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>> This is the living history interview with **** Inman class of nineteen fifty four conducted by Marilyn summers and mean it twenty first year two thousand and two we're at a young Captain Joe Johns and the subject of the interview stage life in general experience at Georgia Tech document thank you very much for letting us come and see you this beautiful day in Georgia.

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And we're out in council on your starting ground. That's why we're here. You sound back and count through the clean story again how close to where we are right now. I grew up in Walker County which the county seat is lefe it. Some seventy years ago and the real half hour we were forty five miles away from there and my wife is in Rome which is about twenty five miles away.

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So this is from a year territory and we right you start children here prior to moving away. So that's why we can enjoy hearing what it was like to like nothing nothing at you know different. Well let's say it think it's pale with a capital layout Lafayette is spelled with a small L..

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So but it all the same I'm sure it's not the same but it just looks different. Right OK. The thing it is where you go. Well a typical small town at the time I grew up there was probably twenty five hundred people. I think to my high school class had said people in it and of course it was a rural community with a textile base there was a couple of cotton males.

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And a hosiery male. And like I said it was a close knit community of the thirty's and forty's that stiff. What did your daddy do for a living. My father had a Drac cleaning up aeration extremely large him and one other person. And. He. He did press. And he did.

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Tyler and he just like a. Right. Right. One of his family from that area. Yes My grandfather was from the impact we live right next door to black the home that I grew up in was originally a corn crib and when I was two years old. They extended the corn Korea been became our house and then when I was probably eight or ten.

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We had indoor plumbing so that. If you have brothers sisters had an older brother who passed away at the age of five he had measles and fever one up to one hundred eight or T.N. and actually he was in the hospital and Ted know that. And had he Lee of they said he would have probably been a vegetable.

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And so then I had a kid brother. That was let's see if he was eleven months so you know you hear that stretch. Yes and me OK Well yes. So they were the top of that my mother at the age of twelve. Had to have her leg amputated below or needy so she was more bliss reclusive to some way in one degree and my father was very outgoing and loose and so it was a danger to hear Yeah and now you know.

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I'm sure. Lou we're just mad. Did you have an opportunity to be around here that. Paternal grand parents as I said live next door. My grandfather passed away when he was about when I was about six or seven but he took me five. Signing with him a lot I can remember that.

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And my maternal grandparents do not remember my grandfather or. My grandmother Leo don't know. In fact I had a great grandmother Oma maternal side lives up and lived up into her ninety's. So it was just what we call a storybook you were good people I know that you're head of your community but your family in addition to your You're right about it.

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Well yes but you couldn't go too far but you know I guess we all wondered a little bit when we were young. And Elementary right there in Thailand. To do it like it. Yes I did fairly well I did real well and in math but English was not one of my better subjects and actually actor asked me to.

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I had an opportunity to go to prep who own a football scholarship at Castle Hatch military academy which was in Lebanon Tennessee. So I spent two years of additional ask to create it. Before I came with de let's. You're going to the math too did they have middle school system then or year or elementary running and it was elementary through sixth grades and then from seven through eleven and I think I was asked who the you were with there was no twelve grades at that point now and that.

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When you were in high school where you beginning to like them like yes I would say to some degree. Did you actually think yes to do. Yes I was on board any particular story or probably baseball at that time was my playgroup. Sport. One reason was that my day had been a.

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Ball player and he loved baseball and he would take me to chat Noga to see the Chattanooga Lookouts back in the old Southern League and course Atlanta's team was the cracker so I have fable memories of that. Year where you can play out my nickname in high school was Tubby.

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So I was so I thorough but you wouldn't know he had to grow and yeah. So you're pretty good. You're well built to be an enemy. You know everything. I think in high school I was six one in one hundred seventy eight pounds and when I. I don't want to get ahead it so.

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So here we are in STILL year. I mean. Let's play a bit. And you did play. Yes. And how much competition for your academic did that and let me give you could you found out pretty well I guess I had enough and I hate ability that it didn't require a lot of extra time academically and I actually made pretty pretty good grades so many angles.

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You know get run right and I think out a letter. Now John did you end up having it done when you were going back and well in the summer my first job was I was the last guard at the city put that lever when I was twelve years old and then after that period of time I worked for the city in the water and electrical system utilities system digging ditches and telephone boas and and here you were doing.

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Welcome. When I was not asked to till I was fifteen years sixteen years so that you were. You know when you are doing it well. In retrospect I do it. Yes. Actually if you're a parent and know how to get them to get it you are doing it.

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So that then the plan the opportunity came up for the school district and your peers and thought you want this or did they make you want to do it. Well actually from a financial standpoint my father had gone to one year military and he said that he only had enough money to send me just to one year but he would be a military coup because he runs and that's right.

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I get it you're right. Like so I actually had an opportunity to get a scholarship and I recall that at the time it was probably twelve hundred dollars and the way the scholarship was constructed is that I can't recall what it was thirty forty or fifty percent off but my father paid sixty dollars a month for ten months and then they gave me a room board books to ition uniforms and everything else and I played.

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You know football by speedball and baseball and I was a pretty big deal and it was excellent. I mean it was an opportunity you know that you wouldn't have the castle Castle high military academy and it was a foundation at that time and that was owned by the ownership was but NORAD make bad which was a publisher back in the old I don't want to live right.

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So I think in the way right. Massively it was not. Yes it certainly was and was very deleterious Yes it was not it was very military in fact there was Army people. Assigned there regular. Full colonel and. Go. But Sergeant you know you were sixteen years old. Yes Burslem perilous extinct.

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Was sixteen in December and I left the following. August. What was that like for you from a time that now it might well. You know eat up gets that era that we're grew up you didn't have a choice. I mean I know what I mean I made a choice to go one course I was thrilled to have an opportunity to continue on or I had let it be skilled and it was not just from the kind of plane and yes it was more competition in fact in the league.

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We played in all four of our championship teams that take the mid-south league there was probably ten or fifteen boys that came to take from the different teams ten or twelve teams that were in that league the way it kind of the training ground right before going around.

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Certainly when you consider it. We're only sixteen years old getting out and you were ready to go to college happens and it was like a nice intermediate step right and academically I think it honed Maskil because there were quite a bit of discipline around my pretty good grades.

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There also. Again it wasn't really an athlete or you know. You weren't math and math doing well. Means you get a well that plus the fact that you know the other option was to go to work in a mill or go to work in the dry cleaning operation with the Diane.

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So it didn't take you live to figure out and here I think you're still running better make it work. And we're keeping track and it just that work. Your father Mr worked very hard you know they did. Me. So here you are. In Tennessee. What Part eleven of this about thirty miles east of Nashville.

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OK. And you were there again. Why have you came home came home. You came home Thanksgiving and Christmas and. Spring break right now or are you look back at that time did you enjoy. I get yes I've always wherever I've been I've enjoyed a laugh. For whatever reason to lie and because I enjoy people in our ways had something in common with people that you met you you definitely.

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And what was the plan. Did you have a plan that had you planned. Or was it just going to get through this year. Well I guess after I had been there a year then it was obvious that. I could go to college on an athletic scholarship. And so can the money of course that the hard right.

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Was right. So I have to. As I said I did rather well the first year in football and had opportunities to go. Well I could have gone to Tennessee Vanderbilt Kentucky Georgia Tech. But there's a lot of different back then and there was no restrictions on the number of scholarships.

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That was given in other words there was one particular school in the Southeastern Conference that cable hundred twenty five. Scholarships to the freshman. But by the next year they may be only thirty people left and by the senior year they may be eight or ten thought they would be a government based basically it was a legal last try out to some degree.

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Did you hear Georgia Tech or did you want to thank you. When. Well I had an opportunity to go probably fifteen twenty thirty different screws in the country and it ended up that. They offered a scholarship as others and ultimately my father had gone home. I had we had played in a prep school both game down into Telenor.

