The work of Staff Photographer Neil Leifer, who took this week's cover portrait of Alabama Football Coach Paul W. ("Bear") Bryant and the pictures accompanying the story, should be familiar to TIME'S readers: this is the fifth cover he has shot this year. The others: Olympic Skaters Eric and Beth Heiden, Tennis Superstar Bjorn Borg and the political portraits from this summer's Republican and Democratic conventions.

Leifer came to TIME in 1978 from our sister publication SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, where his credits included 152 covers and some of the most famous action photographs of athletes taken in the past 15 years. He still shoots sports for TIME, but likes the great variety of his new assignments. Says Leifer: "I'm interested in much more than sports. I like having my ringside seat for Muhammad Ali fights and my sideline pass at the Super Bowl, but I was thrilled about getting a seat in the motorcade during Pope John Paul's visit to the U.S. and a floor pass for the political conventions."

Whatever the subject of his photography, Leifer brings to it an uncompromising attention to detail and an unerring sense for the right moment. TIME Picture Editor Arnold Drapkin recalls that Leifer "kept New York City Mayor Edward Koch standing at the edge of the East River for an hour until he felt that the light on the skyline behind him was right. In a sense, he 'directs' his photographs." Such talents have served Leifer well. In England last year, he directed his first movie, Yesterday's Hero, about an aging soccer star.

Of his assignment to shoot Bear Bryant, Leifer says, "Pictures for TIME require so much more than game action. I've covered an awful lot of football at Alabama, but I'd never even met Bryant before. This time I had to shoot him at home with his wife and in his office, as well as on the football field." Leifer found him a very private man, but surprisingly cooperative. "He even allowed me to shoot him in front of the bench, where no one is usually permitted. From a distance, he seems aloof, uninvolved. It is only from my close-in vantage point that I could see how carefully he controls the game. He makes all the important calls and every key substitution." The assignment, though, involved one major frustration. Says Leifer: "I like football, but I spent many games, including last season's Sugar Bowl, shooting Bryant with my back to the field. I hardly got to see a thing."

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