Just a good old boy: Kim beat them all to kick for Bear

The former Alabama (and UH) player still gets emotional when he thinks about his old coach

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. » He's the most unlikely of good old boys, Peter Kim. He doesn't look or sound like one or live around here anymore, but that's what he is at heart, a good old Southern boy.

He just showed up one day here and started kicking 50-yard field goals and became part of the Alabama football family -- the only one from Hawaii and the only one with a Korean accent, but a bona fide member of the Tide, for life. And his kids are, too, if they want. One of the things coach Paul "Bear" Bryant did in his will was set it up so any child of a Tide football player can go to Alabama on scholarship.

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Kim's story from 25 years ago sounds like a rural myth.

No one just appears out of nowhere and stars for Alabama. They don't do "Invincible" in the SEC. 'Bama doesn't just take unknown kickers from half the world away in off the street. Does it?

It did when Bryant was the coach.

According to Mal Moore, the Crimson Tide athletic director who was Bryant's offensive coordinator, whenever a new kicker was needed Bryant would just line up a bunch of walk-ons and let them sort things out with their legs.

"We always called it battlefield commission," Moore said. "We didn't recruit a kicker. Whoever survived became our kicker."

Kim had good timing and bad timing. He showed up when the Tide needed a kicker. The bad part was six other guys appeared, too, some of whom the coaches knew. One was related to a former Tide star.

"Three of them were very good. He beat them all out," Moore said. "Peter was like an old-time gunfighter. He had his one shot and he made it."

The way Kim tells it, the kicking was the easy part -- not that he was looking for easy. He came to Alabama after a year at the University of Hawaii looking for big-time football, but also to get away from the comfort of home and Hawaii's large Korean community.

Kim was born in Korea and moved with his family to the islands when he was 15. There were times when he didn't think he would make it through college because of his early struggles with English. But Kim wouldn't quit, and he got help from tutors, especially Bruce Bizzoco.

"If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have my paper," Kim said, referring to his bachelor's degree in communications and public relations.

Bizzoco laughed when he heard that.

"That's a little bit pushing it," said Bizzoco, then a grad student and now associate dean of students at an area community college. "He was a great kid, and he would've made it. He could read English, but he had a hard time putting the phrases together."

Bizzoco remembers Kim's perseverance when he was laid up for seven weeks with hepatitis and still passed all his classes.

Moore said he knew Kim would make it as an athlete and student when he met him.

"You always sense and pick up on their competitiveness, and Peter had that," he said.

This week, with his other alma mater in town, Kim is hosting golf tournaments and tailgates bringing his two worlds together. His friends from Hawaii and Alabama squared off in golf. "My version of the Ryder Cup," Kim said. On Saturday, they'll tailgate and compare the merits of Dreamland Barbecue with those of Kim's Yummy Korean Barbecue -- the 40-restaurant Hawaii business that has made him a millionaire, and allows him to give back to Alabama, the way a good old boy does.

Kim credits Bryant with instilling in him the necessities for success. He took me to the Paul W. Bryant Museum the other day, and I swear he nearly cried.

"His last game was my last game," Kim said, as we viewed a painting commemorating Alabama's 21-15 victory over Illinois in the 1982 Liberty Bowl. The final point of Kim's career was also the last one in Bryant's 323rd victory -- the most wins for a major college coach before Joe Paterno broke the record in 2001.

Kim shuddered at a painting of Bryant standing in his practice-field tower.

"I get scared when I look at that one."

"Did he ever yell at you from there?"

"He didn't have to. It was still frightening."

Another of the museum items is a plaque from I.M. and Chong Kim, Peter's parents, presented to Bryant in 1982. It is inscribed in Korean and English. "Over the past four years we have watched the boy we sent to you become a man," it reads in part.

One of Kim's favorite things to do this week as unofficial host is guiding tours of the new $11.5 million student-athlete academic center. It's in the building that used to house the football players. Its name is the same as it was then: Paul W. Bryant Hall.

The football fans here will take more notice of the major renovations to Bryant-Denny Stadium, but Kim is prouder of the study hall. So is Moore.

"Mal will say this is the crowning jewel," said Jon Deever, Alabama's assistant athletic director for student services.

"I think he's right," said Peter Kim, the kid from Kaiser High School who lived in the same building 25 years ago and grew up to be a good old boy.