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Page 3 • Monday, December 9, 2002
9 ,
Made-for- television movie to debut Dec. 14
By Michael Crow
THE BATTALION
I In the summer of 1954, legendary coach Paul
‘Bear” Bryant took his struggling Texas A&M
■ootball team to Junction, Texas for its pre-season
|amp. The drought-plagued town of Junction was
ideal backdrop for the infamous “Bryant hell
iweek” that preceded the A&M football program’s
etum to national prominence in the mid 1950s.
Of the 111 players that initially made the trip,
only 35 remained after 10 days of grueling prac
tices, according to the book. The Junction Boys.
nose men who did return as members of Bryant’s
bam led the Aggies to an undefeated season and the
fouthwest Conference title two years later in 1956.
The torturous week the team spent in Junction
udthe success that followed are depicted in Jim
Dent’s book. The Junction Boys. On Dec. 14 the
fSPN cable network will retell Dent’s story in a
Kature film that shares the book’s title. The
mmction Boys is the network’s second venture into
leature films and its second look at a legendary dis-
fiplinarian. ESPN’s first made-for-television movie,
< Season on the Brink, explored the 1986 season of
e buffet Uijjonner Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight.
I The Junction Boys, filmed during a four-week
Span in Australia, pulls no punches regarding the
joaching practices of “The Bear,” played by Tom
Berenger of Platoon and Major League.
I Berenger said he has long been a sports fan and
jcas eager to take on the role of the legendary coach.
“(Bryant) was just so interesting. He seemed to
uatcf - ; eally be colorful, with his country way about him,
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mdhe was just Mr. Football,” Berenger said. “I
oyed the story, and when I got the role, my wife’s
nother who lives in Alabama probably called
veryone in the state.”
To prepare for the part, Berenger said he stud-
ed Dent’s book and consulted some of Bryant’s
iOrmer colleagues at the University of Alabama.
Oi Berenger and the film’s cast and crew worked 12
nd 13-hour days to complete filming within the
]iven time constraints they were given. Still, he
laid the experience was well worth the long hours
nd hectic schedule.
“I don’t care how exhausting it was,” Berenger
said, “I had a great time, and the script was so
. I thought “you’d have to be an idiot to screw
up something this interesting.’”
Much of the intrigue surrounding the story of
The Junction Boys centers on Coach Bryant’s no-
holds-barred methods and his relentless coaching
style. According to Dent, “The Bear” earned his
nickname by once agreeing to wrestle a carnival
bear for a dollar. Bryant was ruthless toward his
players during the pre-season camp, intending to
discover who the leaders on his team were.
The coach’s controversial techniques included
denying his players water during their workouts in
Junction’s 100-plus degree temperatures.
According to sportsjones.com, Bryant head
butted tackle Henry Clark after a blown assign
ment, leaving the player on the ground, dazed and
holding a broken nose.
Dr. Arnold LeUnes, A&M professor of sports
psychology, attended the University during Bryant’s
stay and has studied some of the coach’s practices.
He described Bryant as an authoritarian figure,
reminiscent of a entirely different era in coaching.
“He was strict, enforcing iron discipline,”
LeUnes said. “At the time, a coach could get away
with pretty much anything. You wouldn’t find
something like that today.”
According to espn.com, players who elected to
leave the ‘boot camp’ could collect bus fare from
Coach Bryant for their return. Still, most of those
who left were too afraid to ask for their free ticket
home, finding other means of transportation. Some
players ran off during the night, hitchhiking back to
College Station to avoid the wrath of “The Bear.”
Rob Roy Spiller, who worked for the bus station
in Junction at the time, recalls regularly arriving to
groups of Aggie football players seeking their free
dom from Bryant’s camp.
“Where would y’all like to go this morning?”
Spiller would ask the players. Most often, he said
one of the players would respond, “We don’t care.
First bus out.”
Still, while Bryant ran off most of his team
using various coaching methods, the success of the
1956 team and later achievements by team mem
bers offer some support for his having either creat
ed or identified leaders.
Two players from the team. Jack Pardee and
Gene Stallings, went on to become coaching leg
ends themselves, with Pardee twice named NFL
Coach of the Year and Stallings winning a national
i mmm ~mmm wmm, 1
PHOTO COURTESY OF ESPN.COM
Tom Berenger stars as former Aggie coach, Paul “Bear” Bryant, in ESPN’s made-for-television version of The
Junction Boys. The movie, which follows the legendary Junction practices, will air Dec. 14 at 8:00 p.m. CST.
collegiate championship with the University of
Alabama. Dennis Goehring, one of the players
Bryant tried hardest to run off, became an All-
American and later established a prosperous busi
ness career in the College Station area.
“Bryant used Junction as a weeding out
process,” LeUnes said. “I think, somehow or anoth
er, that character that Bryant was looking for won
out, because he selected some awfully good human
beings with that group.”
Billy Pickard, associate athletic director for the
Aggie football team, was employed as a trainer dur
ing the Junction practices. Pickard said he has
heard several different renditions of the Junction
experience, but remembers 72 players leaving
College Station for Junction and 27 returning at the
end of the week.
“The number one thing to impress on people is
this occurred 48 years ago,” Pickard said. “We
didn't have tape recorders and you didn't have
video to go back and dig it out. You’ll hear several
different stories.”
Pickard said Bryant was no-nonsense, but fair
— especially when it came to players who wanted
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“(The team’s center) went to climb the fence to
leave, and Coach Bryant hollered ‘don't go,’ but he
did,” Pickard said. “Later, he wanted to get back
on the team, but Coach wouldn't let him. He told
him, ‘once you quit there, you’re going quit on the
goal line.’”
True to legend, surviving the Junction practices
was not an easy feat. For Pickard, caring for players
on limited sleep was the most difficult part of the
practice week.
“I think the thing that stood out most was our
living conditions,” he said. “In the 10 days we
(trainers) were there, we seldom slept more than
two or three hours a day, either from taking care of
hurt players or running around doing something.
The players slept a little more than that, but we
were always working.”
In addition to enduring “Bryant hell week,” the
remaining players garnered achievement in their
personal lives as well, Pickard said.
“Of all the things you have to remember is the
fact that those (players) that came back have all
been successful at whatever they chose.”
:n
Graduates i
you're invited to
Block Party
UJed-n Dec- Ifl 5 : 3 □ - 7 : 3 □ Pd
The Clayton U- Williams Jr-
Alumni Center
www - AggisNetwork - com
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