"We actually didn't mean for the red trail to lead to Bear Bryant's grave, said Joe Mull, director of Elmwood Cemetary. "It just turned out to be that way, but it's pretty fitting."

A crimson and white pom pom waves in the gentle breeze over the small, Georgia granite tomb, a reminder of the proud moments that Paul "Bear" Bryant delivered to a state that truly adored him and his football team.

"We've seen all sorts of momentos here," said Mull. "Pennants, small stuffed elephants, pom poms, flags, banners, signs, newspapers, footballs, bags of Golden Flake chips (which Bryant endorsed year after year on his coach's show). When it gets to be too much, we'll dispose of everything."

Charles Turney, whose family has been doing tombstones for Birmingham natives for over a hundred years, helped design Bear's tombstone.

"Really, it's a lot simpler than most people would expect, including me," Turney said. "I wish we could do something a little bigger, but we do what the family asks."

Turney remembers the January morning when Bear Bryant passed away due to heart failure.

"I remember walking out of science lab (on the Alabama campus), and someone told me that Bear Bryant had passed away," Turney said. "The whole campus was silent and depressed. Everyone was devestated. And the funeral, wow. It was the biggest funeral ever held in the state of Alabama."

"They shut down the interstate (20/59) between Tuscaloosa and Birmingham that day," said Mull. "The state police escorted the casket here, and people were lined up on overpasses with signs and banners, crying. There were people all over here," he said, pointing to an area around 50 yards away, "all the way around, at least six deep."

Twenty-three years later, people still come by every day to pay their respects to the man that, for decades, made Alabama a mecca in the college football world.

"I had the privilege of knowing him," Turney said. "He was a wonderful man."

And thousands of Alabama fans echo Turney's words to this day.