“Fatty Fatty Two by Four” to NFL Legend: John Hannah's Story

On this episode of Our American Stories, before John Hannah became a NFL Hall of Famer and one of the most respected offensive linemen in football history, he was a fourth grader being mocked for his weight on the playground. Hannah shares how his father and Alabama’s legendary coach Bear Bryant pushed him beyond what he thought were his limits and helped shape the mindset that carried him to greatness.

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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 was two playgrounds and they were on terrace.
There's one upper terrace and the 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 by four 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 petty 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 wasn't a great time to go to Alabama.
So the biggest lesson that Coach Bryant taught me was

(03:30):
was that you can go further than you ever thought
you could. I remember my uh sophomore year. A week
before we played Southern Cal. It was, I mean scorching
hot hmid and Coach Bryant came through the tunnel to
get to the practice field and he was whistling amazing grace.

(03:52):
I knew it was going to be 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 at the end

(04:15):
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 uh. Anyway, I get back to crawl up the
stairs to my bedroom and I hear all the suitcases clicking,

(04:40):
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.

(05:01):
Woke up the 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):
not 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 I 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 if somewhere, and he says, you'll push
yourself up to that bear and you'll back off. And
you push it and you'll back off. 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 going to 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 out work
everybody and played in front up even in the you know,

(06:27):
if I got my butt whooped in the first quarter,
I'd last out to where I'd come out of head
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, like

(07:00):
buckle up, 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

(07:21):
storytelling about fatherhood, about coaching, about so much more. Here
on Our American Stories, this is Lee Habib, host of
our American Stories. Every day on this show we tell
stories of history, faith, business, love, loss, and your stories.

(07:43):
Send us your story small or large to out email
oas at Ouramerican Stories dot com. That's oas at Ouramericanstories
dot com. We'd love to hear them and put them
on the air. Our audience loves them too.