Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

As another football season is about to get underway, I thought about

all the lustful and enduring praise for offensive football, which has always

been the talk of the town, and recalled how the late Erk Russell joined in,

too, but underneath he was plotting and scheming for an equalizer.

 

Erk was a fine teacher and coach, but also had rare and

extraordinary leadership skills. Across the Southeast and beyond, there

are hundreds of football players who would quickly attest to that—the many

who truly loved him and extended overachieving effort to help him win

games.

 

He had remarkable instincts with an ability to get his point across

graphically and made every player, regardless of his ability, think he was

the “little train that thought it could.” Erk invoked humor to relax and to

communicate. He gave of himself like no other. He cared for his players,

and they knew it. This set him apart.

 

His leadership acumen, coupled with his mastery of the Split 60

defense, enabled him to gain an exalted reputation as an accomplished

defensive coordinator at Georgia and head coach at Georgia Southern. He

 

was in demand as a clinic lecturer. He began every clinic by writing K-I-S-S

across the chalk board. “Keep it Simple Stupid.”

The signature ingredient to his success as a sage defensive swami

was motivation, but never let the course of action become complicated.

Although he might use an off-color joke, befitting locker room vernacular, to

make a point, he never used profanity to teach his players although he

evolved from an era when demeaning “cussing” reigned supreme.

Erk was the antithesis of that style. He whispered encouragement in

their ears on the practice field. “I know you can make the play,” he would

coax an eager young player whose physical stature might suggest that he

was at a disadvantage.

 

While I never dressed out for him, I did so vicariously. I spent time

with him on golf courses, at coaching clinics, Bulldog Club meetings and

especially at the Rockwood Inn on the Lexington Highway outside Athens

where the blue collar clientele gathered around Erk to swoon to his

pontifications just as his players did. We are speaking of the working folk,

rural and everyday types, who admired him as much as Georgia football

players did—because he made them feel he was one of them.

 

He called the railbirds who congregated on the trestle at the east end

of Sanford Stadium and hooted and hollered upon the arrival of the Georgia

team, “my people.”

If any man could walk with kings without losing the common touch, it

was the “beloved” Coach Russell who was a natural born leader. He had a

sixth sense for making everybody’s day. The defensive players were the

envy of the offensive players, which is why the head coach, Vince Dooley

always found time, especially on Friday’s and game day to have Erk speak

to the entire team. His humor and inspirational talks inspired those on the

offensive side of the ball, too.

Erk believed in slogans, truisms, and humorous vignettes to connect

with his players. Early in his career with the Bulldogs, he started

head butting his players in warm ups, causing his bald head to bleed and

glimmer in the sunshine of an early fall afternoon.

“That was the greatest inspiration to us,” says Frank Ros, the captain

of the 1980 National Championship team. It was a classic example of Erk

giving of himself to the team. That tradition began long before Ros got to

campus. The coach didn’t head butt his charges every Saturday afternoon,

 

but for a big game, he often let them know, he would shed his blood for his

men with whom he went to battle.

Head butting wasn’t Erk being a showman, it was his way of communicating that football is a hard-nosed game and you gotta play

tough. Take the fight to your opponent. Employ extra effort and put the

team first. That resonated with players across the board. Without thinking

about it consciously, they realized that their coach was forever putting the

team first. He forever gave of himself.

However, he worried about his image. Not that he aspired to be

suave and handsome—he just didn’t want his gladiator look to turn off a

college president in search of a football head coach. While he might have

looked the part of the enforcer, he was the opposite.

I’ll never forget taking a flight to Ft. Lauderdale in January 1972, for

the annual convention of the American Football Coaches Association. Bud

Carson, who had just been fired as head coach at Georgia Tech, was on

the flight. He was disconsolate, lamenting as to how he had been

misunderstood by Tech alumni because he wasn’t considered a “Georgia

Tech man.” The flight was far from capacity, and I took a seat beside Bud.

 

We talked about a lot of things related to his situation. At one point,

he abruptly said, “What I needed at Georgia Tech was what Vince Dooley

has in Erk Russell—somebody who can forearm them into place when they

get out of line.”

I was startled. My disbelief was obvious as I told Bud that Georgia

players played their hearts out for Erk because they loved him. He was

such an unparalleled leader that the kids played their backsides off for him

because they did not want to let Erk down.

Bud did not see the underlining modus operandi that made Erk so

special. He didn’t know Erk as he thought he did. Bud saw stunning

results with the Georgia defense and visualized Erk as a Marine D. I. who

motivated with fear and threat, not the kindhearted man that the Bulldog

defensive coordinator really was.

When Georgia upset Florida in 1964, there was Erk on a training

table, shouting “Damn Good Team, Damn Good Team,” as the players filed

into the locker room. Then there was the game in Jacksonville a few years

later when Florida won with a lucky break and a fight broke out as the

frustrated Bulldog team let emotions get the best of them.

The head coach chewed his team out for this unsportsmanlike

conduct. Many players lost it, embarrassed and humiliated. They were

crying, and there in the locker room was Erk with tears streaming down his

cheeks, crying with them. His players knew that he hurt when they hurt.

He was frustrated when they were frustrated. He cried when they cried.

There was nothing like being one of Erk’s boys. Now the Georgia

Athletic Association and the Football Letterman’s Club are embarking on a

fund-raising campaign to recognize Erk with a tribute in the lettermen’s club

at Sanford Stadium. That should be a piece of cake.

You didn’t have to play for Erk to participate in this campaign. If you

ever laughed at one of Erk’s clever jokes, you can help perpetuate his

memory by writing a check which will add your name to the donor plaque.

It will be like going behind the Green Monster at Fenway Park and signing

your name like Red Sox players and opponents have done over the years.