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Beach. That was billed as Army Navy we played bullets prep school which is the naval preparation for the cademy and coarsely reflected Castle heights as preparation for West Point and so that was the big battle and so we played they are and there was probably I know a coach from Vanderbilt was there coaching and so he was there and I believe a coach from Kentucky and somewhere else and so I had narrowed it down in Manama to probably Kentucky and bend a built in Georgia Tech and course Coach Paul Brandt was the head coach of Kentucky at that.

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General Nayland was in Tennessee. But I would had kind of eliminating Tennessee. And I told my dad said Why don't you send these three scholarships and when I had a sad or I want to go out just likely Dean. The intensity wasn't quite what it is today. And so he told me I said my son you go anywhere you want to but I tell you what I'll send this one from Ted.

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And if you want to go somewhere else then you send him back to be and I'll buy it with me and so. He Thinking. This might you have let me know and had you ever want to play. We've got to realize the setting we were in in that small town you.

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You know that probably in that. And they were eight of ten people who were there were going to hear it period. So I mean that was a horizon. It was a gradual step to that point rather than thinking back as a sixteen year fifteen year old kid. I want to go to Georgia Tech we go.

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You don't have you didn't have anywhere near the the exposure. Are you denying the biggest world I had was chat no go which was twenty five miles away in western oppression. And it was past that I think. Well the impression that was my father and I had was that if you go to Georgia Tech you don't get an excellent education and you're not going to come out with a degree in P. E. or something you have a lot of options great that have a great value and also the leadership not only in little communities but through out in Course text or be in probably the largest industry at that time had a lot of people involved and you were aware he was aware of that in fact there was a gentleman that had graduated from Vanderbilt.

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That was involved in ownership of one of the mills and he even said that he thought would be a good choice for me in. Like a community that you're seeing that you're a lot of people or it really one of the athletic hard consider where the team would think about all they had a great reputation but you know of course in twenty eight.

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I went there as a freshman in one nine hundred fifty. And I believe in thirty eight they played in the orange bow in course coached took over in Coachella Kuno in the late portage and. So there was just there really is. He was saying was just building up so that if that was not a particular attraction to you really think you know realistically it's going to be a good academic education right and you know it wasn't OK what's right and of course you know others who had two or three other schools that good reputations and their coaches were had good reputations and and by the Conversely it was a few that coaches didn't have too good a reputation in the scrutiny to get a map but you took the signed you that right about ten days or two weeks later really well I didn't really I didn't cry till I got back to school and what happens in a response.

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Right where you know it's accepted and you know it was all in the letter you didn't get on the phone. But during. But during that during Christmas a coach. Lewis would you push by stone Lewis came up and met with myself and there was Leon Hardiman who was my roommate he we played ball together one year at take then he went to Baylor prep who in Chattanooga So we kind of talked and both of us leaned in that direction.

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I guess and that was another factor in Bob that it wasn't completely unknown the work that you fifty in the policy if you run it with the idea that it was and. In athletics by right now not you know out Maskil who are not actually baseball was a possibility but it conflict did with spring.

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Practice so right. So you came to school in nine hundred fifty and at that time to leave. It dormitory different players right now. You went in Clapham and Religare me. Leon Hartley really really frightened me there and we roomed you were pretty comfortable they knew their gender and there was but like I said around the Chattanooga area they were quite a few play eight or ten.

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People from the Chattanooga area that had played in the same league that played against every Harry. Please write what was your impression. Truthfully it was just another step in a process of of laugh I guess that your that now starting in. You would have been a freshman correct.

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So you came right and actually it was already right we. We played at that time you the ruse where you could only play three freshman. Games a year but we came early and I'll bust and we practiced against the varsity. And went from there who was the freshman current.

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Lewis would play Rock good comes. Yes he Lewis might have been one of the best coaches take Nicklaus I've ever was associated with the he could technically deal with the Darrell royals in the front brawls and I mean it was a joy and later on in my career to see but Lewis didn't have the confidence to be that he get teach.

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Yes he was right he was a good coach. And as first you recognize that. Maybe you guys were special there. Well yes I guess so. Because we the three games was Alabama and Georgia and we beat Georgia fifty two to seven and I'm pretty good and. Of course at that time there was we had thirty thousand people at the freshman game of play don't Thanksgiving Day and it was the Scottish Rite hospital got the proceeds and it was a real big deal in course tech was only game in town.

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When you go back there was no professional sports or anything else. So it was the community. Right. And left that sector whether it was the right hand or not your gas if they if we believe that with the larger game the varsity game I think was rather than might have been the freshman I don't recall first OK.

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So it is. It was pretty exciting and making sure they're right for right. And you know you know one right. Thinking earlier. Well we were at that point we felt that we were a pretty good team and very seriously from a bigot to school standpoint I guess one of the highlights of my laugh was.

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I was elected captain for the of the freshman team. I have to that. Now when I got to the bar to tell you more stories and. So here you are man you're eighty years old. And how would the academic star not look at how well acted that academic program did real well in maxed out in algebra which of course fortunately was a five hour course and if you Mike and A then you point to average but English I had to take remedial English.

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And I made no no. And then later all mechanical draw and most of bugaboo that I cannot be right. I got did you start with the I am. Yes I did and indeterminate going to be your way to go. Or take or plan where I'm. But you want to it was OK but the thing you did right.

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Right because I had learned and discipline and I had studied and knew how to study and a lot of people from backgrounds without the prep school who did not know how to study and nor had they ever had to study. Those right that was the ones on the rise and yet if you can't.

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Well like like you. Chaotic. Give me the platinum with the or yes all athletes. Only one year. And if you studied you studied with your feet on your day. S.. Look there was an opening. Under the doors and occasionally someone would put a firecracker that those that run the low ball on the floor and explode and.

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It was for the safety. So good. So if you had to and they was always a little no I was but I can't can't tell you how yeah he can learn but also we had study hall. If you fail behind in a right or wanted additional tutoring. Then that was a viable and all as well as I recall freshman.

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Scholarship had to go. One night a week to math tutoring and to chemistry tutoring when you need a ride and once you. You know your grades or you got the midterm and you were up then it would became a choice. I believe that's what I recall we were trying to think and I think it's amazing.

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In today's climate you think back and as some of my teammates have said you know it wasn't a choice whether you graduate or not I mean that was what you were there. Or and I would dare say that ninety five percent of our people graduated. That thing. That's OK.

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But looking at me. Do you remember the first time that yes it was in the spring of nineteen fifty but during spring holidays. Leon and I caught a bus. From Lafayette to Atlanta and course you know I stand at the end of William Street. And we walked from the Greyhound bus station back to Georgia Tech and met.

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We had met Lewis Woodruff and we met coach in coach Eric that's only time I ever met coach at it because he passed away I believe we were there in the spring. So you didn't just need him and shake his hand so that you just you. Yes and was glad to have us and we had a I think we had We're going to do to a couple people and they were have been tested to time and some of them had gone for their spring holidays and so we got spent today and got back on the bus and.

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Came back home just what was your reaction to that that would be you. Yes it. And again it was just an exception is before us. I mean that's just before you were going to be the next four five years. It was just right and you came and we were from a year and they seem like pretty nice people and we're lucky you're right.

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Much but the whole much bigger The Whole Love they're going to love it all and still are so this mechanic and it was it really was so now we're back to the dog. Sorry you had to learn to watch out for your feet and now you watch out for quite a few police.

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Well there was a few encounters from time to time but. Recall at the latter part of the year they were changing out wooden dressers with and putting in metal dressers. And the wooden dressers were stacked in the hollow and they would be tank battles with those from one end to the other it.

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They were not clad in the same condition. Afterwards creative boy you know it's rightful I enjoy playing with dressers like if it was a different way. Trade. You know. Getting those things around in those days that don't have any kind of room service for keeping your rooms clean you're with that as well as I recall you change she's once a quarter.

