As a boy growing up in Tuscaloosa, Ala., Walt Maddox stood along Route 82 in 1983 to watch a white hearse pass with the body of Bear Bryant, the revered University of Alabama football coach.
Almost 24 years later, Maddox was Tuscaloosa’s mayor when a City Hall meeting about prekindergarten paused so people could crowd a balcony to gawk at the convoy that heralded the arrival of Alabama’s new coach, Nick Saban.
“When Coach Saban came,” Maddox said the other day, “I don’t think anyone who was being honest with themselves would say he would replicate Bryant, or that he would exceed Bryant.