Another home run for Wright Thompson

Anyone who's ever written about Alabama football — especially Alabama football history — knows that Billy Varner, who was Bear Bryant's body guard and driver in his later years, would have been the ultimate "get" of an interview. But Varner always refused to talk.

Well, Wright Thompson got him, albeit under terrible circumstances.

http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/7956658/thirty-years-bear-bryant-final-season-man-knew-best-billy-varner-struggles-remember-legendary-alabama-coach

A great, and sad, read.

 

Spectacular piece.

 

Seems like everything Thompson writes is a Grand Slam. He and Wetzel rarely miss.

 

Fantastic story. Much of this was new to me, and Thompson tells it so perfectly.

 

Thanks for posting that, Steak!

 

Yep. I'm jealous.

 

I thought this was about his performance at the Memphis in May BBQ contest. But this is much, much better.

 

Good good.

 

I'm just glad it wasn't about a brand of whiskey that only a gentleman of his class could afford or find enjoyable. Or about someone's grandpappy.

Good story.

 

I have to say I have a passion for these Willie Morris type Southern stories.

This one:

Good story but no train whistles and little about food. All great southern stories need to have train whistles in the background and lots of high fat foods.

Certainly not Thompson's doing but it was a little misleading of ESPN to put up an interview of Varner done in 1998.

 

Another great effort...

I'm sick of him writing about food too...

With the truly great writers when they get to a level where nobody tells them "no" anymore, that's what sometimes happens. They start doing whatever they want and the results are not great...

I flash back to when Rick Reilly started only writing about golf.

This was a great story, one of the best things Thompson has written in awhile.

 

I wouldn't say Thompson got to him..

IMO - which amounts to shit against many others here in terms of writing - this story seemed like a really long, flowery way to say: Anyone hoping Billy Varner ever opens up about Paul Byrant is SOL, cause he has a dementia.

I got that Varner was trusted by Bryant and privy to a lot, little of which was detailed in that story or anywhere else.

Hell, Thompson didn't even get the story of how Varner and Bryant met, according to Jack Rutledge. Thompson got the story from Varner's wife, but was that it? 'Cause Rutledge's comments made it sound like there was more to it ...


What I got from the story:
Those who knew Paul Bryant are dead, dying or demented.
And it appears we will likely never know Paul Bryant as well as we would have liked. Especially, compared to the legend - the UofA sanitized version - that is the Bear Bryant.

I read the story, but I felt cheated.