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Now that maybe twice. There was no regular No to the individual. No there was story only each floor where there was three stories on cloud nine. And there were three different coaches who were single one on each floor. No word count that Tommy Plaxico and Tommy ended up coaching the golf Lewis Woodruff lived on a floor and Roy McArthur who was.

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The coach at that time and Roy I was single and one lived on the third one on the second one on the first floor and just relax right. Everywhere and nobody made you see me do anything and you have your on your mind you were on your own and I was standing really.

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Well then in the individual. I do now I realize that the athlete team. Right right. It was across in the stadium. Where the beach people used to be the skate entrenched and there was a that are now just across the street really from Grant Bilko Cloudland was up twenty yards from the.

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If you're going back to. Yes Yes And you didn't have a choice unless you bought your own I mean I won a checklist that we had to get up for breakfast. And the reasoning behind that was that if you had any injuries. Then you could get treated and if everyone was at breakfast but if you skipped breakfast then you got into the day and it was too late to get treated back there but right right right.

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How did you feel. Excellent excellent Like I said it was back on the you know you didn't have a choice. It was served family style and it was you know it was very good. We had made almost everything except Sunday night at the dining room was closed on Sunday night.

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And at that time it was illegal that we got what they call fifteen dollars a month laundry money. So actually every month you were given fifteen dollars in case. We had prices to the Fox The Roxy. The reality show the LOS so you know you're in season. So you know if you studied and went to a movie and ate out on Sunday night in the youth and go in and go to the bars D. and have a little bit get life it was a great laugh if.

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We did like every other boy right now but it negative you know that's going to you know afterwards that you have to have fun and I think in retrospect the individuals of that era would much more self disciplined and maybe the majority of so you could really do anything it could be trying.

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Sure changing your benefit. Well I mean you know I was typical here and you know fifteen hours Laurie. I think. Router or eating are just really. When you practice that you practice. You know yeah. When you say uniform. You mean. Shoulder pads and if we from and yeah that was if you do that let it go.

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Ocean I'll hook was the. The trainer and they had I think they were sent out at the time I was a freshman rather that we didn't have reading my you know no no no I mean by she that was just free money if you now pay it. You write you look.

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Well I thought ever. And out of course blue jeans kept by a blue jeans is all you need and also as another source of income. When you were an athletic scholarship it was legal to sail your tickets and consequently. There was a great demand for tickets and the price of tickets that left elites could sell their season tickets for was greater in Atlanta I'm especially in fifty one two and three when you know we were undefeated through those years.

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So they brought in they were very honestly I. My senior year my four season tickets. Which had a face value and each were so for four hundred dollars and then me and I was able to buy forty nine and no I think it was a fifty one Plymouth for three hundred fifty dollars so I maintain that.

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Yeah you know yeah and that really was part of the underlining factor later all in a take getting out of the S.C.C. conference because of jealousy you already mapped the map in. We don't know. Do you think that that first year. Tech was pretty great. You and. Your son or.

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It was a great year great year. We ended up. I worked with the state how a department to surveying crew. And which was again a great experience you dealt with a lot of different people. I had a real experience over in Dade County which is the North West.

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Most north west county in Georgia which borders Tennessee and also Alabama. And we were doing a survey for a road. Over in San mountain and this greater I don't know grading machine and there's about lunch time that he had is. Riyad blistered and he came up and he got off his grading machine and came over and we were sitting around and we had sack lunch as well as I recall and he wanted to know if we had luck of going to Wyatt Latin.

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And course we declined and he got a little upset because he thought that we wouldn't be in the hospital to know him so consequently I thought I was six and give my first slip class a lot you know but it was it ended up it didn't but anyway it was a fluke we had a lot of great experience and met all the apathy people and find people who are not really all we did was just hold you around.

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Well back then everybody was not there when their condition or you think right now. I weigh one one factor. If you. Everybody is in the same condition in facing a condition that kept my being and of course in the summer we played baseball on the weekends and night or softball and you know when I did a little run and not a whole lot but now your freshman year at Georgia Tech.

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Did you have a social life. The boy. That you are getting in return I did not get involved with the paternity until my senior year. So what did you have when you came back to back to look. Did you like yeah we dated different girls and from pretty It wasn't it was this was it was good for the morrow.

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And my back right. Only now right. You know it right and courses were a lot of changes at that time in the coaching staff Coach revamped the coaching staff. That was there not to hundred fifteen when we were freshmen on course as I said we were. Had won three games in last nine in blue George out to two to seven I believe.

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And so the next year. Coached Brody and Frank brawls to head up the off chance and then write gray headed up the defense right been there but he brought in. Why do your Been here Brody and Sam he promoted Louis Woodroof. And so consequently you had a complete almost completely new coaching staff.

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Plus the fact. That coach Todd was an innovator in my opinion that he went strictly to put turn. In NOT hundred fifty one that was he was only age is not the locus far as coaching is concerned. In retrospect this I look back in that he designated you either was designated on the top inch of team or the defensive team and you had three coaches only each one each sat they coached you.

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And then we came together were others who were still trying to play their best athletes both ways and consequently I think because of the speed and talent and the coaching ability of the system coaches we had we were of my car at least a half a mile ahead of the scoops.

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So he would eat the coaches man can't wait to really. Right. Put them in line and coach the right to their right and it became less right and right because Rouge a loud that it that. And so that was a blade the first year that the route you could play completely to put to and then you had good aspects of this is far as punters are concerned.

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Make your point and I was really thinking it. REINER right it was free substitution. And well. How was the OP inch of center. Moved or of course his price went up. Plus we played a little both ways. And but I became a nothing to center and at the same time.

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Pete Bryan. Who had been a high school fullback and a lad Makar he was moved to the center of that. Spraying and coming out of the spring practice. Pete was a year ahead of me and he was ended up the in the start. And I played behind Pete not only in fifty one but fifty two and the fact always jokingly say my greatest claim to fame is the three years I would take I played by.

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Three all-American center which. So I had so I was always the second stringer when we got to the Varsity and I'll tell you another huge story that I have to our senior year we had a group of eight or team and they went to the smaller towns and played basketball against local teams and of course at that time we pick up.

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You know whatever the gate with a lasso we kind of barnstormed around and picked up extra money playing the local teams and so. We I was actually we were up in Dolphin. And we were playing. And. Before the game this little boy came up to me and I don't remember some of the old timers will remember that our Gang comedy and there was a character with a big horn rimmed glasses call frog and he had a real deep voice.

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Well this little boy looked just lacked Froggie. And he came up and said Watch your inane and I told him **** in one. He said put it down so I wrote it down and he walked off three or four steps and you could see the wheels turning in mine and he came back to me and said Why do you play.

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I said Center. He said put it. So I put it damn well he got about eight or ten steps off and then he came charging back to me and he got mad at my place. He says no you don't play center said Larry Maher's play center and he's an all-American I said well I was we kind of split it up our segment.

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He said where we're at. So the day I'm so that's kind of the start of the story to find you didn't did not try. It to you but he was really looked at you like Yeah I mean and you said you were you know Rob we were the only show and it was really more than just me.

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Well when you stop and think in today's climate. You have all the professional sports. In Atlanta and the thing this. Another thing that coach. I guess the perception was when the first professional team came to Atlanta which was a Braves he said it will hurt us the most is the space in the media.

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And when you stop and think the of what happened with the exposure to the public and when take and all the exposure and the fact that we were in the fifty's and sixty's that we were you know in nice no problems we had all the media space primarily at that time with more not as much television we had television but really in the newspaper and THING IT.

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The cow that reading was reading. Right. In fact they would have there was a beat writer. We had one or two writers and our practices every day when we were and they would do a feature story and Lancer there probably two or three story and always front page of the sports but not me and well I wouldn't go that far.

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We didn't realize it. If we were you were right that you were making your house cleaner and I knew that I mean that pressure. But you know you wonder where of it are I would not up like anybody else when I mean I think you were aware that you needed to have a good image I mean that was what Coach required.

