Gene Stallings

Gene Stallings was a freshman football player at Texas A&M when he first laid eyes on Paul Bryant.

He had no idea who Bryant was.

But he came to realize the power Bryant had within minutes of watching him remove his coat and address the players as the new head coach of the Aggies.

“He just had this presence,” said Stallings recently from the lobby of a Tuscaloosa hotel. “When Coach Bryant had that first meeting, I knew somebody had done come to our campus that was a special person.”

Stallings was one of the few players who didn’t quit on the new coach when he took them to Junction, Texas, to lead them through a grueling 10-day practice session in an attempt to toughen up the team.

“He came in one day and said we’re going to take a little trip and we’re going to go somewhere,” Stallings said. “We had no idea where we were going.”

And it was Stallings who later said of that team: “We went out in two buses and came back in one, and it was about half full.”

Four years later, Stallings followed Bryant again. This time it was to the University of Alabama, where Stallings served as an assistant under Bryant for seven years.

“The thing that made Coach Bryant, in my opinion, such a successful coach was everybody wanted to please him,” Stallings said. “We all tried to please Coach Bryant. I’ve never known anybody like that before or since, where everybody wanted to please him.

“We’d do anything for a kind word from Coach Bryant.”

Stallings said that he never was in the same social circles as Bryant. In fact, he maintains that the closest he came to the man was as an employee.

“A lot of people would like say they were Coach Bryant’s friend,” Stallings said, “but not many people were close to Coach Bryant.”

That, however, didn’t prevent Stallings from becoming one of Bryant’s favorites.

Stallings left Bryant’s staff in 1965 to take over Bryant’s former team, Texas A&M. At the time, Stallings was 29.

In Stallings’ third season at College Station, Texas, the Aggies met the Crimson Tide in the 1968 Cotton Bowl. That day, the pupil’s team defeated the teacher’s team 20-16.

If he was upset about the loss, Bryant didn’t show it publicly. In meeting Stallings for the postgame handshake, Bryant instead grabbed and lifted his former player and assistant into the air.

The entire week had been a reunion, of sorts, for the young Stallings and Bryant.

Organizers decided to hold joint press conferences for the coaches to discuss practice and the upcoming game. On the first day, no one asked Stallings a question, choosing to focus instead on Bryant.

“The next day I came straight from practice,” Stallings said. “And Coach Bryant was dressed up fairly well and he said, ‘I just sort of refuse to have my picture taken with somebody that looks that bad.’ ”

The room fell into laughter, Stallings said.

“So the next day I decided I’d take a tux to practice, and I’d put that tux on and I’d go do the press conference in a tux,” Stallings said. “When I walked in, Coach Bryant had a cowboy hat on, he had a scarf ... scarf around his neck, he had his feet propped on the table and had on cowboy boots that said Texas A&M.

“There was not one soul noticed I had a tux on. He’d done beat me at every corner. ...

“The only thing we won was the game.”

After the game, Bryant sent word to Stallings that he wanted to speak to him. Stallings stepped away from the reporters covering the post-game press conference (which took place in the locker rooms in that era) and went out to meet Bryant.

“I said, ‘Coach, you looking for me?’” Stallings said, recalling the conversation. “He said, ‘No -- I’ve seen enough of you. I want to see your players.’”

So Stallings gathered his team, and Bryant congratulated them on the win, but made sure to point out that, in his opinion, Alabama remained the better football team.

“And he done beat me again,” Stallings said.

And while Stallings may not have fallen into Bryant’s realm of close companions, he did make enough of an impression for Bryant to recommend Stallings succeed him as coach at UA upon Bryant’s retirement.

Circumstances didn’t allow that to take place in 1982, causing Bryant and university officials to turn their focus to Ray Perkins. He, unlike Stallings, did agree to leave the NFL and succeed Alabama’s winningest football coach.

“I never thought I’d get another chance,” Stallings said.

But like the photograph of Bryant lifting Stallings following that Cotton Bowl win, the connection between these two coaches almost required that Stallings be allowed to lead the team that his mentor returned to prominence.

In 1990, Bryant’s recommendation came to pass and Stallings was hired as Alabama’s coach. Incorporating a systematic approach to planning and execution that he learned under Bryant, Stallings won 70 games at the Capstone, including five bowl victories, an SEC title and he remains the only coach since Bryant to win a national championship.

Still, Stallings said, that pales in comparison to the accomplishments of Bryant.

“Without question,” Stallings said, “I think he’s the greatest college football coach who ever lived.”