A Tide of Dreams: The Untold Backstory of Coach Paul 'Bear' Bryant and Coaches Carney Laslie and Frank Moseley

When Marine Sgt. Fernando Martinez found an Alabama national championship ring while scuba diving off the coast of Hawaii, it took him 35 years before to locate the owner of the ring whose initials C-G-L were engraved in the band and return it to the family. With its return, Carey Henry Keefe, Coach Carney G. Laslie's granddaughter, set out on a journey of her own. To tell the story of the ring.

Before the three Alabama football standouts and teammates - Bear Bryant, Carney Laslie and Frank Moseley - left the University of Alabama for their first coaching jobs, they knew they had the ability to become the winningest team of coaches in the sport. With that dream motivating them they vowed to each other that whoever got the first head coach job would bring the other two along with him.

Their passion for winning guided them early on. WWII fortified and deepened their brotherhood, their promise and dream given a larger purpose. Finally, in1981, Coach Bear Bryant became the winningest coach in college football history leaving a legacy that has stood the test of time. But beyond that accomplishment lies a deeper story. About a journey now complete. And a promise kept.

After his record-breaking win, Bryant acknowledged only two people in his post-game comments: Carney Laslie and Frank Moseley. Sports commentators could only identify the two as "dead, past assistants." A Tide of Dreams: The Untold Story of Coaches Paul Bear Bryant, Carney Laslie and Frank Moseley is their story.

Football is the setting. WWII is the test. And Alabama provides the destination. But at the core of this narrative is a universal truth about the power of promises made and kept despite the passage of time, circumstance, and longevity of the people who made them.

After eight years of research delving into library and newspaper archives, conducting personal interviews, and combing through pages of personal diaries and letters, Henry-Keefe has constructed a seamless, fascinating narrative of the journey these three men made together through some of the most tumultuous and formative years of our nation's history and the sport itself. The three were on a mission. To accomplish their dream. To fulfill a promise.

During the years of her research, Henry-Keefe also discovered their role in a little-known piece of WWII history. What is considered the Navy's most ambitious and transformational program of the war when 800 elite coaches from across the nation, including Bryant and Laslie, chosen from 20,000 that applied, were fast-tracked for officer training at the Naval Academy to implement the Navy's revolutionary new pre-flight training program, using sports, and in particular football, to help shape the next generation of Naval aviator pilots.

The ring found. A promise kept. And now, their story told. A Tide of Dreams.

Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Silverspeak Publishing, LLC
Published: 10/01/2022
ISBN: 9781646636877
Pages: 412
Weight: 1.70lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 1.06d