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It. Did you mean. With coach Don. As a player to some degree but coursed have been coached for nine and ten years with him just as a player. Yes he coached he set the tone he set the he had the personality and he set the character. Of the teen but the day to day operation was delegated to the assistants now he would come in and make corrections but even on game days the Pacific plays were still executed and call by the assistants but if he wanted to he would make the decision whether to go all fourth down or was it.

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Quinn to punt and he might turn to the defensive assistant says we need to put a rush own rather than the thing in our I think we need to throw in the play was only there was never any doubt about who was in charge but yet it was a kind of a steel glove.

[00:45:29]
It was a demand or anything. It was real organized and that nobody could get me. So no no. And they were saying there was and he was in charge of discipline and he set the tone muscly and he expected us to act like grown people and grown man and he treated us like one.

[00:45:53]
And we had very few Roos you know I mean you know he was a father figure and he was a real sharp. And I think that reflected. In the years that everyone wanted to dress and course at the time we had blazers with the tech emblem Mon and when we went on the road we here would coat for everybody.

[00:46:20]
And of course you know place your hair was not a problem at that time and just to be an astronaut he expects you to go to class now and how three years back but basically with the exception of English. Now I actually made the whole time I was tack on made to the and that was a mechanical joint and after having remedial English a struggling made sees in English but basically I would I was a B. C. student yet and they are once in a while and so I said Yeah but the way the test was it.

[00:47:08]
We were on the quarter system. And you had four test and it all counted equally so my. Mode of operation was I'd study real hard for the first two. And probably have B. and then the next two you know I had a. I had the foundation and going into the plan was if I made eighty or ninety I'd get a B. If I made a ninety M. Maggette and I messed up.

[00:47:40]
I'd get a C. so id and up with probably. Courses three B two C. S. or four one one way or the web. It just worked out like man tell you. Three great. I mean just like you go back to. I can remember the night. Most of the fasteners I had something about.

[00:48:04]
I mean we were there was there wasn't any separation in course after our freshman year all laugh a leech were dispersed into the different Dhamma tours to become more integrated with the total **** system. And the faculty Mr Bill Carmichael who was registrar I can remember him course being Griffin who everybody.

[00:48:27]
Dr Smith in the mass. Rannells top board tale and physics and chemistry. You know I just go to hand the list and member them and you righted they were and I mean they expected you to perform in their classroom and yet they encouraged you on the last let it be you that if you came in handy to me like when and in retrospect I think.

[00:48:57]
Thank you. I think it did because I think people want me that answers in my head. People say that where that was not your theory and not none whatsoever and in fact they were all at that me like I said I didn't cut any slack but by the same token I have people who are stick up for years.

[00:49:26]
But you don't think well I'd be totally dishonest I'm out of then one or two that would cut us a little slack but we knew who they were but the vast majority did not cut slack for everyone that cut slack. There was the same number that we've made it tougher on you because you were an athlete.

[00:49:46]
In the can't clinch. And knock life. You may have enough and you remember that one. Yes one time one though I wasn't here. I mean to me it's the top course you either visual last and. Can see where you are you are you came. I mean you look at a third dimension and then you've got a sketch elf lands that are there and it's see if you're neat.

[00:50:14]
Either it's an A or an F. course as far as I was concerned and I struggled in the line and say in a movie is that you know. No but they would if you tell you I mean if you requested a upmost professors would try to help you but and if we had real problems the last leg department would set up a tutor in that area for us so you can run on the right you that through the can hear.

[00:50:42]
It's not me. Sorry. OK you're playing you're doing well you're not the world's down and came to go home again for work. Yes when you were that state have way department again. Right right. So you can't just leave it right and went back. You're right and. What was that the championship.

[00:51:08]
You know that was the sophomore year we were eleven zero and one we had been taught. We were Tad one on one game and I mean running and running you. And Ted just coming back was one to get everything right and course we had gone to the Orange Bowl for the sophomore year than that but yeah it was a great great experience.

[00:51:31]
It was a great experience and. Q Yeah. In fact he always whatever we're where we went on he would take it to any of the players were married he had to take their wives or coaches waffle one tree up a year plus in a bowl game and like in Miami.

[00:51:50]
We go to the dog races the horse races are if there was a not club. He'd take us to dinner there with a floor show I mean we were exposed to. Culture that. I would have seen a boy in a male town in north Georgia didn't know existed and he gave you that exposure and that confidence and that just carried has carried on all my life.

[00:52:21]
There's a real gift. It certainly was. You know you wonder if he even knew what he was doing he was opening for years. I sense that he did I think that was no way he treated people like he wanted to be treated treated them with respect and of course love is not a very popular maybe Word that.

[00:52:52]
But there was a lot of love and compassion expressed not only from him but I think that's the underlining factor of the patternist of the teams through the years that we were really we write more I did miss now and trying to yes she was back. I got to know her.

[00:53:16]
In fact I was again extremely blessed I wish I was drafted coached the first year I was blessed in that I was saying go and I was they when they want to buy a case and I drove a car and spent a couple nights with the money with Bobby and lend Ms advice and a truth which was coach not SR And so I.

[00:53:43]
I really have had a lot of blessin So the family until like I've had some incense. So you came back to your junior year is going to be a year when I think you're going to go just right and you want the team effort. Definitely I mean everybody was right and we had.

[00:54:04]
Course it ended up we had six all Americans own that team which probably is the most and Marilyn Monroe was the cover of Look magazine with a T. honest and well I guess needed West a publicist a director arranged it through her publicist or the studio and back when they used both because back when they were a team and it was just a gimmick.

[00:54:29]
For well they could have then and then but there was a alumnus missed frame one that was executive vice president Paramount studio and hurt and that probably didn't hurt any at all and course you know the Coca-Cola people were were big and also I mean again only show in town.

[00:54:53]
I mean keep that. So it was a completely people that really if they want to have it in mind that. Well that's my opinion I don't know that there were steps when she was in her heyday. Yeah make a movie and I think fifty two and look you know who she was you know.

[00:55:12]
In fact on the press. That same picture was what it was on the cover of the press guide and did you actually get to meet your No she was actually the sweater were sent to the hollers of everything really no no. Now can't people think she came to jurors that well she may have not recall that you know because you think it would have meant I think.

[00:55:46]
You were right twenty years ago I didn't know yeah only had a primetime readers on it that she came up and that it was a national publication that you give a lot of right to that lot of pressure. I'm what I was never aware because we felt Coast Guard had a mentally condition that we were prepared and we just we just did what we're supposed to do and we did it feel like one minute after well you know it.

[00:56:22]
He reflected back on it and it's more meaningful to you than it was at the time that was just next week. You know ever what you do you go out to win regardless of what you went in and not and it's just another opportunity and it's someone commented one time in a pretty game just the players meeting we don't win this week take is won't be too good.

[00:56:47]
Next. One that was that wasn't so but it was just a mutual respect and the reason it had developed between right. Really and truly and I think one of the uniqueness and I don't know had IOS today but whether you were on the B. team and never played or whether you were on the barstool in an all american everyone interfaced.

[00:57:21]
Some of your best friend my bill all American may have been on the BT whatever but you. There was a one issue and a unity that you were part of something bigger than you that have to be me. It has to be good because people are so good and so determined.

[00:57:41]
That you have to beat me that you could probably get that big so hand Joe could consider it the beating people are in there. You know make money. It's just interesting. And it in I think it's shown through the years. And yet you were a good student and.

[00:58:04]
Well yes thank you William you are right in and like I said we had a lot of players that belonged to Turnitin we had players in a leadership position in me. We were truly what I would consider a student athletes and and I think we you were Baghdad during you know when you know where the gentleman who lay right actually.

[00:58:36]
Well as some one of the system coaches referred team out on will paint the picture that we were completely Lynagh why but that is good football teams have character and characters. And we had character and we had Kerry terse character. I don't like your character you with the character.

