Let Tebow Cry…

Glynn Wilson

Paul “Bear” Bryant’s image casts a shadow over Tuscaloosa and all of Alabama. One spot stands open on the walk of fame, for the next coach to win a national championship. Will it be Saban? This year?

Under the Microscope
by Glynn Wilson

Class. It’s been awhile since we’ve heard that term used in the way Florida quarterback Tim Tebow did, through his tears Saturday night after losing the Southeastern Conference championship game, to describe the University of Alabama and its football team.

He was not using the term as a noun to talk about a group of students or an economic or social class of people. He was using it as an adjective to describe a world-class program characterized not only by its drive for “success” through “excellence,” but also by the way Alabama got the job done this year, with determination, practice and perseverance yes, but also with style, integrity, dignity and yes character, humility and grace.

That is a lesson we all should learn, if possible. It’s not easy. But life never is, is it?

While sports and American culture have both been diminished by “trash talk” over the past couple of decades, and our politics has been diminished by partisan rancor, the Georgia Dome Saturday night was the site of a remarkable departure from that nastiness. Tebow deserves credit for that, although some Alabama fans have not shown the same class toward him, which just goes to show you that class does not always trickle down to the masses.

Due to the way the Alabama defense shut down Tebow, and due to Mark Ingram’s dominance on the field, he will now most likely win the coveted Heisman Trophy for NCAA player of the year. He fully deserves it not only because of how many yards he gained or the number of touchdowns he ran. He deserves it because of his personal character and class in the way he handled it.

He never once said on camera he deserved the award. The same was true for Nick Saban, until that brief TV interview Saturday night, when he once again downplayed it by placing an emphasis on “the team.”

In case this is a burning question on the minds of people all the over the country and the world today, as I suspect it is judging by the remarks on my Facebook home page, here’s an essay on class I’ve been thinking about writing for some time. This is not just about football or sports in general. It is about life, which includes journalism and politics.

It is a story of why Nick Saban is the quintessential college football coach and was never suited to the pros. The short answer? Saban is at heart a teacher. By the time the players get to the pros, they can’t be taught anymore. By then, they either have it or they don’t.

It is a story also of why the United States became the greatest country the world has ever known, and the story of why the New York Times became the greatest newspaper ever published.

Since sports is often viewed by sociologists as a microcosm or a representation of life, able to teach people about the way to win in life as well as sports, let’s take the football first.

Have you ever noticed how local and national sports media figures sometimes get frustrated when trying to interview the likes of Nick Saban? Journalism on that level is quite anti-intellectual, which is why there’s not a sports writer anywhere who understands what Saban is talking about when he uses terms like “excellence.”

To them that simply means winning games on the playing field. That’s not what Saban is talking about. Sports commentators and fans alike tend to seize on the old quote from Vince Lombardi, who once said, “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” He also said, “If it doesn’t matter who wins or loses, then why do they keep score?”

Some people mistakenly attribute those quotes to Paul “Bear” Bryant, no perfect human being himself, but a veritable genius on teaching class the adjective to those who grew up without any as a noun.

What Bryant said on winning was, “Winning isn’t everything, but it sure beats anything that comes in second.”

The immediate reaction to that quote will be seized upon by those obsessed with winning at any cost. They just don’t get it, just like their favorite U.S. president, George W. Bush, doesn’t understand to this day why people hate him so much for his screw ups. Even though Bush as a member of the upper class economically, he has never understood or displayed class in the way he conducted himself. He never had it and never will. This is also true of his win-at-any-cost political “brain” and “archetect” Karl Rove, who must not realize, still, how much his Machiavellian winning strategy cost the country – its reputation for class and character around the world.

Bryant was speaking in parables when he said that. He was saying winning is great — but not by any means necessary. Sometimes, in other words, the ends do not justify the means.

If you study what he said over the course of his career, which was not just about coaching a winning football team but about teaching young people to be better people, you will discover some real jewels.

He once described “class” in people the way a certain Supreme Court justice described art.

“I don’t know what class is,” Bryant said, being coy, “but I can tell when one has it. You can tell it from a mile away.”

In his time, showing class on the field in one way was described like this: “I always want my players to show class, knock ‘em down, pat them on the back, and run back to the huddle.”

Those days were long gone in American football and culture — until Saturday night.

Class, for Bryant the teacher, involved character.

