Three friends and college football teammates with a dream to be the winningest partnership of coaches the sport had ever seen.
Upon graduating from the University of Alabama, the three pledge to each other that whoever gets a Head Coach job first will bring the other two along with him. When Pearl Harbour is bombed, their dream is sidelined, and instead the three join an elite group of football coaching talent, 800 from 20k who applied from around the country, to help implement the Navy's revolutionary new physical training program for Navy pilots. Post-war, when Maryland taps Bryant as their head coach, true to their vow he taps Laslie and Moseley as his top assistants, and their quest begins - from Maryland, to the University of Kentucky, then to Texas A&M, always with a eye towards returning to their alma mater. Bryant and Laslie finally arrive back at Alabama in 1958, becoming the most successful and collaborative partnership known in the history of the sport. Not only a football story, it is also a story of Americana, and like the account told in Seabisquit, a new vantage point from which to tell an inspirational story. Of how friendship can serve to help tame inner demons, guide the power of talents, and achieve mutual success.
Written by Carey Henry Keefe, the granddaughter of Coach Carney Laslie, known as the right-hand man of Coach Paul Bear Bryant, A Tide of Dreams is less a story about the sport of football than it is about how friendship can serve to tame inner demons and guide the power of talents; of loyalty, aspirations and dreams, and the intriguing blend of three personalities who loved the game.
Told against the backdrop of the history of the sport and the nation, the account spans over three decades, from 1930 - 1961. This poignant and behind-the-scenes account not only gives dimension and understanding to one of college football's most influential and colorful personalities, but it speaks to the crucial elements of what it takes to be successful: a team. Never forgotten in the narrative is the ever important role of the families, their stories woven throughout using personal letters and diaries made accessible to the author, as well as a rich collection of photos from both private and public collections, creating an inside and fascinating look at the sport and what it cost for those who became the face of its success.
