Bluff's David Bedwell recalls time with Paul 'Bear' Bryant
Legendary Crimson Tide football coach passed away 25 years ago this week

By Scott Wright

Growing up little more than the length of a Hail Mary pass from his high school stadium, it's only natural that David Bedwell loved the game of football. He loved playing and even practicing, either with teammates or all by himself -- so much, in fact, that he used to get in trouble with his father for kicking footballs over the chicken houses he tended as a boy.

“I had it figured that if I could kick a ball over the chicken house from my back yard, I was kicking it about 50 yards,” said Bedwell. “Now, some made it and some didn't. And when they didn't and hit the tin roof on that chicken house, those chickens went crazy. I don't know how many times daddy whipped me for that.”

After a standout career as a five-year starter and all-state quarterback for Leonard D. Bruce's seldom challenged Cedar Bluff Tigers, it was no surprise to anyone when coaches from both Auburn and Alabama began trying to coax Bedwell to their sideline.

“I was just a young kid and didn't have much of an idea what college football was all about,” Bedwell said. “I had been and visited, watched some college games, and felt at that time -- like most young kids do -- that I could play with any of them.”

Bedwell said his eventual decision to play for the Crimson Tide wasn't based solely on the popularity of seventh-year head coach Paul William Bryant, either.

An Auburn recruiter's crassness during a signing day-eve phone call didn't suit the young athlete, particularly the tongue-lashing he endured before the coach ended the call in a huff after Bedwell told him he hadn't made up his mind which school to attend.

“So, the next day I went in Coach Bruce's office and told him I was going to go to the University of Alabama.”

Bedwell, who'll turn 62 this year, said he wasn't aware of it at the time but in the spring of 1964, newspapers across the state had him listed as the No. 2 quarterback recruit in Alabama, behind Foley standout Ken Stabler.

Bedwell was quick to defend the sportswriters' assessments.

“When I got to the University I found out Kenny was the No. 1 recruit, and he's coming out of a big 6A school and I'm coming out of a 1A school,” Bedwell said. “I saw the handwriting on the wall pretty quickly that I was just not really prepared to be a quarterback at that level.”

Still, Bedwell said, the opportunity to play football was all he was looking for. In short order, Bryant made good on his promise to give the former Choccolocco Conference champ from tiny Cedar Bluff the opportunity to dazzle Denny Stadium crowds 43,000 at a time and play for a Division I national title.

“All I wanted was a chance, and he gave it to me,” Bedwell said.

Cornered by a Bear

Bedwell said he'll never forget being introduced to Bryant during a recruiting visit as a high school senior. He said Bryant, who stood 6 feet 3 inches tall, entered the room, singled out each recruit and addressed them individually.

“We went into the office and Coach Bryant came through the door. I remember having to look up at him, and I was scared to death,” Bedwell said. “He came in the room and shook my hand and said, “Hi, I'm Paul Bryant. We'd love for you to come to the University of Alabama.'”

“From that day on, he never forgot my name,” Bedwell said, and then he laughed. “Whether he was mad at me or otherwise, he never forgot it -- until he got onto his Sunday morning TV show, and then he might confuse me with David Beddingfield, another player on the team, or I might be from Hokes Bluff instead of Cedar Bluff.”

Bedwell said Bryant's notorious reputation as a strict disciplinarian is well-deserved, and said his gruff manner occasionally resulted in good players quitting the team after enduring an earful from the coaching legend.

“He had a better relationship with some players than with others, and I couldn't always understand that back then, but I can understand it now,” Bedwell said. “I fearfully respected the man. All my dealings were very good, although I saw some (dealings) he had with other players that, if I had been in their shoes, I probably would have hated him.”

Practice makes perfect

Bedwell said he always felt that Bruce, his high school coach, was “as tough on us as he could be.” Still, he admits he was unprepared for Bear Bryant's ferocity.

“We had people quitting all the time,” Bedwell said. “I eventually had four or five roommates at Bryant Hall. Of the 54 or 55 freshmen I signed with, I think we graduated 22 or 23.”

Bedwell said Bruce and Bryant were alike in many ways, but different in a few others.

“They were both able to get the most out of the least,” Bedwell said. “Except, Coach Bruce's harshest thing might have been something like, 'I'll kick your tail.' Coach Bryant's harshest was a lot more extreme than that. But the results were the same.”

Bedwell said he survived those extremes because his youth and pride kept him convinced he had the ability to compete for playing time.

“I felt like, ability-wise, I fit in with the other players pretty well,” Bedwell said, “Speed-wise, I could run a 4.6 40-yard dash after my freshman year at the University, and that was pretty good speed at the time.”

