By the time the University of Hawai'i football team tees it up against Alabama Saturday, the Warriors will have gained at least a bus-window appreciation for the exalted regard in which the state holds the late Paul "Bear" Bryant.

Never mind that the Crimson Tide's legendary football coach died in 1983, before all but a handful of the Warriors' fifth-year seniors were even born. His phenomenal hold on the state is as strong — and visible — as ever.

Just getting to Friday's walk-through practice and Saturday's season-opening game will be enough to impress upon visitors from Hawai'i just how large of a shadow Bryant continues to cast over the state.

Namely, that it will be hard to go more than a few blocks in Tuscaloosa, site of Saturday's game, without some reminder of the coach who led the Crimson Tide to six national championships. "For our guys, it's not gonna be like anything they have ever seen," UH coach June Jones said.

Consider that on the ride from Birmingham to Tuscaloosa down I-20/59 the Warriors' bus will pass Legion Field and its statue of Bryant, then the Elmwood Cemetery, where there is a well-directed path to his grave for those who make the pilgrimage. Some still leaving Coke and Golden Flake potato chips, products he endorsed.

For Bryant's funeral, it is said, 10,000 people turned out on the streets of Tuscaloosa and another 500,000 — or more — lined the 50-plus miles of interstate to see the 5-mile-long motorcade.

Coach Bryant — for the reverent never use just the name — gave Alabama more than bowl games and Southeastern Conference championships. The school's football success in a state without major league sports teams gave folks of all social strata a sense of pride and something to pound its chest about in a time (the 1960s) when Alabama was best known on the evening news and in headlines around the world for bloody civil rights struggles.

"Poverty, indifference to public education, entrenched racial (problems) all vanished for a couple of hours on a Saturday afternoon during football season," said Rich Megraw, a professor of American Studies at UA.

In Tuscaloosa, home of the University of Alabama, there is the Bryant Bridge, the Bryant Hall dormitory, the Mary Harmon Bryant Building (named after his wife), Bryant High School, Bryant Drive and the Paul "W." Bryant Museum ("Where the season never ends"). In addition to the larger-than-life bronze bust of the "Bear," the museum also features a Waterford crystal replica of his tradesmark houndstooth hat. All towered over, of course, by Bryant-Denny Stadium, site of Saturday's game.

"When you talk about Coach Bryant (in Tuscaloosa), you have to be specific," said Taylor Watson, curator of the Bryant Museum. That's not counting the J.B. grocery store, which has a houndstooth hat emblazoned on a side wall. And, in nearby Northport, there is the Bryant Bank.

But it isn't just buildings that they name after the man who retired as college football's winningest coach with a 323-85-17 record (since surpassed). The UH game will mark a gathering of the Bryant Namesake club. Museum officials say their records show approximately 400 people — and some animals, including a dog named "Bear" — whose names honor the late Alabama coach. Most of the Bears, Pauls, Paulas, Bryants and Williams will be in attendance Saturday when another season begins.

For sale in the museum are some of the 35 books — five printed in the past year — on Bryant.

For as the Warriors will soon come to understand, "The Bear" still looms large in Alabama.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.