Paul Bryant, Junior

Paul William Bryant Jr. (born c. 1945) is an American banker and investor from Alabama.

Early life and family background Paul William Bryant Jr. was born circa 1945. His father, Bear Bryant, was an American football player and coach.

Bryant graduated from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Alabama with a degree in Commerce in 1966.

Career Bryant founded the People's Bank in the late 1960s, As of 2009, he owned 72% of GreenTrack. He also serves as the President of Green Group, Inc.

He co-authored two books about American football in 2013.

Controversy

He has donated millions of dollars to the Alabama Crimson Tide football program. A CBS story from December 2014 reported that Bryant Jr. was partially responsible for shuttering the UAB Football program, reportedly over a long-standing grudge with Gene Bartow over a 1991 letter to the NCAA - and "out of fear it might one day challenge" the football program his father had built.

For many years, Bryant has been accused of running the Alabama board of trustees like a family business, "holding secret meetings, shrugging off public records requests, ignoring or sidestepping the law." In 2001, a committee of trustees met in secret, just one day after a court barred Auburn's board of trustees from doing the same thing. As of 2015, seven trustees were executives or directors at Bryant Bank. These ties received national press attention when the board of trustees made the shocking decision to kill UAB football.

Bryant Jr. also has clear ties to a federal insurance fraud case that drew a 15-year prison sentence for Allen W. Stewart. Stewart was found guilty on all 135 counts of fraud. One of Bryant's companies, Alabama Reassurance or "Alabama Re", was implicated in at least nine counts of the Stewart indictment, relating to a "wire fraud scheme to deceive state insurance regulators involving reinsurance." According to the state Department of Insurance, Alabama Re had $240 million in admitted assets, a five person board headed by Bryant, and just two full-time employees. He also served on the boards of trustees of the Alabama Heritage Foundation and the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, Virginia.

Honors Bryant was inducted into the 2023 class of the 1831 Society, which is bestowed on individuals who have given $5 million or more and "changed the trajectory" of The University of Alabama.