Perkins could not be the next Bear Bryant

It was said of Ray Perkins that he could brighten a room by leaving.

Perhaps no one could have come under the scrutiny that Perkins faced in replacing the godlike figure that was Paul William Bryant as head football coach at the University of Alabama. The man who follows the man who follows the legend often finds the going smoother.

And if you’re Nick Saban and win national championships — he has five, and counting, at Alabama, where Bryant won six — they build statues outside the stadium. Of course, in Bryant’s case, the stadium is renamed in your honor.

Perkins, who died Wednesday at age 79, is remembered in other ways, largely as the man who brought Bill Parcells and Bill Belichick to the New York Giants. Parcells, hired as defensive coordinator, won two Super Bowl as the Giants’ head coach. Belichick, after a failed first head-coaching gig in Cleveland, has gained Lombardi-like status with the New England Patriots. Winning a record six Super Bowls, Belichick is linked with Tom Brady in the sense that Phil Jackson is with Michael Jordan.

Perkins, one of Joe Namath’s best receivers while an Alabama player, left the Giants to replace Bryant after the 1982 season. Bryant retired one season after his record 315th victory as a head coach. Unfortunately for Alabama, Bryant lasted long enough in Tuscaloosa for his age and possible impending retirement to be used against him in recruiting. On that count, he bungled in letting Bo Jackson get away to Auburn.

Pat Dye, a former Bryant assistant, got ahead of a move to bring Auburn alum Vince Dooley home from Georgia. Dye played at Georgia under Wally Butts, who also coached Fran Tarkenton and along with Bryant had his name sullied in a magazine story about a possible fixed game against Georgia in Namath’s sophomore year at Alabama. Besides bringing the Saturday Evening Post to its knees, Bryant and wife Mary Harmon lived happily ever after while Butts, unfortunately, could not repair his image.

Although not one of “Bear’s boys” as one of his former players, Dye, it is said, received assurances from Bryant that he would be the next coach at Alabama. Then again, Bryant might have told others the same thing, not wishing to offend any of them.

Bryant cautioned Dye that he would not win at Auburn while Bryant was still coaching. “That’s all right,” Dye said, “but we’ll do pretty good after you leave.”

Dye, in fact, woke up the echoes that had gone slumbering since Ralph “Shug” Jordan departed as head coach. Perkins went 32-15-1 in five years at Alabama, winning three bowl games, but in some respects he was the anti-Bryant.

Under Perkins’ watch, veteran Alabama radio man John Forney was replaced. Paul Finebaum, now a multi-media star, was then bringing chipmunk journalism to the state of Alabama and the two clashed. Compared with Bryant at every turn, Perkins was rapped for shutting down the tower from which Bryant watched Alabama practices.

Only a win over Auburn, in which Jackson went the wrong way on a goal-line play, saved Perkins from possible dimissal when the Crimson Tide went

5-6 in 1984. That was the program’s first losing season since

1957, the year before “Mama called” and Bryant left Texas A&M for his alma mater.

“Three or four things alone caused him more consternation and gave columnists — like me — more material and it drove him crazy,” Finebaum said, adding that he developed a “great” relationship over the years with Perkins.

I remember sitting at press

row at Little Rock’s Barton Coliseum before a Razorback basketball game in late 1991 and not believing the headlines out of Jonesboro that Perkins was Arkansas State’s choice to replace Al Kincaid ( Larry Lacewell’s successor) as head coach. Ray lasted one season, going 2-9.

In this most bizarre of college- football seasons, Perkins dies during Alabama’s preparations for a Fayetteville visit against Arkansas. Even that is overshadowed in part by the news Thursday out of Jonesboro that coach Blake Anderson, after seven years at Arkansas State, is going to Utah State.

Sam Pittman, although his first team is 3-6 and a huge underdog Saturday, has lifted the cloud hanging over Razorback football in recent years. Up to then a career assistant, Pittman was named head coach at Arkansas one year ago this week. Hunter Yurachek, UA’s athletic director, and other school insiders, ex-Razorbacks included, liked him largely because he wanted the job.

In the fired Chad Morris, Pittman hardly succeeded a legend at Arkansas but he looks like someone who might retire in Fayetteville.

Ray Perkins leaves in the same week as Fred Akers, who won big at Texas but could not be the next Darrell Royal in Austin. It is said that coaches are hired to be fired and that few die on the job.

Lou Holtz, though fired or “burning out” at Arkansas after replacing Frank Broyles, did about as good a job of carrying the torch as anyone. It helped that he beat Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl in his first season. But Donald Trump wasn’t rewarding Holtz for his work with the New York Jets when he presented Lou with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Of course, going back to his support of Jesse Helms in North Carolina, Lou seemed to get along well with Republicans.