Books on UA football and/or Coach Bryant

i’d love to hear suggestions as well. one of the problems with books about Coach Bryant and Alabama Football is the abundance of riches. and a lot of it is mediocre at best. for every great book you happen across there is sure to be a dozen that make you want to claw your eyes out.

so my suggestion for a lot of these is to sample it using GoogleBooks. for example, here is the online version of The Junction Boys. It’s not the whole book, of course, but you can search for specific information that is there and get a feel of the way it is written.

but, obviously, nothing beats a personal reccomendation.

As for Bryant, really the only one you need to read is "The Last Coach" by Allen Barra. He’s a great writer, and the work is actually a very in-depth, investigative piece, and it’s quite lengthy to boot.

"Coach" by Keith Dunnavant was the best book in the area for the longest. It’s still worth reading, but honestly read The Last Coach first, and you may even leave it at that. Frankly, there’s nothing that is in Coach that isn’t explored more in-depth in The Last Coach.

Junction Boys, of course, is a classic, and it’s well worth the read. It’s easy to read, and it tells a great story. However, I’ll be honest, take what you read in it with a pretty big grain of salt. Some of the stuff is factually correct, while many former A&M players at the time have vehemently disputed other things. Frankly, I think Dent did a bit of fact-shaping to have a more compelling story in some places.

"The Missing Ring" is supposedly very good, and I’ve yet to read a bad review of it. However, in the interests of full disclosure, I have yet to personally read it myself, so I cannot say for certain.

Aside from that, though, I’d be very wary. Being quite frank, most sports journalism isn’t very good, and in particular many of the collegiate books turn into a glorified homer rambling about how player / coach / school x is the greatest thing since sliced bread, so unless you are one of the extreme kool-aid drinkers that will blow your load over anything relating to your school, it’s pretty much a waste of both money and time to purchase / read the overwhelming majority of books on the market. I would definitely make sure I get some really good reviews on any book I purchase, because the bad ones are truly bad.

“The Long Shadow of Coach Paul "Bear” Bryant" by Dr. Gaylon McCollough? Supposed to be more personal and behind the scenes than the other biographies (I concur with “The Last Coach” being the best).

Also, I enjoyed the book that Barry Krauss came out with a couple of years ago, good stories about Bama, Bryant, and his time in the pros.

One other nugget: There’s a little book filled with tons of quotes attributed to Coach Bryant that you can pick up at any of the major book stores. It’s like reading Proverbs.

…so I plan for the 2009 season to be my Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer.

...Turning Of The Tide, the book by Don Yaeger about the legendary game between Bama and USC with Sam ‘Bam’ Cunningham. There’s a lot in it that doesn’t relate directly to the Bear, but it all relates to that historic event.

I agree with others that The Last Coach is the definitive book on Bryant. Still, I have always enjoyed the ‘autobiography’ entitled, simply, Bear. When I read it, I sometimes feel like I’m hearing Coach Bryant talk.

Warren St. John’s book is also fun. And I still like Clyde Bolton’s The Crimson Tide. It’s a nice history lesson for the average Tide fan.

I actually read “Coach” first by Keith Dunnavant…He is from my home town, so I thought what the heck…it was good, and then I read “The Last Coach”…I really like both to be quit honest. I know both books had most of the same info but both writers did a very good job.

I have another one that is the Complete history of the Crimson Tide…thats not the name of it, but thats what is all about…I don’t have it here with me in Kuwait…Its a really big book…the size of a coffee table…lol It was very informative on the history of the Tide, and covers all the way up to Shula.

My next Bama read is Definitely…RJYH…I’ve heard nothing but good things about it.
Thanks for this post too Nick’s Hat Band!!
RTR!!

I’m enjoying it, so thanks for the recommendations. I’ve had the book for a while, was given it by my father who’s a huge Bama fan, but I’m usually just not that into non-fiction. Still, it’s a pretty good read.

…is a great book. It made me hate Notre Dame more than any team on the planet (including Auburn and Tennessee), and it gives perspective on what characteristics drove the ‘66 team and Coach Bryant to a perfect season. Also, it goes into the AP’s lame motivation for ignoring the ‘66 team’s hard-earned accomplishments. Read it.

I also like a book titled “Bear: The Hard Life and Good Times of Alabama’s Coach Bryant”. It was written by Coach Bryant and John Underwood (1974) and you can really hear Coach Bryant talking in this book.

“The Crimson Tide” by Winston Groom of Forrest Gump fame is a good coffee table book that gives an illustrated history of the program up to the Dubose era. It is not a particularly compelling read but it does end on a humorous (see tragic) note that the future looked bright near the turn of the century.

http://www.amazon.com/Crimson-Tide-Illustrated-Football-University/dp/0817310517/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1234793697&sr=1-11

so i done bought ones of dem’s Dee Vee Ds wit ole boy from the radio shows on it…t’was dang gud too. I also liked rewin’n dem Dee Vee Ds before I takes it bak to the vidyo stores.

how about giving this post some rep so it stays on top of the fanposts for awhile? i’d really like to see more input from folks than just what we’ll get this week.

-Snake: The Candid Autobiography of Football’s Most Outrageous Renegade. Doubleday
-Crimson Slide
-The Last Coach
-Namath
-Rammer Jammer, Yellow Hammer
-Fear and Loathing

is the most superb screen name in the history of film