[00:59:03]
Well. Everybody was was unique and. Some of them are still live in. So I don't feel comfortable. Well I mean can you tell me where yeah yeah about the people laugh that name will call me you know. Yeah. And of course George Marshall he was he called everybody by some name he had because I had a round he had but they was not yours.

[00:59:43]
What did become the Jordan and Joe Yea you know the UP THE VARSITY they used to be the waiters that you know you know and George even now will talk a little bit geeky almost teaching language and but it Joe Yeah he was still referred to and then **** Prius would go.

[01:00:04]
Raise your head goes he had a sharp and units go down the list and everybody had some character the. All in fun thing to me he kind of know they were referred to you. I think in my case. About half the time we call me Richard rather than run around.

[01:00:35]
Well no but he said it in a rant and he that read think that young gentleman. Wait for him to write he but he's a mean and I mean he he had that eastern Tennessee actually said Mia and that one. I didn't know your individual name. Yeah yeah he knew all that was something you don't YOU were B. team Right right.

[01:01:04]
And you were welcomed his doors were open. If you had anything he was not asked alighted from his member. I mean team members ever. If you were called to the office. It was you had the fear you didn't and you didn't know what it was for if you had missed play then you would be held accountable.

[01:01:28]
Well. When I was coaching and I can't remember when I was planned by so missed something like if we had an early morning at four thirty or five o'clock in the morning that we met in Grant seal and one of the system coaches would meet the people lair and you ran the stadium steps up the one then the other one and up the other one and then depending on the condition of pocket money.

[01:02:03]
Yes. Why would anyone give a class. Well we're going to get caught you then surely you would get caught our couldn't give them any mind but you know. Well. It could happen it could happen but then if you know what I mean if someone and decide to take you have a few beers and sleaze in and they got caught or didn't like a curfew then they would get there early morning route and run straight narrow.

[01:02:35]
Wow. It's too much to think too much. Another dramatic thing was happening in fifty two you out came back to knowing you were going to be going to do. The same time with a lot of the press lot of. Camps about these two women right where you even where did you quickly eyes on me.

[01:02:59]
Yeah yeah I did. Yeah and you were aware of it but it didn't matter. You know I mean that was that was rude. I mean that was allowed that's the way it will books and you know you just went on with your wife and two women among the thousands of young men didn't seem to make too much of a rebel historically right.

[01:03:21]
But not in reality in reality even just there. Well I think this is a thing that Observateur the year not only with the women but with the integration or whatever that the Tech student is there for day education. Everybody has opportunities and takes it in stride and that's part of it and that's the way our I don't I do not recall in any instance at all.

[01:03:46]
During my say a person doing time they were there just. That they are in the trust but up to that time including after that for a little while that your ears romance but then you don't get the crowd all excited. So the. With no real impact or change.

[01:04:07]
How did you know historic state I get have you already have your Yes we sure do you. We sure did. And not that I recall a. Well there might have been a few that missed a few curfews or maybe add a couple beers during the season that had to be reprimanded but it was all Anil internally and also on the coach to some of them and some of them but like I said Coach Todd was very calm.

[01:04:44]
He said initially he had his hand on his suit and his time. And he very rarely ever got up from his seat during a ball game he would turn to the left to the UP inch of Sattar the defense to the router biassed versa. And so in plenty of funny incident happened when we play and I don't recall whether it was fifty two or fifty three.

[01:05:12]
But cosen Frank Frank was a rather excitable coach and very enthusiastic and a lot of energy and and a brilliant football coach in my mind. But Pepper Rogers who was Frank was upstairs on the phone and coach Pittard who had coached the baseball team and was kind of helped with the beating in a passive way wonderful gentleman.

[01:05:40]
But not a very active football participant but he was out and lucky it. And so he was down on the phone. Listen in to Frank and. Of stairs and pepper and think through what interception or something then Frank said get get that Roger out of the. Game get him out of there.

[01:06:05]
And so what happen is a coach said I think. Coach brought will talk to you. Well Frank didn't realize something the other end of the phone and so the Consequently pepper turned it over to costar said I think coach. You want to tell me no. I think he did a televised.

[01:06:35]
There was a replay old Sunday. That was the Bobby Dodd Show and former He had Danforth who was the Atlanta Journal sports writer currently had in a great great writer and he was very friendly to taken to specifically Dodd and he was the moderator and they would play clips and all but I believe if I'm not mistaken that we may have had the Sugar Bowl game was televised and possibly the Alabama game we wanted to again plus the Sugar Bowl.

[01:07:09]
Did your folks come down to the local Yes and my daddy and a couple of friends would go to most of the ballgame in fact and fifty three. We played Notre Dame We had a local free in that had a plane and three of them flew up the South being in an act of the game when they flew back this tell you about the small town that people knew they were coming in and so they land the cars up on the street up where they could land about it.

[01:07:45]
Yeah about dusk dark and I was over for that day's on the about the community. Everybody had run and that really opened up a wonderful. It did and he really was then. I could feel. Something he never eat works so hard like never dreamed that there was great secret that.

[01:08:16]
The way you were at that time when you got through it that you're so good that we played the sugar bowl and played old me us in the Sugar Bowl in beat them they think they won out in front of us don't think we beat them twenty four to fourteen twenty four thirteen something I'm not sure of the score but we now have George Morris let you know exactly how old your you look in the cup but what I could have remembered when I was playing but then coaching eight or nine years I is hardly surprised to get the right right right now.

[01:08:51]
So did you go back home at the end of your journey here at work again know it in the junior year I was in our O.T.C. program. You can't. And so we had to you went to Fort Bliss Texas for six weeks in summer camp we would become a ship was not questioning kept shaking yeah yeah.

[01:09:10]
And that was a great experience although I probably. There was hot and humid and was going with a girl at the time and that was probably one of the greatest six weeks I ever spent. But anyway I think you're right that. Yeah yeah. So you can backtrack and fifty four where I think fifty three fifty three.

[01:09:32]
And you joined a church. Well that was well very truthfully the paternity approached me and said that there was someone that would be willing to pay money she hastened to see if I wanted to join the fraternity and to this day I do not know. I don't know who it was so it was not given that I would like to do that.

[01:10:03]
No. That. Would be illegal but if that was able to join if turned to and have that experience that year and then the next summer had eight hours to take and summer spoof to graduate and I lived in there was only two people who could live in turn to have it was just and I would expect me to join Kappa Alpha Kappa Alpha was that it actually because it just broadens your horizon of people and preamp and transit you have today with different things we common and still do.

[01:10:41]
And so on time round. Don't count. Well I've been blessed from from that perspective. And the senior class as well this was almost a on heel. Because of. Well someone had a right. Scenario at the perfect time college career. It sounds like you pretty much had it put together.

[01:11:05]
Well I enjoyed it. Let me say that like a rock and I don't recall a lot. I had some disappointments course you know from an egotistical standpoint I like to been starting and all of that but other than that I had a great time and Lord blessed me with an attitude just like the best of whatever situation changed nothing.

[01:11:28]
Nothing. So you guys were pretty late so I came back here just broken no record everything but the next year. Well. We lost to logging. Now sad thing during the ten year that from nineteen fifty through the nineteen fifty three season. I believe my class. We were one thirty six ballgames lost two and had two and played in two Sugar Bowl.

[01:12:04]
Than an hour or so basically in total. But I think and you know when we beat Georgia. All the time we were there. Nothing could be right. So it was a like I said it was just a tremendous experience or the fact that it and having a championship year is really where I will eat it is a coastal treat you really well.

[01:12:32]
Yeah I mean the I mean he went no expectation that well no I mean he been caught. I'm sure he was disappointed as we were but we we still when you put it in perspective it was it was right. Only it was a great era right here. Yeah.

[01:12:49]
And I think he sure did. But good things come to an end right and that class graduated those extra Well I actually. Coached. Asked me to I wanted to coach and he said well come out and help them in the spring. And the and see how that goes and so I through the spring he called me and said rather than coming back in the fall and getting you know hours.

