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DEL.ICIO.US‘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
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By misterwax
January 16, 2007 09:15 PM | Link to this
Furman -
thank goodness an true blue old timer can write a story about a football player who was not a rapist, thug, wide beater, drug-head, etc… I wonder when you are retired and the remaining columnists will have not left to write about except tragedy and scandal…steroids, dope, DUIs, ad nauseum…. thanks for having lived a life of association with the gentlemen athletes of the real world and not the athletes of the underworld… BZZZZZZZZZ!
By Papa
January 16, 2007 09:29 PM | Link to this
Met Mr. Beck one time, ere so briefly, while a disc jockey mate of son Kyle in Carrollton, though I knew the name as my dad was a schoolmate of Ray’s on The Flats. Ray did his family, business, town and institute proud. My sympathies to the Becks. And to Hell with georgia.
By David Duncan
January 17, 2007 12:38 AM | Link to this
I missed Ray Beck by one year. I enrolled at Ga Tech in 1953. He was one heckva football player. Thanks for giving us an insight into his character.
David Duncan Centennial, CO
By HAL
January 17, 2007 07:43 AM | Link to this
Isn’t it nice to hear an inspiring and encouraging sports story for a change. Ray Beck’s playing days were before my time but now I think I’ve learned something about him. Thanks Furman.
By Dick Philpot
January 17, 2007 09:54 AM | Link to this
FURMAN-YOU REMAIN THE BREATH OF FRESH AIR IN SPORTS!!SEEMS ONLY YESTERDAY THAT RAY& I DECIDED TO TURN IN OUR BAND INSTRUMENTS& UNIFORMS* & GO DOWN TO THE HIGH SCHOOL AT 13 YRS.OLD &GO OUT FOR THE TEAM.YOU SAID IT SO WELL ABOUT A LIFE LONG FRIEND!!
*BAND LEADER SAID WE WOULD NEVER MAKE THE TEAM!!
By Tom Paul
January 17, 2007 10:49 AM | Link to this
Thanks Furman for reminding us that there are some “good people in sports”.
By Dick J
January 17, 2007 11:23 AM | Link to this
Furman, one more time I think I have read the best you’ve ever done!
Thanks again for all you have and do mean to Southern sports. I am a Tech guy (’62) that lives in NC now but read you regularly on the web.
My best to you and your family.
By Dick J
January 17, 2007 11:25 AM | Link to this
Furman, one more time I think I have read the best you’ve ever done!
Thanks again for all you have and do mean to Southern sports. I am a Tech guy (’62) that lives in NC now but read you regularly on the web.
My best to you and your family.
By Dick J
January 17, 2007 11:29 AM | Link to this
Furman, one more time I think I have read the best you’ve ever done!
Thanks again for all you have and do mean to Southern sports. I am a Tech guy (’62) that lives in NC now but read you regularly on the web.
My best to you and your family.
By John B
January 17, 2007 02:31 PM | Link to this
Thanks Furman for this trip back in time; to the halcyon days of articles by Bisher, Outlar, Miles, et al. Ray Beck was a hero to me as a tiny guard at Carrollton where I imagined I could emulate my hero. My first year at Georgia Tech, we won the National Championship with Beck and Larry Morris. Athletes weren’t perfect back then but a far cry from today’s crowd. Thanks for the memories.
By smilnjac
January 17, 2007 03:48 PM | Link to this
Yea Furman, Thanks for still writing now and then. You are what sports writers should be and too few are. I always thought you and Tom McEwen of Tampa were the cream of your generation
By Ed
January 17, 2007 10:11 PM | Link to this
I have to echo the comments others have made. Thanks Furman. And does anyone remember Ed Danforth and an “Ear to the ground”?