Click here for linkPaul W. Bryant, Jr., president pro tempore of the Board of Trustees, has become a major figure at the University of Alabama, nearly 30 years after his father, legendary head football coach Paul “Bear” Bryant last roamed the University’s sidelines.
Born in Birmingham in the mid 1940s, Bryant went on to attend Alabama while his father was head football coach, a position he would hold until his retirement in 1982.
While at the Capstone, Bryant was in Sigma Nu fraternity and was elected president of the business college. Today, Bryant jokes about his long-ago dalliance into politics. “I was not the Machine candidate, but then again, no one ran against me,” Bryant said.
A spitting image of his father, he speaks very softly, seemingly judging the weight of each syllable. “It was a little harder,” Bryant said when asked about the difficulties of growing up in the shadow of a legend.