[01:13:25]
Go ahead and get them this in the summer so you can work full time in the fall. So he was not great at run and no one that I had to go into service and so consequently. That summer. Bob Awesomes was of the team coach and Bo Hagen was a freshman coach and Beau that summer.

[01:13:49]
I believe in July took a position at the University of South Carolina which was his album ata. And that left an extreme slot and Bob and Bo did all. The scouting for the Varsity you know words you who are we going play next week they sell this week so I was blessed in that I get the opportunity to feel that spot in travel all over and again broaden the horizon and professionally of the people you came in contact with.

[01:14:24]
And so that was a great great experience in that the one we're not was not with the teen. Only game days but we did all the scout reports in the review and you know right. And it was a learning process and I loved it. What made me think it was coaching and where one thing when I was I guess in high school I just said that was certainly right that I wanted to coach each year.

[01:14:55]
Well lots are on my runs surety at any chance here where I rise and like I said I had a lot of exposure just in Scouting see in the different teams seeing the different technical aspects of it and and relationships just that one year suppose you're of scouting and when you approach.

[01:15:20]
Just let her know he says he said Did you know that. With a degree from take you could do so much better in the world and he encouraged me to go into the world. In fact he set up an interview with. A couple of companies. I'll talk to you trying to talk me out of it and.

[01:15:42]
And actually I had a very good job offer. Otherwise but that one. What I wanted to do it at that. Did you run an impact and just Well originally when I was in high school my ambition was to coach at a big. Place like Cedartown or dollars and things you know that's my that is because that's where my horizon was but as my arise and broaden my ambition I guess or go abroad and I saw that in the way it way it worked out in court.

[01:16:23]
We went through we were seven three that year that I coached and went to the Cotton Bowl and played Arkansas. In the Cotton Bowl and then I had to report. Douglas lamp. So that was something you knew was driving but he had two years. Right. And if you accept you commission then you had to serve two years of active duty.

[01:16:43]
So you didn't get commission. Right right right. The second lieutenant. You had chosen the right. And that period of time between when you were actually fish was cool and you had the military coaching work live right stay and camp and I stayed on the campus in the US A little Dingley and John Robert Bell who was coach in the freshman team.

[01:17:12]
At that time we lived together in glee in the corner room. Place in the stadium or actually which is that lake apartment and that pretty good lifestyle. Well I loved it. I mean you know I was gone from Friday to Saturday not a Sunday and you watch film Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday and I had a pass to the movie on Thursday night and then you're going to do you live right it was my last and they want much social laugh during the season but I loved it.

[01:17:49]
You know and you think you're right place right time and it did anything that you had taken in classes that ply you like education being tested or used. Well I think you learn some logic you learn to think independently but I have found not only in Lafon I have had three professions that people communication skill is maybe the most important skill that a person can have and I've been blessed that I enjoy most people and so I think in a relationship with the communication within where they'd be faculty coaches or players carries over in the so you know pretty cool.

[01:18:49]
Break here. And it can happen that way. So when did that happen in January the twentieth nineteen fifty five and I was right but coached at that time and coached I call Colonel Blake who was the coach at West Point Academy and they had become free and then he asked coach but he maybe thought I might be an assett to serve my time at West Point.

[01:19:26]
So X.L. pretty confident. What I was up at Fort Bliss in Texas but when the orders came out I had orders to go to Germany and the majority of people in those classes prior to my being there were going to COBRA because it was in the middle of covert and conflict but this particular class was first class in about five classes that anyone.

[01:19:52]
When you were other than to Lee Greenland or Korea. So I was one of the to actually yeah. Let me use that event was a love letter writing then of it so. When I came back to Atlanta. Before I want to call Colonel Blake and he said what happened at that time and a lot of the soldiers who were good athletes were moving out of Fort Ord or in California and that Congress had a congressional investigation that they were pulling the good athletes and they wouldn't go on overseas.

[01:20:29]
So the ability to maneuver assignments were with it. Limited during that period of Tampa so I was aware but it turned out again a great great experience. I got in Germany. I made up my mind I was going to get athletics for two years and just do nothing and act about three or four days.

[01:20:55]
The colonel had found out and so I ended up at can coach the football team on base and been assigned to the group headquarters and left that and ultimately was laughing at it. Director for the whole group and all sports and in the morning I was a system this too which is a system intelligence officer.

[01:21:22]
So I would just been for five hours doing Army duty and then the rest of the day and athletics and direct in doing that. And like I said it was a great time to be in Europe. The German had just gotten the independence back on July the first I landed over there July third.

[01:21:41]
So really that was eighteen months and I was fortunate to have you friends that have a little culture and you were to go and go to the museums and you really it was really. And yet again it was just an idea that just another layer and got three and today that came through there that it.

[01:22:04]
Right. And that was you're right you're right but then coach started to tell me that I have towards the would try to have position for me when I came back so that was so that was reassuring. So that finished here that would be in January of ninety nine hundred fifty seven and you can't coach that he had kept the position and I was started as an assistant.

[01:22:45]
The team coach coach in the deep into the team and when the fall rolled around I did the scouting which again is a great experience for a young coach. And I have to one year. I began to help coach grave coach the defensive signal caller. And so then I wade through the season decided that I would stay with the team own game day and be up stairs to where I could communicate with them.

[01:23:20]
The signal callers. And all and but I still did all the scouting reports and was only on game days did I coach in. The field. But and then I went. From there to coach and the land backers and from the land backers to coach and guards and tackles and over the next nine years we think that the usual progress.

[01:23:53]
Just I don't really know what I mean I don't think there's any set pattern I mean some people go to ask you then they work their way and now they have. Well again because of restriction they have graduate assistance which I perceive is one way for someone who is a little older to get on the college level or at least get exposure to come in as a quote graduate assistance and help and then you.

[01:24:20]
Maybe someone in that stamp will go somewhere else or something you were very fortunate that I was in I was extremely fortunate and of course you know I was extremely fortunate and you know I have class and you know me right now in college and I mean we was all full time I never.

[01:24:44]
You know when they were seminars in coaching clinic I've taught and spoken at those but I've never actually taught an academic class. Work so that was very right and were you happy with my last mile out of what I let you really love and like I said we were we had one bad year but I think we were for my beef five info or something.

[01:25:17]
So big but most of the time from the time I coach we the coast. We were still seven three and eight and two went to bowl game. Most of the time I think somewhere over that period we went to seven and nine years or something. So he you had Bradley.

[01:25:43]
I sure did. And I had a I had a lot of opportunity to meet a lot of other coaches. All over the country and had opportunities to leave. Which I was blessed with that and just how much. Well actually he I think he had great organizational skills he had great ability to delegate authority.

[01:26:20]
And yet not lose control. I mean there was never any doubt who was in control and he could if you stepped over the line. You. You knew it in a very professional way and but yet he let you run and go and be innovative and creative and really just be yourself and I've heard a great athlete tremendous and he was great under pressure.

[01:26:54]
In fact he would take and punt with some of the punters and kick it out of bounds. You know on a practice field and that a milkshakes and things of that nature and course he would perform and I understand before I was playing that he was quite a competitive golfer and is when I say that he could make the big push for the big.

[01:27:21]
And I'll but it might. Yeah he played tennis the crying he lived by police started playing where the parking lot is and Peter's part and then when I first came back out of service. I was his partner for a while but I would much if I wasn't good enough.

[01:27:41]
When I was young at the time and I could run and play the back lack and he had play than they are now only like yeah yeah but he'd know he was a real experience and my laugh and I think touched the laugh because he respected you for who you were until you did.

[01:28:02]
Otherwise and. Me great films. Well I think he surrounded yourself with good assistant and he was confident enough in what he believed that good strong people. Did not threaten him and I have seen. Coaches and C.E.O.'s in business that could not surround himself with strong and of Lady creative.

