Butch, the Bear and the Houndstooth Hat, Revisited – AL.com

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Birmingham tailor Butch Baldone, right, was Alabama football coach Paul "Bear" Bryant's tailor for more than 20 years, and Baldone believes he was the first to introduce Bryant to his signature houndstooth hat. (Birmingham News file photos)
Google "Bear Bryant houndstooth hat," and one of the first stories that pops up is this one: "Paul 'Bear' Bryant went shopping for a new wardrobe and found a tailor-made friend."
It happens a lot, but especially these times of year — either on Coach Bryant's birthday on Sept. 11, or the anniversary of his death on Jan. 26 — folks call up Birmingham tailor Butch Baldone or stop by his family's 81-year-old men's clothing store in downtown Birmingham and ask him about the time when Baldone introduced the larger-than-life Alabama football coach to his legendary houndstooth hat.
"I'll be out somewhere and they look at me like they know me from somewhere," Baldone says. "And they'll say, 'You're the guy that gave Coach Bryant that houndstooth hat, aren't you?"
It's a story that the 74-year-old Baldone never tires of telling, though, and one that gets better as the years roll by.
"I tell you one thing: I miss him, and I'm not talking about the football," Baldone says. "There was more to Coach Bryant than football."
So today, on the 33th anniversary of Paul William "Bear" Bryant's death in 1983, let's go back in the archives to hear Butch Baldone tell the story of Coach Bryant and his famous houndstooth hat once more.
Here it is:
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