Fumbled Call: The Bear Bryant Wally Butts Football Scandal That Split the Supreme Court and Changed American Libel Law

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An Atlanta insurance salesman, George Burnett, accidentally overheard a telephone conversation and became the center of a scandal that riveted the world of college football in 1962-63. He thought he overheard Wally Butts, the athletic director and ex-football coach of the University of Georgia, give his friend Paul Bear Bryant, the legendary University of Alabama coach, play formations and details that helped Alabama defeat Georgia 35-0 in the 1962 season opener. Burnett’s story was published by the Saturday Evening Post several months later, and Butts and Bryant both sued for libel. Butts’ case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which made a historic 5-4 decision in Butts. v. Curtis Publishing that expanded the definition of public figures. While this case has been written about frequently in Bryant biographies and elsewhere, Sumner relies on more than 3,000 pages of letters, reports, memos, depositions, and trial transcripts from archival sources and reveals new facts and information never published before.