[01:28:33]
People MacOS they were more there for a ride. Right. So he was very very secure. Yes and good here and that is me and a great organizer he wanted the details before we went in zero to game there was a game plan. And there was this this list and that's way when he would and we reviewed everything.

[01:29:01]
And if we can get the players year career. Everybody or they just thought it was fabulous. Now. So I guess you have to be somebody who really inspires that right people. Well I think he brings you to a level that you haven't been and consequently on that level you don't want to let him down because it would be a disappointment and you see how he has broaden your horizons and given you opportunities that you wouldn't pay it.

[01:29:38]
Otherwise you're right I think that's when that happens that you're right and you know they go out in the world when they're confident and they're sure. And they're compassionate and they're just it's just the things that I think the confidence in the self-assurance. In any situation you bending.

[01:30:04]
It's not just not thinking. Plain it's really only right and he one thing he required is that you we go to church on Sunday and yes you go somewhere in here where where. But you get up and you go to church on Sunday and one church one Sunday during the season we all went as a group to a church so very interesting how we could get away with that right now.

[01:30:34]
Well I think I have read were coaches make it voluntary but you know but it wasn't there when it was a requirement to have seen have it run and values so that they would carry much like I said in the moronic thing he never graduated from college. So consequently that meant there meaningful for him.

[01:31:02]
For you to graduate. He dressed very sharp he spoke. Very commanding when he spoke but he was really kind of a shot person and in one stance but he whenever he addressed a group. He was in command and very confident. These were my doing it for the just right.

[01:31:30]
Making people and he you know even Iraqi you got out you wanted him to be proud of you. And yet not have those right you've done a good job. Bryant and recognize that it. Just like all you do when you think about those times. Now back at election day in interest to one where they are at times too much and.

[01:31:55]
Where in there he might actually be right and you know like you said of me doing Griffin and I mean. And there was an. I'm trying to think of someone you think I see him chuckling and I see him putting his arm. Around you and the little chuckle that he had and course we you know bantered back and forth and kidded back and forth and he you know he was open and you know I think he affirmed everybody and I think that's a trite coach done a it and I think that's a great try.

[01:32:37]
In any one in a relationship that you will form people because that lifts you to the next level and. But I can see you doing. Griffin with his. Courted suit on his blue cord suit. And just chuckling. You know you had that funny life and he. He did he really did and to tell you another gentleman that I really I consider the smartest man that I've ever known and that was Dr D.M. Smith who was head of the math department.

[01:33:15]
And he also headed up the tutoring actor he retired. In the first year. Coach he had a we had an office together and when I say an office together there was a day. Asked in two chairs and I shared it and there was a couple of stories. And I could tell about him.

[01:33:36]
But the reason I say he's the most brilliant person I've ever know is he could tell alone any subject. And be informed. But more importantly he could make someone of average intelligence. Understand and what a great man and but he was just that he's a remarkable remarkable man.

[01:34:04]
And whether it was opera whether it was mathematics whether it was athletics whatever it might be he was larvae and he could explain it to where I could understand it and so I just considered him smartest man I've ever known. I think he looks pretty mad but they tell the story and I asked him and he did not deny at the smokestack on campus that he figured out how many bricks.

[01:34:40]
If you've heard this story before her parents but in a way I think it was written was this girl that kept you right. Fifteen or twenty and you know let them have it anyway. They said well you missed it. He said no they put too much more to suggest go back to the more you can actually And another story.

[01:35:06]
They told and he did not deny this. He went to Europe to take a course in higher mathematics. One summer and when he arrived after class. They started to hand out the text books and all and he got up and started leaving the professor asked him where he was going he said well I don't really feel like I need to be here since I wrote the book but I mean.

[01:35:34]
One thing it think about all three of those elections were on which people agree. You're right and they and they all. Like I said accepted people in that cared for people and they cared for better than people they lifted them to another level. So many people have George story an interesting story.

[01:36:00]
So do you think we. Erect it first. And he you know he could forget he was kind of forgetful from time to time. Yeah right right. He remember ninth and he would write he knew how it was and he had been a fat because he had then it Macaulay ****.

[01:36:24]
Before he came to take and course Castle hands to school to prep school I went to was in the league with my SO HE ALWAYS. So he always had something to say about how do you write you know that was a dent in the plan factor. But like I said when you stop and think back of the era traditions of blessed to be there for doing doing.

[01:36:52]
Most all of them occurred. Not to think first right. What happened. Acknowledging years I've coached there until now to the nine hundred sixty six season or sixty five last game coached it. We played Texas take in the Gator Bowl when Kim King was a sophomore quarterback. Which course we won and.

[01:37:22]
But it was just a wonderful wonderful experience and I got to see Coach. You know from a different perspective and love him in different ways respect him in different ways. And yeah yeah yeah. Other times I think the political change came. Well at the time and it goes back to nine hundred fifty two when we played Mississippi in the sugar bow and we beat them when there was a controversial call.

[01:38:02]
But anyway. The sports writers in those days were homework a millionaire plot a commis city of a you know from Mississippi Birmingham proud about they were very very protective of the home team. And of course Ole Miss felt like they had a better team and this is Matt version.

[01:38:24]
How much of that and I wanted to play Georgia Tech and regular season play. Well at that time the stadium at ole us. I can't remember what it seeded twenty or twenty five thousand people or it was a small stadium in relationship to grant feel and through the years they wanted us to come to Ole Miss and they'd come to Atlanta and coach dodge position from a professional standpoint was that he could bring a team into Grant seal and pay them.

[01:39:00]
A Mostly thirty thousand dollars and had a lot better chance of beating the M. than him go and Ole Miss and you know good having twenty two thousand in the making a minimal amount of money plus the fact that we always. He always tried to skid you seven home games.

[01:39:18]
And we could get Clemson and other people who love to come in and they were good football team and play like I said a minimal not made more money and go from there so that was kind of an underlining factor that he was very honest with them. That's why I didn't have any desire to go over there and then the rude.

[01:39:40]
The nice new RW was that you could give a hundred in twenty or twenty five scholarships in football and basketball and any one year. I have or you could only give thirty bringing in thirty freshman in football maximum per year. So then. Most goo had T.N.. Scholarships and bias which left you a hundred in T.N..

[01:40:13]
Most people red shirted people. So if you take thirty and multiply if you're it sure to pull a clay. And multiply five years by thirty then that came to one hundred fifty scholarships and you couldn't have but one hundred twenty take off that I mean one hundred T.N. That would be on football scholarship which left.

[01:40:38]
A minus forty which meant that the people you brought in some people were running kids all from making last the tough that won the good athletes course at that time we were old top and nationally. So consequently coach dodge position was one hundred T.N. You know but this make the root of the world we can bring in fifty we don't get Pena last for keep in key and see the rays the sealant just have a limit there we bring in everybody bring in thirty or no skewed math like everybody could bring in fifty and then ten.

[01:41:18]
So that made it that that was what it was you could sand fifty freshman. But you could have one hundred ten on scholarship. At any one time so the numbers. And the year before we got out of the issue you see they had a meeting in Atlanta at the ole Athletic Club which was then Tampa and coast request was or his desire is this is put a limit on the number we can bring in don't limit and penalize the **** in course tech.

[01:41:50]
Did have more money in that let it coffers at the time so lace and well you know you got to advantage and all this. So the year before we got out of this they say we brought in eight hundred boys. That year and consequently if someone is bringing in fifty every year and we're bringing in eighteen and keeping kids that can't play and it doesn't take a mental giant to see that we're not going to be able to compete on that left.

[01:42:22]
So regardless of what you hear today. The reason Georgia Tech is not in the Southeastern Conference today is because the discrepancy of the amount of people you're going to have a scholarship at any one time versus the math you could bring in and I'm nearly positive it was fifty that you could bring in if that then he quit now.