In his book about the 1966 Crimson Tide titled “The Missing Ring,” author Keith Dunnavant noted that Bryant, instead of recruiting oversized linemen and other specialists, “tended to sign a inordinate number of fullbacks and quarterbacks, solid athletes who could play anywhere on the field.” Bedwell, the former prep quarterback, said he was about the same size (6'0”, 165 lbs.) as most everyone else on Alabama teams of the 1960s, though he admits he hit a perfect window of opportunity which made it possible for him to play for Bryant.

“If I had come along up through about 1972, I feel like I could have played,” he said. “But after that, the speed of the game and the size of the players would probably have kept me from playing. I was just fortunate to fall within that frame of time and be able to play there.”

Bedwell said the off-season conditioning regimen was the most dreaded aspect of playing football for Bryant, although action on the practice field could often be every bit as brutal.

“We had some tough ones in the spring when we'd go to the stadium to practice,” Bedwell said. “Most folks in spring would like to go to the stadium for the scrimmages because they felt like they would be easier than the practices. I'd rather have stayed at the practice field.”

Bedwell said the primary advantage he had when it came to Coach Bryant's intense springtime practices was that he lined up on the defensive side of the ball.

“Usually, in the spring, the defense would outperform the offense,” Bedwell explained. “So, when we'd go scrimmage, we'd kick the crap out of the offense and the coaches would let the first team defense go on back to the dressing room. Lots of times, we'd be back at the dorms eating supper and the first team offense would still be out on the field.”

Asked about Bryant's famous tower at the 'Bama practice facility, Bedwell chuckled before confiding that no one hated to see Bryant climbing down the tower's spiral staircase more than he and his teammates -- except maybe the other coaches.

“All of the assistants, no matter how long they'd been there, revered Coach Bryant,” Bedwell said. “If he ever started down those steps we all knew someone was about to get it good and the coaches were going to make darned sure it wasn't one of them. Good as most of them were, they'd probably all have been better coaches if they hadn't had one eye on that tower so much of the time.”

Playing for the Tide

After spending the 1964 season on the freshman team, playing in the defensive secondary and taking snaps behind the Snake, Bedwell spent his varsity career as roving linebacker and backup defensive back to Bobby Johns. Bedwell also spent a significant part of his playing days dealing with various injuries, and credits his position coach, Mal Moore, with helping keep him on the team.

“I had so many injuries that I'm not sure Coach Bryant would have put up with me if Mal hadn't gone to bat for me a few times,” he said.

Bedwell wasn't the only player who fought through injuries to play football for Bryant. During his junior year in 1966, amidst the escalation of the war in Vietnam, Bedwell said he and around 50 other players got their draft notices. Ordered to report to Montgomery for physicals, Bedwell and his teammates loaded a bus and prepared for the possibility of being shipped off to fight in the jungles of Southeast Asia.

“I think only about four of five players out of the entire group even passed the physical, and I had to stay an extra night because I had broken vertebrae in my neck,” Bedwell said. “The doctor told me, 'I don't know how in the world you boys are playing football, you're the most broken up, crippled bunch I've ever seen. They'll call women and children to fight before they call you.'”

Bedwell said news stories circulating at the time accused Bryant of somehow rigging the examinations to ensure that few, if any, of his players passed the physical. But Bedwell insists he and his teammates came by their bumps and bruises fair and square.

(Broken, battered and rated 4-F, Bedwell and the rest of Bear's boys were eventually robbed, too. Bryant's 1964 and '65 teams both won the national championship and the Tide finished the '66 season with a perfect 11-0 record, only to watch Associated Press sportswriters and coaches from around the country vote once-tied Notre Dame the No. 1 team in the nation.)

One last meeting

After Bedwell's playing days were over, Bryant helped him get a job in south Florida, where he coached for five years. Sometime during that stretch, Bedwell and his wife were visiting Tuscaloosa when he saw Bryant for the last time.

“We came to a ball game, my wife and I,” Bedwell said. “We were walking towards Coleman Coliseum, where Coach Bryant's office was located. As we were walking up the steps he yelled at me before I even saw him, 'Hey David! Hey Diane!' -- and he had only met my wife one time, years before. That was the last time our paths crossed before his death.”

Bedwell was coaching at Gaylesville 25 years ago this Saturday when Bryant suffered chest pains and checked himself into a Tuscaloosa hospital, where he died on Jan. 26. Bedwell said he still remembers the emotions that swept over him after a teacher rushed into the school gymnasium to tell him the news.

“I felt a big emptiness,” he said. “I wasn't really aware that he was that sick, although I remember thinking that something had to be wrong for him to give up coaching to begin with, because I never thought he would do that.”

Despite the nagging neck and back problems and the twinges of pain he endures to this day, Bedwell insisted that the days he spent playing the game he loved for a man he grew to love were worth all the personal sacrifices.

“A lot of folks who played for Coach Bryant hated him, and a lot loved him,” Bedwell said. “I was one of those who loved him. Even with everything that I go through today, I'd still do it all again.”