BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR:  "CNN20": January 26, 1983, and the state of Alabama loses a football legend. Have a look here.</s>ANNOUNCER: Bringing you the world for 20 years, this is CNN.</s>JIM HUBER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I remember Bear Bryant as one of the most mythic personalities in all of sports, of a man much, much larger than life. He seemed to grow as the years went by into a legendary status. I think he was a great organizer, I think he was a great motivator. He probably was the best college football coach ever to come along.</s>UNIDENTIFIED ANCHOR: All of college football, and particularly Alabama citizens, felt a very real sense of loss today.</s>HUBER: It doesn't seem possible that it has been since 1983 that Bryant has been gone. It completely shut down an entire state. Alabama was in mourning from one side to the other, from top to bottom, from state line to state line. It was a state funeral of the highest order. It was was an amazing time. One of the great things of about Bryant's coaching was he took guys of very average ability and turned them into above-average athletes just by adding that extra element of respect and depth that he gave them through his coaching. I knew a lot of the players who played for him over the years and they just held him in such remarkable awe. He deserved to be this enormous creation, and yet he was much bigger than all of that. He really was a Paul Bunyan-esque kind of personality.
CNN20: Coach Bear Bryant Dies, January 26, 1983