Coach a character, motivator, friend Colorful mentor won 3I-AA championships at Georgia Southern
BY RUSS BYNUM THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Sep 9, 2006
STATESBORO, Ga. -- Erk Russell knew how to fire up his players.
After shaving his head because he didn't want to pay a buck for a haircut, he turned his bald dome into a motivational weapon at Georgia. He would butt heads with his helmeted "Junkyard Dawgs" after a big play and didn't mind a bit if the blood flowed, knowing his guys would storm back onto the field with blood in their eyes.
After Russell moved to Georgia Southern, he spotted a drainage ditch beside the field and decided it should be called "Beautiful Eagle Creek," an otherwise pitiful-looking trickle of water that he claimed held mystical powers over his football team. It sure seemed to work. The Eagles won three national championships.
"I can't really speak for my so-called ability to communicate with players," Russell once said. "I only know one way. And I don't even know what that is. I like 'em, if that means anything."
One of college football's most colorful characters, Russell died yesterday after his car rammed into a utility pole, with officials speculating that a stroke may have been the actual cause of death. He was 80.
Russell rose to prominence as Vince Dooley's defensive coordinator at Georgia. After a 17-year stint that culminated with a national championship in 1980, Russell left to start his own program at Georgia Southern, a school that had not played football since the 1940s.
By 1985, he was on top again, winning the first of three NCAA Division I-AA championships he would claim before going out on top in '89. The Eagles won the championship game in Statesboro to close out a 15-0 season, and Russell retired four days later.
"To Statesboro and the Georgia Southern community, he's irreplaceable," said Holmes Ramsey, a longtime Southern booster and friend who routinely met Russell for coffee at Snooky's, a diner across the street from the team's practice fields.
Russell left quite a legacy in Athens, too.
He was the crusty, wild-eyed complement to Dooley's stoic leadership, coming up with a scheme known as the split-60 that was considered old-fashioned in its time but produced some of the nation's top defenses. The Bulldogs led the nation in 1968, allowing just 9.8 points a game.
But Russell's tactical skills were vershadowed by his motivational antics. He willingly took players who were considered a little too small or not quite talented enough, always believing that he could make them believe they were special. He didn't seem to have an innate sense about what made a player tick.
The bald head was Russell's signature, but he also coined the phrase "Junkyard Dawgs" after an uncharacteristically poor season, printed up shirts that said "TEAM" in big letters and "me" in small ones, and always came up with a calendar for his players to follow during the offseason to make sure they arrived at camp in good shape.
One Sunday entry from his 1980 edition went like this, "Go to church: Select a church two miles away. Run there in thirteen minutes. After church, run home in twelve minutes."
Loran Smith, longtime sideline reporter on the Georgia radio network, described Russell as the "heart and soul of Georgia football for the years he was here."
"Erk coached through motivation, not intimidation, as some thought," Smith said. "Secretaries loved him. Custodians loved him. Most of all, his players loved him."
East Georgia Regional Medical Center CEO Bob Bigley said Russell was brought by ambulance to the hospital and was pronounced dead on arrival at about 9:10 a.m. Bigley said Russell's death was not caused by the wreck.
"There hasn't been a thorough examination, but the speculation is that he may have had a stroke," Bigley said.
Florida State coach Bobby Bowden, who had known Russell since they played on rival high schools in Birmingham, called him one of the greatest motivators.
"He took a school with no program and eventually won championships," Bowden said yesterday. "There was no better speaker in front of a group than Erk. I hate to see him leave us, but he is a good man who'll go to the good place."
Born in Birmingham, Ala., Erskine Russell was a four-sport letterman at Auburn. He began his coaching career at Grady High School in Atlanta, then had stints as an assistant at Auburn and Vanderbilt before joining Dooley's first staff at Georgia in 1964.
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