotshot high school player who arrives at college to discover he is one of the many. As Mitchell put it: “What he would do basically is tear you down to almost the lowest common denominator and build you up to one.”
5. Concern is ongoing. Coach Bryant was “not a really chummy guy to the players, but when you finished playing with him that’s when you really appreciated him for what he could do for you,” Mitchell said, noting Bryant’s scholarship fund for players’ offspring. “He was always reaching out to (former players) making sure they were accomplishing what they could after they played football.”