Here's a collumn comparing Bear Bryant and the new A&M coach Dennis Franchione that appeared in Salon.com The tyrant and the traitor Two Alabama football coaches, Bear Bryant and Dennis Franchione, mistreated their players. But at least Bryant didn't betray them. - - - - - - - - - - - - By Allen Barra Dec. 14, 2002 | Last week, reminiscing about growing up with the late Alabama football coach Paul "Bear" Bryant, I mentioned the upcoming ESPN film "The Junction Boys," which deals with his infamous 1954 training camp at Texas A&M. Bryant put his Texas A&M players through the most grueling indoctrination this side of "Full Metal Jacket." Seventy-six of 111 players quit, and Bryant later acknowledged that all the players -- the ones who stayed and the ones who left alike -- had been mistreated by him. To coaches of Bryant's generation, a football scholarship wasn't an invitation to play a game but an alternative to picking cotton or working in a textile mill. While Bryant's background helped to explain his treatment of his players, it didn't excuse it, a fact which, to his credit, he came to acknowledge. Twenty-five years later, Bear Bryant attended a reunion of the "Junction Boys." College football's greatest disciplinarian apologized to the players he had wronged. He found to his surprise that most of them had long ago forgiven him. If there is a 25-year reunion of the 2002 Alabama football team, what will Coach Dennis Franchione say to his former players? Last week Coach Franchione, with Alabama's football program rocked by scandal and NCAA probations that he had no hand in making, jumped ship for the football program at Texas A&M. There's nothing new in football coaches hopping from school to school to get a better deal. There's even a certain irony in the fact that Bryant went from Texas A&M to Alabama while Franchione used Alabama as a steppingstone for a fatter contract at A&M. It could be argued with some justification that Bryant's situation was a great deal different than Franchione's, that he had initially refused the Alabama job because a friend of his was coaching there, that he stayed at A&M for four years and, after all, left the Aggies only to return to his alma mater. ("When Mama calls," he said, "you gotta come runnin'.") But let that pass. The real difference between Paul Bear Bryant and Dennis Franchione is reflected in the attitudes of the men they coached. To former players and later disciples such as Jack Pardee and Gene Stallings, Bryant's message at A&M was clear: "I'll put you through hell, but at the end of it all we'll be champions." He kept his word. After a horrific 1-9 season in his first year at A&M, two years later the Aggies came back to an undefeated season and conference championship. Bryant delivered on his promise to turn them into winners. In the midst of Alabama's turmoil, with the NCAA delivering what many called "death penalty" probations to the football program, Franchione put up a Web site headlined "Accountability -- Loyalty -- Trust." The coach was a fervent believer in all of those words, at least as they related to his players. He begged his 40 juniors and seniors, who could have transferred without penalty to other schools, to stay and hold the team together even though the probation ensured that none of them would ever get to play in a bowl game at Alabama. (Under NCAA rules, college football players are denied the rights of average American citizens to change schools at will, while football and basketball coaches are granted privileges reserved, in other times and places, for nobility.) "I plan on staying at Alabama for the rest of my career," he announced. "I guarantee," he told several of them, "that I'll be here for you through it all, regardless of what happens." His players believed him, stayed, and played their hearts out to a surprising 10-3 season. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Franchione was using the team's success as leverage to get himself more money from probation-free A&M. Paul Bryant kept his word to his players while Dennis Franchione gave his word and then skipped campus, literally, in the middle of the night. When Paul Bryant was buried in Birmingham in 1983, he took one piece of jewelry to his grave -- a ring given to him by the Junction Boys, the Texas A&M players whom he had regretted working so hard. I wonder how Dennis Franchione's 2002 Alabama team would like to bury him?
Please give me a break. Ya'll act like this is the first time a Coach left one school to coach at another. Only reason people make such a big deal out of this is because the media can not believe that a coach would leave Alabama for Texas A&M. They did not make a big deal out of mack leaving North Carolina. And believe me, if Franchione would have left for Texas this would not be a big deal. Franchione telling the players to say at Alabama just shows how good of a coach he realy is. He made them into winners, and made them believe in them selfs. They should ne proud to have had Franchione as a coach. Gig'em!
OK...listen up because I'm sure I'll only have to say this about 1,000 more times. I'd hate for you guys to miss it. Coach Fran is following in the great tradition of coaches bailing out on what they view to be a sinking ship. Alabama is already on probation...and now they have reopened the investigation. Has anybody considered that maybe...just maybe...that Mal Moore didn't tell Coach Fran everything that went on, but only those things that the NCAA had found. Now all this other stuff hits the fan. It isn't a shock that he'd want to leave. It also isn't a coincidence that several coaches have turned them down to stay at lesser programs or in a lesser position.
For such a good coach, its a shame he's such a chicken****. When he screws A&M over like he did to Bama and TCU, don't get mad - the signs were all there.
Hmmm....let's see... He went to Alabama from TCU....OBVIOUSLY to break into major conference football. He went to A&M from Alabama...perhaps he wanted out of a place that lied to him regarding how bad the NCAA sanctions could get. Explain to me how either of these moves were illogical. Anybody in their right mind would have done the same damn thing. Except I would have gone back to face the players before all of it hit the press.
Refman, you're right. College coaches do this crap all of the time. Francione was being logical. Doesn't make it right. It would have been logical for the Alabama players he begged to stay there to have bolted, but they took their coach seriously when he told that he would stay there through thick and thin. He just seems like such a complete liar and weasel in the aftermath of this. He'll be a great coach for A&M, no doubt, but he'll never have 1/10th of the class the R.C. Slocum has. I guess that doesn't really matter in bigtime sports.
