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Tuesday, January 16, 2007
‘Lovesick’ Beck happily took Dodd’s advice
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
This gets somewhat personal at times, begging your pardon. But it is a storybook romance that I saw develop almost from the beginning. Mostly from afar, but at times close up, close enough to realize that this was the perfect match.
Both central characters were handsome enough to cause traffic to stop and gawk. He was a football player, she a songstress who sang with Albert Coleman’s band that played in a place called The Owl Room, downstairs at the old Dinkler Plaza Hotel. She had a day job, but at night she sang, and she was tall, lissome and beautiful in a brunette sort of way. When and how they met, I never knew, but it took, as they say. He was Ray, she was Claire.
Playing football and keeping his head above academic waters at Georgia Tech was no breeze. The season of 1949, Ray Beck’s junior year, was not a good one. Georgia Tech lost more games than it won, and only by upsetting Georgia in a brutal closing game, with only a third-string quarterback left standing, was the pressure relaxed on the coach, Bobby Dodd. One of the reasons for the painful season, Dodd said later, was a serious case of “lovesickness.”
Often at night the football player could be found seated in the shadow of a back table at the Owl Room. He’d sneak away from his dorm to hear the brunette beauty sing, but mainly just to see her. Meantime, Tech’s football season was suffering, and so was Dodd, and he called his “lovesick” player in for a piece of advice.
“Why don’t you just get married,” he said. “You’re not playing the kind of football you can, and that’s got to be the reason. Do you love the girl, and does she love you? Then marry her.” Or words to that effect, I was told.
Married football players were not the norm in those times, but Georgia Tech made provisions for those who were wed. I don’t have details about how the football player and the beautiful brunette came to be wed, but they were, and in truth, lived happily ever after, as they say. A boy child arrived, and the football player had the season of his life in 1951. So did Georgia Tech, rising from the ashes of a 5-6 season to 11-0-1 and the added dollop of victory in the Orange Bowl, then one of four major bowls when a bowl game was a bowl game. It was Ray who picked up a blocked punt and returned it for a touchdown that preserved a tie with Duke. He was the key figure on this team, George Morris said, that laid the groundwork for the national championship that Georgia Tech shared with Michigan State the next season.
He was voted lineman of the year in the Southeastern Conference. On the way to the presentation dinner in Birmingham, I held their baby boy in my lap. (Newspapers didn’t throw travel money around loosely in those times, so I hitched a ride.) The New York Giants picked him second in the draft, but that career came to a two-year halt while he did time as a lieutenant in the Army, some of it spent in Korea.
Back from the war, Ray rode the high life with the Giants, who won the NFL championship in 1956, wiping out the Chicago Bears 47-7 in the title game. After four seasons it fell upon him to leave the Giants to come home and take over the family trucking business, but he left a legacy. He had come down with a broken ankle, and in his absence the Giants inserted a rookie from West Virginia who became historic as a linebacker. Remember the TV film, “The Violent World of Sam Huff”?
By that time, Ray was back home becoming a leading citizen in pleasant, leafy, casual Cedartown, a far cry from the bustle of New York. He served on hospital boards, a bank board, as president of the Chamber of Commerce and the country club, and together with his friend Doc Ayers created a golf tournament that contributed much to Cedartown charities. Life could not have been more rewarding, both to him and his hometown, and rare is the man who so turned a case of “lovesickness” into such a beautiful story. “The golden couple,” we called them.
Oh, and football never forgot him. A few years later, Ray was voted into the College Football Hall of Fame. He was 75 when he died last week. He was, as one teammate said, “a heckuva football player and an even finer human being.”
Permalink | Comments (12) | Categories: Furman Bisher, Tech / ACC
Chan’s double-talk, Vick’s silence
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
THE TUESDAY COUNTDOWN…
10: Four hours later and Jack is STILL alive! I just can’t believe it.
9: Jim Mora is fired and Chan Gailey is merely unpopular. So how is it these guys are/were candidates for two of the NFL’s premier coaching jobs (Miami and Pittsburgh).
8: I’m not going to dump on Mora. I believe he is a pretty decent head coach who can be a very good one some day, when he grows up a little. But the fact that he and Gailey (whose team started fast, then imploded again) are being pursued speaks to the dearth of candidates out there.
7: And when Bill Cowher comes back, he might as well slap himself on eBay and watch the bidding go up.
6: Jack Bauer would not make a very good head coach. But who better to call plays in a two-minute drill - with that INCESSANT TICKING sound in his ear all the time.
5: Didn’t watch the Golden Globes Monday night. But I did go online to check out the, um, dresses, yeah, dresses, on the red carpet, largely because I have no life and my wife is at work and I didn’t have to pay $29.95 for a one-month pass. The final BCS rankings: 1. Salma Hayek (duh); 2. Sofia Milos (double duh); 3. Katherine Heigl; 4. Penelope Cruz; 5. Beyonce Knowles. (Never thought Eva Longoria and Angelina Jolie would miss the cut.)
4: Chan Gailey - not red carpet material. But more importantly: For him to suggest that he was only interested in the Dolphins or Steelers jobs because they are “special” is disingenuous. There’s one important thing to remember: Gailey was hired by Dave Braine, not Radakovich. As a general rule, that creates an uncomfortable feeling for a college head coach, even a highly successful one - which Gailey isn’t. So of course he wants out.
3: I believe Marty Schottenheimer’s reputation for always losing big games is well-deserved. I also believe that if San Diego fires him after a 14-2 season, it would rank as the most absurd firing in the history of professional sports.
- The executive parts of the Atlanta Spirit are very upset with me for perceived overly negative/cheapshot coverage (who, me?) of their ownership group and their teams. Funny. I wrote a glowing column about Thrashers coach Bob Hartley the other day, and I didn’t hear word one from them. Must’ve been an oversight.
1: We’ve heard from a lot of people about why Michael Vick will succeed or fail in Bobby Petrino’s offense, or any offense. So when do we get to hear from Michael Vick?
Permalink | Comments (132) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Quick Hit
