Erk

You don't have to be a sports fan to enjoy the story of Erk Russell.

Russell, the last four-sport letterman at Auburn University (football, basketball, baseball and tennis), rose through the ranks of the football coaching community until he found himself the defensive coordinator of the Georgia Bulldogs. Bald and menacing-looking, Russell sometimes butted heads with his defensive players until blood flowed freely from his scarred pate. This prompted the great southern columnist and humorist Lewis Grizzard to once ask, "Who is that maniac?"* Erk had a southern-fried charm, a mind for football and enough charisma to convince players to run through brick walls. When Georgia won the 1980 national championship, fans in Athens credited three forces: Herschel Walker, Vince Dooley and Erk – and not necessarily in that order (although Herschel was usually first).

Just after the triumph in the Sugar Bowl in January of 1981, Russell decided to build a football program in Statesboro. Georgia Southern College had asked him to head up a brand new football team, the first at the college since World War II. Erk agreed. Most people thought he was insane.

In 1984, the team played its first schedule as a Division I football school and narrowly missed the I-AA playoffs. I-AA was the designation for smaller football-playing Division I schools, and its playoff format continues to prove that the BSC formula of having just two teams play one game for the I-A national championship is a joke. But I digress.

In 1985, just four years after starting the Georgia Southern program from such humble beginnings that someone had to buy a football at K-Mart for the press conference, Erk's Eagles beat four teams in four weeks for the I-AA national title (the winning touchdown pass is below). The Eagles did it again in 1986. In 1988, the Eagles lost in the title game, but came back in 1989 and became the first college football team to ever complete a 15-0 season, capped by their third national championship.

Russell retired on top after the '89 season. Georgia Southern would go on to win more titles in 1990, 1999 and 2000, making them the Notre Dame of mid-major college football. Russell passed away one day before Georgia Southern's 2006 season opener.

I got a chance to know Erk and learn all the wonderful stories associated with his nearly-mythical figure: how he turned a drainage ditch into the most enchanted body of water this side of the Fountain of Youth; how he had just one rule – "Do Right" – an adage that would have made Christ, Buddah or whomever you worship smile; how everyone Erk touched was changed by the experience – including me.

Now I am proud to be writing a play based on his life for the Averitt Center for the Arts in Statesboro. The grant-funded project will be hitting the stage in time to coincide with the 2008 football season, 20 years after Erk's penultimate season stalking the sidelines at Georgia Southern. It is a project I share with a group of people that will grow by leaps and bounds in the next few weeks.

In the meantime, I thought I would simply share my enthusiasm for the project in a public forum now that we're not being so secretive about its existence. To get to write about a man who helped a college grow from 6,000 to 16,000 and a community grow similarly is a huge burden and an exponentially bigger thrill. I'll be posting more about this at The Institute for Higher Thinking as the project progresses. Thanks to everyone who was in on the fact that I was working on this project before it became public knowledge and gave me so much support and love. You have no idea just how that carried me through a lot of long nights.

There are a lot more of those to come, but I couldn't be more excited.

*From Grizzard's forward to Russell's autobiography.