Three star college football players and friends. One dream. Upon graduating from the University of Alabama, they vow that whoever gets the first head coach job will bring the other two along with them. Thus began their quest to be the winningest partnership of coaches the sport had ever seen. Only one lived to see their dream realized. Their story remained untold. Until now.
Written by Coach Carney Laslie's granddaughter, Henry-Keefe, A Tide of Dreams is not as much about the game of college football as it is about friendship and 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. Spanning the years 1930 - 1961, the account follows the trajectory of one of football's most legendary coaches, Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant of Alabama fame, and his former teammates and coaching partners, Coach Carney Laslie and Coach Frank Moseley, starting from their early days at Alabama as players, to WWII, where the three play a key role in helping to develop the Navy's most transformational program, known as the Navy V-5 Pre-Flight training, which used sports, with football as their 'secret weapon', to train the next generation of Navy pilots. Postwar, the three take the foundational elements they implemented during the war to the University of Maryland, Kentucky, and Texas A&M, where they struggle through both the growing pains of the sport and those of their partnership, with Bryant as head coach, and Laslie and Moseley his faithful, able assistants, pilot, wingman, and navigator respectively, as they strive to create championship teams with an eye always on a return to Alabama.
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 not only the sport but what it cost for those who became the face of its success.
