Out and About Kentucky Style: Butts & Bear Bryant

It was 10:25 in the morning when Atlanta insurance salesman George Burnett decided he needed to call a friend at Communications International, a public relations company in the same town. For the 41-year-old father of five it would be a phone call that would change his life … and not necessarily in a good way.

Gary West is an author and News Journal columnist.

Burnett, dialed Jackson 5-3536, on his rotary phone and immediately got a busy signal. Not to be deterred, he tried it again and again until over a couple of electronic beeps he could hear two men having a conversation. He would have probably hung up, but once he heard one of the individuals refer to the other as “Wally” and then back to him as “Bear”, suddenly his curiosity got the best of him.

It was September 13, 1962.

There was no way on earth that Burnett’s call had become crisscrossed into a private talk between two of the most famous football coaches in America, Wally Butts at Georgia and Paul “Bear” Bryant at Alabama.

But it had happened.

For the next sixteen minutes Burnett listened while scribbling what he was hearing on a scratch pad. Perhaps he should have hung up, but no one would have done that. Are you kidding?

The opening games for both teams was only eight days away. To be played in Birmingham’s Legion Field, Alabama was a 15 to 17 point favorite over the Bulldogs, and though Butts was no longer the football coach, his role as athletic director put him in a knowledgeable position.

Alabama was coming off of an undefeated season and a national title. Georgia had finished 3-7 that included a 32-6 loss to the Crimson Tide.

As the Atlanta insurance salesman listened, he scratched and scribbled as fast as he could, misspelling names while trying to decipher the football lingo be-tween the two legendary coaches.

Butts hurriedly gave Bryant an outline of Georgia plays and defensive sets, even telling the Crimson Tide coach that if quarterback Larry Rakestraw moved one of his feet back as he reached under center, it would be a pass. Burnett’s notes showed that Butts added the Bulldogs would not quick-kick and before the two hung up he heard Bear tell Wally he would call him at home Sunday night.

Burnett was stunned. He wasn’t sure what to do next. In the meantime he placed the notes in a drawer in his bedroom.

Eight days later the Bear and his Alabama team walloped Georgia 35-0.

Not only was Bulldog head coach Johnny Griffith miffed about how his team had been steam rolled, but so were some of his players.

“They seemed to know every play we were running,” offered quarterback Rakestraw. An offensive lineman said the Alabama defense would call out the Georgia play as they set up to snap the ball.

Not only was the 35-0 score revealing, but so were the offensive statistics: rushing 37 yards, passing 7 for 19 and 79 yards.

Alabama, out to defend its national championship from the year before, introduced to the football world Joe Naismith. What a beginning: 10 of 14 passes for 179 yards and three touchdowns. It was backed up by 273 yards rushing.

Bryant’s team went on to a 10-1 record with a late season 7-6 loss to Georgia Tech as the only blemish.

George Burnett talked to a friend who suggested he tell his story first to Georgia coach Griffith. From there it would only get bigger …  much bigger. Once the largest circulated weekly magazine in America, The Saturday Evening Post, ran the story, even readers who didn’t follow football, were following the biggest sports scandal to hit the news since the 1919 Black Sox baseball scandal when the Chicago White Sox were accused to throwing the World Series against the Cincinnati Reds.

The March 23, 1963, magazine’s title said it all. “The Story of a College Football Fix.” Involving two of the biggest football names in the country, it launched investigations from every direction, even the FBI. Three days later Butts filed a $10 million dollar lawsuit against Curtis Publishing the owner of the magazine explaining his side of the story.

No one denied the phone conversation, nor the time of day it took place. Lawyers argued however, Burnett misinterpreted the football “stuff” the two coaches were discussing. It was also brought up that he had written two bad checks earlier in his life in an attempt to discredit him. The story about Burnett and his WWII service quickly got out. He had survived, being shot down and losing part of his left hand. Still he was under such attacks for what he heard the two famous coaches talking about that eventually he and his family moved back to his home state, Texas.

Butts offered that coaches talk to each other all of the time. It’s a common practice he said.

“Bear and I talked football,” he said. “He knows more about our team than I do. I rarely saw the team practice since I was no longer the coach.”

As big as Bear Bryant and Wally Butts were, especially in the South, The Saturday Evening Post was a national publication, around since 1897, which featured 321 covers by Norman Rockwell.

The case went all the way to the Supreme Courts where it ruled against the magazine and in favor of Butts. Eventually the Georgia icon settled for $460,000 and shortly after, Bryant accepted $300,000. It was big bucks in the early 60s.

The lawsuits and negative publicity against The Saturday Evening Post, some said, led to the magazine’s demise. Competing against “Look” and “Life” publication and the invasion of television also played a role.

While Bear Bryant became to this day one of the most famous coaches in American history, his connection to the University of Kentucky as its football coach, is still talked about.

What most Kentuckians don’t know is Butt’s tie to our state. For three years, 1935, 36 and 37, he coached Male High School in Louisville to a 23-4-3 record.  At Georgia he won the national championship in 1942, and in spite of a 11-0 record in 1946 the team ranked second. Retiring from coaching in 1960 he finished with a 140-86-9 record, including 5-2-1 in bowl games. He coached Frank Sink-wish in 1942 to a Heisman trophy. Charlie Trippi and Fran Tarkenton were two other greats who played under Butts.

When the national championship game between Georgia and Alabama was played back on January 10, 2022 in Indianapolis there’s a good chance Georgia’s Kirby Smart and Bama’s Nick Sabin talked before their game. But there’s a better chance they didn’t discuss sets and formation. Perhaps dealing with media and saying good things about each was more in order.

There’s no question sixty years ago that the Atlanta insurance salesman over-heard a football talking conversation between two coaches. Decades later the question still remains … did Bear call Wally at his house the following Sunday night?

There’s no excuse, get up, get out and get going! Gary P. West can be reached at westgarypdeb@gmail.com.