He’s No Bear, but Field Is Definitely All Bruin

Twenty-five years ago, Bob Field of Elk City, Ark., broke into the coaching profession under the dad-gummest college football coach there ever was, Paul “Bear” Bryant.

He never became a head coach himself.

Now, Rose Bowl watch on his wrist, 2 o’clock on a Westwood afternoon, Field poses for a group portrait with Bob Toledo and the rest of a reorganized coaching staff, then sits on the upper bleacher of the UCLA practice field, taking stock.

“I have not been as aggressive in terms of pursuing head coaching jobs as a lot of assistant coaches are, and that’s just my personal preference.

“Do I ever want to be a head coach? Who knows, if the right job came along, if it were the

right situation, I would be excited about it. Am I out there applying for head coaching jobs, have I over the years been out there applying for head coaching jobs, trying to get a head coaching job? No.”

UCLA could just as easily have named Field over Toledo as its new coach, once the choice came down to the two Bobs. This could have been his staff photo.

Field, though, having been elevated to assistant head coach after 14 seasons as UCLA’s defensive coordinator, feels this way about it: “If I never achieve the position of a head coach, I could leave the profession now, or 15 years from now, and be fulfilled. I don’t need to be a head coach to be fulfilled.”

It took UCLA a few weeks to find Terry Donahue’s successor. An offer was made to Gary Barnett of Northwestern, based almost solely on 12 weeks of coaching.

Bob Field has been at UCLA for 18 years.

He is a holdover on a staff that now has a new offensive coordinator (Alan Borges), defensive coordinator (Rocky Long), wide receivers coach (Ron Caragher), running backs coach (Skip Peete), offensive line coach (Steve Marshall) and defensive backfield coach (Marc Dove), as well as a new man running the program.

UCLA is lucky to have Field, and will be lucky to keep

him.

Assistant head coach?

“I think it’s kind of like being the Vice President,” he jokes. “Nobody’s quite sure what you do. And I think that’s good, because they don’t know if you’re doing a good job or not.”

In the meantime, Field supports Toledo fully. In fact, the two Bobs made a pact to do just that, should either be promoted.

Field, 48, has worked for some of the best. He played defensive back at Arkansas for a coach, Frank Broyles, who knew of Field’s interest in becoming one himself. One day, Broyles inquired: “Where would you like to start?”

“How about with Bear Bryant?” asked Field, 22 at the time.

“Boy,” Broyles said. “You set your goals high.”

Broyles would see Bryant soon at a convention. When he got there, a message from the Alabama coach was already waiting for the Arkansas coach, asking if by chance he had any young hotshots available. Talk about fate.

“He told Coach Broyles, ‘You guys just had three great seasons, and our last three haven’t been so hot,’ ” Field recalls.

Legend has it that a 1970 loss to USC, when the Bear stood there watching Sam “Bam” Cunningham go over, under and around his Crimson Tide, was what finally persuaded Bryant to recruit more black athletes. Field joined the staff in 1971, as Alabama’s reawakening began.

Bryant hired him sight unseen.

“We corresponded some. Then, around the end of July, I was invited to play in a golf tournament in Arkansas, in a little town there called Warren, and I found out Coach Bryant would be there also. I said, ‘Hey, I work for the man now. I ought to meet him.’

“When I finish my round, I look over and there’s Coach Bryant, in a pair of green pants. He and another guy are putting their clubs in a car. I go running over to introduce myself, ‘Hello, Coach Bryant, I’m Bob Field,’ and I’m pumping this old man’s hand.

“It was the wrong man. He wasn’t Coach Bryant. The other guy was.

“Coach Bryant says in that voice of his, ‘Hell, I’m old, but I ain’t old as HIM.’ ”

At an eight-cabin motel, Field was invited over to chat with Bryant. When he got there, the Bear’s bed was littered with stacks of $1 bills in $100 wrappers. Turned out the mint had made a mistake, and Bryant had sent another aide from bank to bank, buying up all the error currency he could lay his hands on.

Bryant told his new assistant, “I got a hobby of collectin’ money.”

Field has nothing but fond memories of Alabama, of coaching the freshman team, of Bryant hovering in his tower “like an eagle” over practice, of being warned never to make the Bear so angry that you heard his chain go clank, which meant Bryant had unhooked his safety bar and was coming down from the tower to bawl somebody out.

Those head coaches, they have a lot of funny habits.