[01:42:50]
Well I mean he said we cannot lay ELPH with the rule the way it is now and then they had the they voted in and the conference voted not to change any route which is which is you know which forced dust in the end. To to resign from the conference and we were you.

[01:43:13]
It was tremendous news and it was very clear that you know what we were independent we were independent. And so you get the other thing is what By the end television had become big and we were on television more than other people and the and tap people said well they think they can get all the money and keep it there say up this is part of the view of the other view was that they don't want to play the tough who you know you can take whatever you don't run and so that basically the Rue on the amount of fresh one that could come in and the total match you could hold on scholarship in one time as a reason to is not in the southeastern conference today and and can see it in their eyes when you.

[01:44:04]
Good user made in advance so yes you negotiated in course you know at that time the cademy is were independent Notre Dame was independent of course F.S.U. was an independent and Miami was independent there was you know there was no no no I mean no and of course you kept the regional and now in the Georges and Tennessee's Nalla Bama still play.

[01:44:30]
Yeah we still played so but technically they were and we went through a period from Southeastern Conference to independent to where we are now in the A.C.C. now. Well I won that period independent recall there were somewhere between three to six years at Mt I'm not one I could be wrong on what history book because I wasn't there to time.

[01:44:55]
But that's how the evolution happened. Now we hear coaching when you look back. Is there any roster living out there in that you want to say with the back to where others might actually ball. Who went on to play pro ball and coach an approach for a number of years.

[01:45:24]
Maxie was a talent but one thing that he had good ability but he could play Torah tough and he could play hurt. And so he comes to mind another boy Larry Stalin's who was a defensive tackle quick had an excellent mind on him and he want to own and played professional ball he's an engineer president C.E.O. his own company now and he was a maybe not naturally as talented as others but he was quick and.

[01:46:04]
Add the fact he paid defensive tackle pros and end up playing land back in the pro so that there are some but he was mentally tough and mentally quick and then there were some boy to it. Griffin was another boy that was one hundred ninety five by on tackle that that played beyond his ability and they were just different youngsters that played beyond their talents and have made great citizens.

[01:46:33]
You know and that one of the joys that I have from my coaching is there's a group that played in the fifty's and around the sixty's that been getting together for sixteen seventeen eighteen years as a family. For vacation in the life's three or four years I've asked me to come back and I've gone back on two or three occasions and played golf and tennis and fallacy up with them and you know they're not four five years younger than I am or six but it's a now but we had a one is together that still there but why did you do.

[01:47:07]
Well. The major factor was I was born and to be the head defensive coach at Georgia Tech and I got passed over so I left there and went to West Virginia as the head defensive coach for two years. And at that point I was determined to be a head coach anywhere.

[01:47:32]
Well I would take I had a lot of opportunities to leave but I would look back now and the only code head coaching job I really ever worn would you were today. But I didn't realize at the time but in a way I went to West Virginia and which was a different level of football in that we went into a situation where the chain complete staff Jim Corley when if he had coaching I'd coach with Jim and.

[01:48:02]
And. I was coaching the deeth and when we first year we were four four and two and we were playing Pittsburgh Syracuse Penn State and we played them competitively in the second year. We think were. Maybe six and four four and one and in fact we had improved considerably and we were number seven or eight in the country and the fans in that give me a lot of reassurance and confidence and at that point.

[01:48:44]
Now at. Our meeting. Well let me tell you why I got out of coaching my wife had where do we go. What do you have why we got married in that hundred sixty one. I used when I got out of service. I had a friend in Rome Georgia and I would go visit my folks and come back on the road way of Roman dated different people and she was in the crowd and then of course later on she moved to Atlanta and began teaching and we met again and had a six months start dating and had a six month relationship and got married and nine hundred sixty one.

[01:49:35]
And so she was very supportive and that was the first time that I had anyone that could distract me from my first love of football and he competed. Yeah right there it is nineteen. It's right and so she has to have a hysterectomy she has a tumor and.

[01:50:04]
And we should have crisis in West Virginia medical university there. And so we put in for an adoption and we got our first child. Susan who was five weeks so we got her own Valentine's Day and that was in one nine hundred sixty seven. And and she then.

[01:50:33]
Became the apple of my and I realized at that point that to be a head coach that you. In my opinion you had to be on the road about two hundred fifty days. And that you lost. You lost some association with the boys because in your directing traffic and your coach in the coaches and the day to day and.

[01:51:00]
I just felt that I couldn't be the kind of daddy. I wanted to be and be what it required to be a successful football coach so I got. Chose to get out and careers change careers at the age of thirty five or thirty six. And just. Well I was originally going in business with Carol father who was in the land in it.

[01:51:24]
But I was with him to end and we had been in sixteen states and I was in that and I had been home only one not so I knew I knew that would go to work out so then I ended up in manufacturing here in Calhoun to a mutual friend.

[01:51:46]
And then very much. Right here right. You came in I mean right here right. And so we raised our family here and I was here. Sixteen years and lived here eighteen. Years before I went back to Atlanta actually commuted for a cup. Years and while we were here.

[01:52:07]
Our son he was born in nine hundred sixty nine and he was five weeks when we adopted him and his name is Richard and he's a junior but he goes by Richard instead of ****. And so we were blessed with two children that the good Lord warned us to help because that was only way we could have them.

[01:52:29]
And we've been blessed through the years and. Our daughter and her husband Rick have three children little granddaughter. That's seven they Macy and. Son that forward named coach. Incidentally his coach Richard but. His dad is named Richard two so. And then they have a four month old baby named Kate and they live in Birmingham in the Mountain Brook area and must son is in Simpsonville South Carolina and he married to a wonderful lady named Paul and she teaches facial education and they have two shuns a son.

[01:53:12]
Graham who is four and a son. Spencer who is two and Richard heads. Was he graduated from Presbyterian college. Went in law enforcement and loved it and then I guess I encouraged him to try some other things and he was in the trucking supervision business and was very successful and then he was in real estate and very successful but he had your earning.

[01:53:43]
Being in police work and so he's the tech to you and I am and he loves it and he's happy. And as I said we're very very marked or I'm right and money. Yeah we're about two and a high. Well three hours from. In the South Carolina about two and a half from Birmingham then we try to see him about at least once they were fortified weeks each and sometime born in week.

[01:54:15]
So they know. Yeah we all go together. By cation to the beach both families and then on holidays we try to get together. My daughter incidentally was a majorette it. Alabama for a couple of years so we so no we don't have any Reverend Wright daughter and son but we haven't had the tension.

[01:54:36]
We have the friend we should. And maybe look granddaughter. I know the friend I know how rightly so you retired from George didn't have her I actually didn't really meet actually that in GA tough Toure's I went with my brother in law in the butler properties and development in real estate development would develops and manages and I've been with him.

[01:55:05]
That was the last leg of my career for an eighteen nineteen years and I go into Atlanta about three or four days a week so I'm gonna send a retired moralist but yeah and yet countries where your country gentleman rule here. Well I guess I've always been a small town person.

[01:55:28]
Although I enjoy living in the city like that. I've just been a people person and enjoyed people and. Fortunately good in most people I think. Well I don't know about that. I think. You've had a very happy life wonderful just latch that is there and you really have a wonderful way you were.

[01:55:58]
Forty nine. Well I lived in it he was seventy five. Years older than my mother was sixty seven. So you had me at thirty. I had to wait with what year nine hundred seventy eight. So he had a chance at the very few he transferred to a new company that's always good when Dad get to see that.

[01:56:23]
Well then well like I said I was blessed and. We were real close and I guess I missed them. Still I'm sure. Yes yes I do you know whatever. Course mother passed on purpose but when the last of your prayers passed and all was sudden you realize you're at the top and and even your wife and children know nothing of the earlier part of your laugh or who you were before you came from and that's a fact that it's rather right and sure it's time we just got word is legal.

[01:56:57]
We really are parents. But thank you for taking time to share today it is really man one story. We push it out of your experience that Georgia Tech in your time and sharing with thanks for sharing.