Wartime coaching icons: Echoes from the Greatest Generation

BY JIM ZBICK, Faith, Family & Country Heritage Museum, Branson West

Coaches Bear Bryant and Shug Jordan are in a league of their own as mentors. The driving distance between the campuses of the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Auburn is just two hours, and two coaches who survived the Depression years and World War II built up a record number of victories that propelled them to legendary status in major college football.     

But while Paul “Bear” Bryant of the University of Alabama and Ralph “Shug” Jordan of Auburn are well known for their wins and championships in the football-rich Southeastern Conference, the leadership skills and mentoring they instilled on student-athletes at their respective schools are the main focus of a display at the Faith, Family & Country Heritage Museum in Branson West, MO.      

So strong was the impact on the Alabama universities that both stadiums bear their names in tribute. With a seating capacity of 100,000, Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa is the fifth largest in the conference, the eighth largest in the nation and the tenth largest in the world. Jordan-Hare Stadium in Auburn, meanwhile, ranks 12th largest among NCAA stadiums, 13th largest in the country and 21st largest in the world.     

Bryant acquired his famous nickname by wrestling a circus animal as a teenager living in Fordyce, Arkansas. Later, on his ascent in the coach ranks, he was on his way to Fayetteville for an interview at the University of Arkansas when he learned of the attack on Pearl Harbor. He enlisted in the Navy the next day.     

In Selma, Alabama, Ralph Jordan’s boyhood friends named him “Shug” because of his fondness for chewing on sugar cane. Before he became a coaching legend at Auburn, Jordan had already survived some of the worst fighting of World War II. As part of the First Engineer Special Brigade, an amphibious assault force that set explosives to thwart the enemy, Jordan was one of the few soldiers in the war who was in all four of the major military invasions - Northern Africa, Sicily, Normandy and Okinawa. He earned a Bronze Star and Purple Heart.   

“I felt I had the correct upbringing in Selma,” Jordan said in an interview. “I knew right from wrong, and the war served to strengthen those values that I was taught as a young man.”     

In reminiscing about his wartime experiences, Bryant, who counted Jordan among his best friends, stated  that “Jordan has more courage in his little finger than I’ve got in my entire body.”     

Jordan himself never spoke about himself or his actions, but he did use his experiences to motivate his players. One writer noted that for Coach Jordan, getting ready to play a football game was like preparing for battle. He seemed to have a new inspirational story for every challenging game and often quoted the likes of Winston Churchill, Gen. George Patton, Shakespeare and the Bible to make an impression on his young players.     

Jordan was diagnosed with acute leukemia in the spring of 1980 and died at his home on July 17 of that year at the age of 69. He was posthumously elected to the College Football of Fame in 1982.      

Bryant died at age 69 of a heart attack in Tuscaloosa on Jan. 26, 1983, just 28 days after his final victory and retirement in the Liberty Bowl. He was elected to the College Football of Fame in 1986.     

One’s coaching accomplishments can be measured by the numbers of wins and national championships. Bronze statues and named stadiums may perpetuate a legacy. But the number of mentoring experiences by men like Bryant and Jordan can’t be seen or counted.     

At Jordan’s memorial service, a writer noted that the tough, heroic role that Jordan had played in the war for his country may have been forgotten, but that he was memorialized for his role in leading young men to victory in a game played on familiar fields instead of on lands far from home, where life and death literally hung in the balance.