Bear Bryant's last game: Museum exhibit focuses on 1982 Liberty Bowl

In December 1982, kids flocked to the arcade and played a new video game called Pac-Man. Music fans walked into record stores and bought Michael Jackson's just-released "Thriller" album. And in Washington, D.C., the president pitched his new program, Reaganomics, in hopes of easing the nation's recession.

While people said hello to plenty of new things nearly 40 years ago, the college football world in general and Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in particular, prepared to say goodbye to a legendary coach, Paul W. "Bear" Bryant.

A new exhibit at the Paul W. Bryant Museum on the UA campus focuses on Dec. 29, 1982, when Bryant led the Crimson Tide onto the football field for his final game as a coach in a 21-15 win over the University of Illinois in front of a sold-out crowd of 54,123 at the Liberty Bowl in Memphis, Tennessee.

Olivia Arnold, director of the Bryant Museum, said the museum is always looking for fresh historical perspectives on Bryant's legacy and the 40th anniversary of his final game presented such an opportunity.

"It was a significant enough milestone that we wanted to commemorate that. Any kind of anniversary is an opportunity to show how coach Bryant's legacy is still around," she said.

The exhibit includes video highlights of the game, Liberty Bowl programs and ticket stubs, the Liberty Bowl trophy, two special editions of The Tuscaloosa News commemorating Bryant's final game and the shoe UA player Peter Kim used to kick an extra point that proved to be the final point scored by a Bryant-coached team.

But the centerpiece of the exhibit is the distinctive green parka with a fur-lined hood that Bryant wore on the sidelines. It's the first time the parka has been on public display, Arnold said.

The green parka was a necessity, not just a fashion statement for Bryant, who was known for his usual sideline attire of a houndstooth hat and a sports jacket.

"It was very, very, very cold," Arnold said of that night in Memphis, with some media reports saying the wind chill dipped to 8 degrees during the game.

Because of the park's uniqueness and since the only time Bryant wore it was during the 1982 Liberty Bowl, Arnold reached out to Marc Tyson, Bryant's grandson, to see if he knew where it was for its possible inclusion in the exhibit.

Arnold said Tyson's simple response was, " 'I have it. Do you need to borrow it?'

"He had taken very, very good care of it. It had great sentimental value to him. It was his granddaddy's," she said.

Arnold said former Bryant players who have visited the Liberty Bowl exhibit become emotional when they see that big green parka.

"For some of them, that's what he was wearing the last time that they saw him alive, so seeing it packs a lot of emotion," she said.

The exhibit also includes a tan ballcap with the UA logo just like the one Bryant wore that night. Arnold said the cap on display at the museum belonged to longtime athletic department employee Jeff Coleman, the namesake of Coleman Coliseum.

Also on display is the handwritten depth chart for UA's offensive and defensive squads for the Liberty Bowl matchup with Illinois.

"When you see coach Bryant on the sidelines during that game, that depth chart was what he was holding in his hands," said Arnold, who has worked at the museum since 2002 and became its director in 2021 after the retirement of Ken Gaddy.

Illinois, led by future NFL quarterback Tony Eason, threatened to take the lead late in the fourth quarter, but the Tide was able to run the clock out after an interception by linebacker Eddie Lowe. Alabama intercepted seven passes that night, including three picks by defensive back Jeremiah Castille, the game's most valuable player.

Quarterback Walter Lewis led the Tide offense, which scored on runs by halfback Rickey Moore, wide receiver Jesse Bendross and fullback Craig "Touchdown" Turner.

The Bear's last season

The 1982 season started with great promise for UA and Bryant. The Tide was ranked No. 4 in the nation and cruised to a 5-0 record, which including a 42-21 walloping of eventual national champion Penn State at Legion Field in Birmingham. But the next week, Alabama lost to Tennessee in Knoxville, Bryant's first loss to the Vols since 1970.

Three straight home losses followed — to LSU and Auburn in Birmingham and one to Southern Mississippi in Tuscaloosa, which broke Bryant's 57-game winning streak at Bryant-Denny Stadium.

After the 23-22 loss to archrival Auburn, the game in which Bo Jackson scored the winning touchdown for the Tigers, retirement rumors began to swirl around the 69-year-old Bryant.

He confirmed those rumors at a Dec. 15, 1982, news conference.

"I love the players, but in my opinion they deserve better coaching than they've been getting from me, and that's why I'm stepping down, in an effort to see they get better coaching from someone else," Bryant said.

While the 1982 team's results weren't up to Bryant's standards, the Tide earned a bid to the Liberty Bowl and finished 8-4 with the win over Illinois.

He planned to stay on as UA's athletic director but Bryant died of a heart attack on Jan. 26, 1983, about four weeks after coaching his final game.

Bryant ended his coaching career with 323 wins, 85 losses and 17 ties. He coached at the University of Maryland, the University of Kentucky and Texas A&M before he returned to Tuscaloosa in 1958 to coach his alma mater. He won six national championships, 13 SEC titles and three Coach of the Year honors during his 25 seasons at UA.

In 1986, that last award became the Paul “Bear” Bryant Coach of the Year Award. The award honors Bryant's legacy by recognizing coaching excellence while raising money to support the mission of the American Heart Association through event sponsorships, an auction and individual charitable donations.

The Bryant Museum opened on Oct. 8, 1988, in Tuscaloosa with the goal of commemorating the history of athletics at the University of Alabama, with an emphasis on Bryant and the school's storied football tradition. In addition to the Liberty Bowl exhibit, the museum currently has exhibits dedicated to the first 25 years of UA softball and a permanent display detailing the integration of Crimson Tide athletics.

The exhibit on Bryant's final game will remain on display at the museum through the summer of 2023.

The museum, 300 Paul W. Bryant Drive, is open 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. Admission is $5 for adults and $3 for children. Children younger than 5, museum members and UA faculty, staff and students are admitted free.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Museum's exhibit focuses on Paul 'Bear' Bryant's last football game