Bear Bryant’s Nuts

This is as good a time as any to share this story.

The year was 1996.  A fresh face in Birmingham television, I was part of a startup newsroom that was trying to make a name and a reputation in a competitive but conservative market. Viewers just didn’t wander, they had habits. They also had established stations they had watched for decades. So it was incumbent to come in and act as though we’d been there all along. “We want to compete from Day 1,” said my news director.

There were more than a few opportunities for us to flex our muscles as a news organization. We signed on September 1 of that year, in time to catch the end of a busy election season. We had some severe weather to display our worth. But no event loomed on the horizon like the Iron Bowl, with rumors swirling that Alabama coach Gene Stallings was going to retire soon.

For those of you from outside the state, the annual Alabama-Auburn game is one of the most intense and absorbing rivalries in all of sports. Fans from other schools brag to me about how their trash talk starts before the season. In the Iron Bowl (so named because it used to be played in Birmingham,) the trash talk for next year’s game starts midway through the second quarter of this year’s game. Life stops for one day a year, and legions of fans have a personal stake in happiness for the next 364 riding on 60 minutes of smashmouth football.

As a station, we had to get it right.

You want WHAT?

Coverage of the Iron Bowl starts weeks before, but in the seven days prior you’re looking at some heavy presence in the newscasts throughout. Feature angles abound. And that’s where we get to the legendary coach, Paul Bryant.

My photographer that day was Chris Osborne, and while working on an actual story of substance, we were asked to take a little bit of time to swing by Elmwood Cemetary. Our News Operations Director had a special video request for us.

(paraphrased) “Go by Coach Bryant’s gravesite at Elmwood Cemetary and get some video.”

What for? What of? Why?

“Every year, fans go by the site and leave bottles and cans of Coca-Cola, and Golden Flake potato chips.”

I won’t fake the rest of this conversation, but it went on for minutes.

For years, Bryant was a pitchman for the snacks, even eating them while narrating the highlights of the coach’s show. And apparently, some people do indeed bring the items to the gravesite, but we didn’t know enough about the tradition to point out that it’s generally done on the date of his death, and not as part of Iron Bowl week.

Here’s the proof. The Birmingham News did a nice writeup back in January on the 25th anniversary of his death. But that was of no help to us then, as neither of us were steeped enough in the lore of Birmingham to have known. (I was a Bama grad, and didn’t know!)

Because of our sheer confusion that such a thing could occur, the assignment desk starting treating us as though we were being “problem children.” Nothing could be further from the truth. We wanted to get our little piece of video and get on with the story. The only problem was none of the desk people could tell us how to get to the gravesite, and Elmwood is huge. “Follow the crowds,” they told us. “There are no crowds,” we said.

After more than an hour of following the winding pathways of Elmwood (which was pretty much empty,) we finally arrived at our destination…

…and there was nothing there. Nothing to see.

Blind Squirrels

I called in and spoke to my managers, who were so convinced that we were trying to kill the story, they didn’t believe that there was nothing there.

“Surely there is something there.”

“Nope. Not a thing.”

“I know it might not look like much, but shoot it anyway.”

“There’s nothing to shoot. Nothing. But tell you what – I will bring whatever I find on Coach Bryant’s grave back to you in the newsroom.”

And with that, I picked up a pair of walnuts, the only objects on the gravesite other than dead grass and the occasional blowing leaf.

When I returned, I marched up to the managing editor and dropped the walnuts in his hand.

“What are these,” he asked.

I told you we’d be bringing back whatever we found on the grave. Those are Bear Bryant’s nuts.

[tags]Ike Pigott, Occam’s RazR, Alabama, Auburn, Iron Bowl, football, Paul Bryant, Golden Flake, Coca-Cola[/tags]