The `Bear' And Crow

Ties to historic coach still resonate with 1957 Heisman winner

Nov. 7, 2007

By Adam Caparell

CSTV.com


	ADAM CAPARELL Adam is CSTV.com's football editor and national football writer. E-mail here!

John David Crow was all excited to begin his college career in the summer of 1954.

Shortly after high school, and a newly married man, Crow shipped off to Texas A&M with his wife in tow a little earlier than necessary after the man who recruited him - Elmer Smith - instructed Crow the team was going to be making a trip to a campground in the Texas hill country before the season kicked off.

It was going to be strictly football. No women, no outside distractions, just the players, coaches and the man looking to whip the Aggies into shape in his first year on the job, Paul Bryant.

"Coach Elmer came over to the apartment right after we moved in and said `I am so sorry, I have to tell you something,'" Crow said, "'I told you that you were going to be able to go to Junction with us, but sorry, you can't go because the Southwest conference has ruled freshman can't go 30 miles away from campus.'"

So minus the freshmen, the rest of the team was headed for 10 days of football in a small town hours away from College Station. Everyone was bussed out to Junction, Texas as Crow watched them leave campus - "I was looking so forward to that," he said of the trip to Junction - but realized not going may have been a blessing in disguise when only one bus returned after the 10 days a whole lot lighter than when it had left.

"When that one bus came back from Junction about half full I thought at that time maybe it is good I didn't get to go to Junction in that little camp area," Crow said.

Crow missed being a part of history, but was spared the supposed hell the infamous "Junction Boys" endured, approximately 35 Texas A&M players who were run through the gauntlet by Bryant where water breaks were forbidden in the 100 degree heat. The only respite came from a towel soaked in cold water to be shared; one for the offense and one for the defense.

Many of the Aggies up and quit the team that summer during training camp. And who knows if Crow would have been one of them, but as it was he would author one of the great careers in A&M history and in 1957 became the first and only Aggie to win the Heisman Trophy. Maybe even more astonishingly, Crow was the only player to win the award under Bryant, despite the coach's historic and storied career that spanned six decades and included six national titles.

The hard-nosed, never say quit, never except anything less than 100 percent Bryant, who was known for his "tough times don't last, but tough people do" mantra, was a much different man than many believed. Crow described his college coach as a "lot more caring and a lot more sentimental, a lot more tender hearted than most people would believe."

Yes, Bear Bryant was tender hearted. The man who supposedly head butted a player to the ground in Junction was kind and caring, and one Crow related to quite easily.

"He was bigger than life probably, but he was very, very similar to my dad," Crow said.

Crow's father grew up working for everything in life, much like Bryant who came from poverty. Crow's father was a disciplinarian. Bryant was regimented himself. Sacrifice, work and self-discipline were three of his well-known edicts and Crow grew up adhering to those principles taught by his father first and his coach second.

"Maybe my dad didn't walk into a room with a group of men and it all the sudden went silent like coach Bryant could, but my dad could walk into a room at home, it would get silent," Crow said. "So there was a lot of respect for him, so same thing for coach Bryant."

Crow saw the man in a very different light and developed a special relationship with Bryant, so much so that he was the only player Bryant did not call by his last name.

"My mother always called me John David, maybe that is the reason coach Bryant started doing that, he heard my mother do it," Crow said. "But it caught on, that's the reason all these years I have been known as John David Crow, rather than John Crow, or David Crow or J.D. Crow or whatever, it was him. He is the one who started it."

Bryant was "very, very determined to get the most out of everyone of the players who played," Crow said. And when it came to recognition for Crow, Bryant made it known that Crow deserved his fair share.

Crow winning the Heisman can actually be directly attributed to Bryant and his considerable influence. Only appearing in seven games because of injury his senior year, Crow carried the ball just 129 times that season for 562 yards and six touchdowns. He also played some defense and threw five touchdown passes, but Crow didn't believe he could win the award because he had missed several Aggies games. They only played 10 in those days.

But that all changed when someone asked Bryant who he thought the Heisman Trophy winner should be. On the record, Bryant said the award should no longer be given out if voters didn't cast their ballot for Crow.

The voters listened. Crow was the 1957 winner over Iowa's Alex Karras by a wide margin. The Texas A&M president phoned Crow's house to let him know he had won. When Crow's mother told him the school president was on the line, Crow initially thought he was in trouble. But his nervousness soon turned into joy with the news he was headed to New York with his parents and wife in tow to collect the award.

The Crows immediately jumped into the car to tell his father, who was working at the paper mill at the time.

"My dad came out to meet the car, because he probably thought something was wrong and so forth and so on," Crow said. "And my mother told him what happened. And it was the first time in my life that I saw any flickering of genuine pride and tears filled his eyes because he was so proud."

Crow's first encounter with Bryant after winning wasn't nearly as emotional, but was nonetheless memorable.

"He came to me and shook my hand and said, `Congratulations' and `You are very deserving of the award,'" Crow said.

Bryant was off to Alabama after that season, slated to take over his alma mater and go on to achieve success never before seen or duplicated in the college game.

And it's those ties to Bryant that Crow holds onto, 50 years after winning the award, maybe more so than when talk of the Heisman comes up. He knows he's a part of one of the most storied fraternities in all of sports, yet he can not think of Bryant when he thinks of the award.

"What makes me feel the best is when they say coach Bryant's only Heisman winner," Crow said. "That is what makes me very, very proud of the fact that our team is the only team that coach Bryant had that accomplished goal. He has had national championships and a lot of other things, but our 1957 team, and the team before it, and the team before it, accomplished that goal to win, to have the outstanding player in college football for that year."