Hayden Fry's Ill-fated Fishing Expedition

[From our friends at RBR.  So monumentally bumped. -- Ed.]

Greetings yon inhabitants of the frozen north. Kleph here from fellow SB Nation site Roll Bama Roll.

For the past few months I've been reviewing books on Alabama football as part of our effort to survive the interminable  horror of the off season. Currently I'm going through a tome on the career of Wallace Wade who was the coach at Alabama from 1923 to 1930 and led the Crimson Tide to three national championships.

Not that I really believe you care too much about all that. But wedged in the narrative was a story told by Frank Howard, a player on Alabama's 1930 National Championship team and later head coach at Clemson. Turns out he and Iowa coach Hayden Fry once went on an impromptu fishing adventure. And that story I thought you might enjoy...

A bunch of us from around the country got invited every year to a coaches golf outing. one year the event was in Arkansas where a river ran right alongside the golf course. The organizers, knowing I didn't play golf, arranged for me to go fishing down by the river. Now that I liked. On my way to meet the fishing guide, I ran into Coach Fry. He said it sounded like fun and came along.

When we got to the river, we found we were going to drift the river in a canoe, not a boat. After we got under way, the guide told Coach Fry to pick a lure out of the tackle box and tie it on the end of his line. I guess Hayden figured, "the bigger the better!" He picked out a big ol' spinner lure and cast it out with all his might. 

You'll never believe this, but the thing sailed a mile high, went up in a tree alongside the bank, and hooked a squirrel! The squirrel tumbled out of the tree, splashed into the river, and Coach Fry stood up in the canoe to reel him in. Between him standing and me dying of laughter, the canoe tipped over. We're lucky we didn't all drown.

Soaking wet, we managed to make it to the river bank. When we climbed up, we found ourselves on the edge of one of the fairways of the golf course. And who is coming down in the next forsome but the Bear. "Frank, what in the world happened to you?" Coach Bryant asked. "Well, Bear, I'll tell you," I answered. "Everybody's always told me that you could walk on water, so I thought I'd try it myself.