Suffering Fueled His Greatness: John Hannah on What It Took to Be the Best Offensive Lineman of All Time

On this episode of Our American Stories, Sports Illustrated called him the greatest offensive lineman of all time, but he certainly wasn't born with that title—it took a lot of hard work. Here's John Hannah himself sharing the story of the two moments in his life that pushed him toward excellence: one with his dad, the other with legendary Alabama football coach Bear Bryant.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
To search for the American Stories podcast, go to the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Our next story comes to us from the guy Sports
Illustrated said was the greatest offensive lineman of all time.

(00:34):
John Hannah was a two time All American at the
University of Alabama. Was selected fourth overall by the New
England Patriots in the nineteen seventy three NFL Draft. Hannah
received nine Pro Bowl selections and was inducted into the
Pro Football Hall of Fame in nineteen ninety one. Hannah
shared this story first with eighteen nineteen News, a multimedia

(00:58):
company with the state of Alabama. Here's John Hannah sharing
two moments in his life that pushed him towards excellence.
One story is from his youth, another from his time
spent under legendary coach Bear Bryant in Alabama. Let's take
a listen.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
In the fourth grade, I was nine years old and
Canton and there are two playgrounds and they were on terrace.
There's one upper terrace and playground down below. And I
was up up down on the lower terrace playing kickball
with a bunch of guys, and all of a sudden,
about seven or eight guys on the top of the

(01:37):
top terrace started serenading me with a song. And it
went like this, It says, fatty fatty two by four
can't get through the kitchen door, and so it hurt.
So I go home, told my mom about it. Mom
called my dad. Now you know, most parents would either

(01:59):
call the principal to call the parents. Dad didn't do
any of that. He was different. The boy that was
coaching the sixth, seventh and eighth grade football team had
played for dead. So Dad called him up asked him
if I could play for him. He said sure. So
that night Dad comes in, he says, John, I talked
to the junior high coach and it ain't going to

(02:22):
be easy. It's going to be hard. But if you
can go out for that sixth, seventh and eighth grade team,
I believe you can do it. And if you go
out there and make that team, they'll no longer call
you fatty fatty two before anymore. So I went out
as a nine year old and played. Not only that,
want to start in position first game broke my nose.

(02:47):
Dad wanted to pull me from the game. I told
him no, and he said, well why not. I said,
fatty fatty two before. So the whole first part of
my life when it was football, it was because I
wanted to be somebody besides Fatty ready two by four.
So that was kind of what got me going into football. Well,
Coach Bryant, you know, was a legend way before I

(03:09):
got there. But immediately before I got there, Alabama was
going through some struggling times, you know, and struggling for
them at six and four, so you know, it was
it was, it was. It wasn't a great time to
go to Alabama. So the biggest lesson that Coach Bryant
taught me was was that you can go further than

(03:32):
you ever thought you could. I remember my sophomore year,
a week before we played Southern Cal. It was, I
mean scorching hot Hymid and Coach Bryant came through the
tunnel to get to the practice field and he was
whistling amazing grace. I knew it was going to be

(03:53):
a roughing. So after about a forty five minute individual drills,
we got to doing our scrimmage, our controlled scrimmage, and
we went and we went, and we kept going, and
all of a sudden the guys in the huddle would
just fall out, and it was you know, I think

(04:14):
at the end of the day there are about ten
guys that sent the hospital with heat stroke and dehydration.
Several other hit gone with either knees or broken bones
or something. I mean, it was just one of those
rock them, sock them days. And anyway, I get back
to crawl up the stairs to my bedroom and I

(04:37):
hear all the suitcases clicking, and hear the trunk of
cars closing and people driving off, and a lot of
people left. And I said, I'm gonna quit too, but
bad blame it. I've earned supper. So anyway, I fell
asleep and didn't go to eat supper. Woke up the

(05:01):
next morning and I said, well, heck, I'm here, might
as well stay. And anyway, we went to the three
out at three o'clock meeting and Coach Brian comes in.
He winds that watch. He said, well, boys, I'm a
little early, but we'll go ahead and get started. Anyway,
every day five minutes before that's when the meetings started.

(05:23):
Night he goes in. He says, boys, y'all learn the
big listeners today. He said, you'll push yourself and push
yourself and you'll think you're going to die. But the
human body is an amazing machine. It'll always pass out
before it dies. And it clicked. And you know, my

(05:44):
dad had also told me, you know, and he preached
the same gospel as coach Brian did. He said, there's
an invisible bear, I think somewhere, and he says, you'll
push yourself up to that bear and you'll back off,
and you'll push it and you'll back off. But he says, someday,
either fear or anger or some emotion is going to

(06:05):
drive you through that barrier. And if you ever break
that barrier, you're gonna find out that there's a whole
world out there that you've never experienced. And that's what
that's what coach Bryant got for. When I went into
pro ball, wasn't I wasn't a great get most gifted athlete,
but I knew I could probably outwork everybody and played
in front up even in the you know, if I

(06:27):
got my butt whooped in the first quarter, I'd last
out to where I'd come out ahead at the end anyway,
that was that was kind of the attitude I had
because of what I'd learned from Coach Bryant.

Speaker 1 (06:38):
And a special thanks to the folks at eighteen nineteen
News for the audio, and thanks to Greg Hangler for
editing and producing that piece of storytelling, and a special
thanks to John Hannah for sharing those two stories, that
enduring memory of how his father treated that discrimination, basically,
that weight discrimination, that taunting, and he just said, buckle up,

(07:00):
strap up, and just work through it, push yourself through it.
There's victims, and there's victors, and sometimes legitimate victims, but
often it's our own expectations and our own diminished expectations
from ourselves and our adult supervising us that create the
limits that stop us. John Hannah's story storytelling about fatherhood,

(07:23):
about coaching, about so much more. Here on our American Stories.
Here at our American Stories, we bring you inspiring stories
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(07:43):
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