“I have tried to teach them to show class,” he said of his players and students, “to have pride, and to display character. I think football, winning games, takes care of itself if you do that.”

Nick Saban gets this, which is as much of a reason why his team dismantled Florida as all the talent and pumping iron in the world. Saban is not just a coach. He is a teacher.

He not only teaches the techniques required for winning football games. For those players and students with an ear to listen and hear, he will teach you how to succeed in life, which is as much the job of a college professor as teaching you that natural selection explains life on earth better than creationism ever could.

Some people, the ones with inner class, get it. Some don’t and never will. Bryant knew that too, from his observations of people over the years.

“The biggest mistake coaches make is taking borderline cases and trying to save them,” Bryant said. “I’m not talking about grades now, I’m talking about character.”

President Barack Obama also gets it. Clearly, he has both character and class. The people who criticize him the most have none.

I guarantee you if Bear Bryant were alive today, he would openly acknowledge that fact. He wanted to bring African-American players to Alabama well before it was possible in the eyes of the fans and alumni, or the university administration, in the 1960s.

Now I know some of my friends, and some of the people who run the New York Times, would argue with this assessment if they had the nerve. They don’t, of course, so I won’t hear a word.

Regular readers will understand what I am talking about when I say that former New York Times executive editor Howell Raines, an Alabama native, got screwed out of his job at the Times as much for quoting Bear Bryant on public television as for displaying arrogance in the news room and for promoting a loser with no class or character like Jayson Blair to write for the paper.

Raines knew the lessons, but didn’t follow them when he got to the top of the world in New York. He was not such a great judge of character, and he did not show humility and grace under pressure.

My friend and author Rick Bragg, who quit the Times in the middle of the Jayson Blair scandal, is now a teacher at Alabama himself. He wrote the definitive piece on Saban for Sports Illustrated awhile back.

I’m here to tell you that even though he was raised poor in Possum Trot, Alabama, near Anniston, and does not have a college degree of his own (except for that Nieman Fellowship at Harvard, of course), he has more character and class in his little finger than most working for the New York Times today.

A key principal that made the New York Times what it used to be was focusing on the stories that mattered and avoiding the stories from the gutter. That also used to be true of the Associated Press. Not anymore, which is probably as much to blame for the decline of American newspapers as the rise of bloggers.

Speaking of which, there are certain anonymous bloggers and former newspaper reporters in Alabama right now going around trying to libel and defame me on the Web, I suppose out of jealousy and bitterness, because they have no class.

I am certainly not without flaws. Everybody makes mistakes.

But I am doing my best to show character and class — by simply ignoring them.

That’s what they would have done at the old New York Times, the one I wanted to work for all my adult life and got the chance a few years back.

My argument here is also that what made America great was an understanding and display of character and class at key times in history. This is especially true in the fight against the British during the American Revolution, in Lincoln’s handling of saving the union during the Civil War, and on the part of the nation’s people in the fight against Hitler and the Nazi’s during World War II.

The press showed the most courage and class in our history by publishing the Pentagon Papers in the late 1960s exposing the lies of the Vietnam War, and by exposing the crimes of a president during the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s.

I don’t know if it is possible or not to teach a thing like character and class. From what Bryant said, he apparently didn’t think so. Saban seems to think it is possible, and maybe that’s what we need more than anything else in these trying times.

In any event, we will find out who the national champions are in college football on Jan. 7, 2010, when Alabama faces Texas in the BCS title game in Pasadena. I don’t know about you, but as a two-time Alabama alumnus myself, I will be watching not only to see who wins the game on the scoreboard in the final seconds. I will be watching to see who displays the most character and class.

Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer aside, and forget F-U Texas, Roll Tide Roll!

If the Crimson Tide wins this game, Saban deserves that statue on the walk of fame down there in Tuscaloosa in front of Bryant-Denny stadium (see photo above). Due to his class and character, I hope he gets it.

I also hope he stays in Alabama for many years to come. We need a teacher like Saban around here. The people, the media and the politicians in this state have a lot more to learn.

Let Tebow cry…

Saban Showing Class and Let Tebow Cry Video

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

Tags: Alabama Teaches Character and Class, Karl Rove, Let Tebow Cry, Rose Bowl, Texas, The Legacy of George W. Bush, University of Alabama

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 6th, 2009 at 3:38 pm and is filed under Sports, Under the Microscope III. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.