Coach Bryant Story

Bear Bryant was very good for the Sugar Bowl, and the Sugar Bowl was very good for Bear Bryant.

But there was at least one time they clashed.

In 1971, the Sugar Bowl committee decided getting Alabama was its No. 1 objective, despite the fact that Auburn and the Crimson Tide were both undefeated.

Callery was sent to Tuscaloosa, Ala., toward the end of the season and met with Bryant at 6 a.m. one Sunday. Bryant told Callery he wanted to come to the Sugar, then added, "I think I'll call Chuck (Fairbanks, the coach at Oklahoma, then undefeated along with Big 8-rival Nebraska) and see if we can't have a national championship game in New Orleans."

Fairbanks agreed.

The only thing Bryant asked of Callery was to wait until noon Monday to announce it. On the phone with the Sugar Bowl committee later that Sunday afternoon, Callery said things were looking real good but he wasn't ready to say more than that, and was on his way back to New Orleans.

While Callery was en route, Auburn coach Shug Jordan applied some pressure on the Sugar Bowl. Jordan wanted the invitation for his fifth-ranked team, and he told the committee if his team didn't get an immediate bid, that they wouldn't come to New Orleans, win, lose, or draw after Auburn's final game -- against Alabama. In an emergency meeting, the executive committee agreed to accept Auburn.

"I was just frozen when I heard," Callery said. "We had, in essence, already invited two teams that morning -- Alabama and Oklahoma. Now we had invited another one. I had to pour myself a couple of drinks before I called Coach Bryant. I must have looked like I was a fraud. You can't print what Bryant said when I told him. He did tell me to tell the Sugar Bowl that he was going to beat the hell out of Auburn.

"And he did." Auburn came to New Orleans with only one defeat on its record, but it was an eye-catcher -- a 31-0 kiss thrown by Bear Bryant to the Sugar Bowl.