Art Gregory approached the game of football with a contagious mindset that often ensured victory during his glory days at Duke University.
Dick "Rhino" Havens, who played tackle next to Mr. Gregory, recalled a soft-spoken, highly-skilled Blue Devils' lineman who deserved all the accolades, yet he accepted them with humility.
"He was the best blocker in the ACC," said Mr. Havens of Chapel Hill, N.C. "He had a mindset to do the best he could and it caught on. When he spoke, we listened and were successful."
Mr. Gregory graduated from Duke, served in the military, then earned a law degree. He kept a toe in sports by serving as president of the Touchdown Club of Atlanta, chairman of the Peach Bowl team selection committee and, later, as a selection committee member when it became the Chick-fil-A bowl. He practiced law, then became executive director of the Coca-Cola Bottlers' Association of America.
In retirement, Arthur "Art" Gregory returned to Aiken, S.C., his hometown, where he died on Sunday from complications of cancer. He was 71. A funeral will be held at 1 p.m. today in the chapel of Aiken's Shellhouse Funeral Home.
From 1960 to 1962, Mr. Gregory was a two-time All-American who helped the Blue Devils amass a 23-8 record and three consecutive Atlantic Coast Conference titles. He was a two-time recipient of the Jacobs Blocking Trophy, which honors the best ACC blocker, and was a 1989 inductee into the school's athletics hall of fame, according to the Duke sports information website.
Monday, Duke's Hall of Fame coach Bill Murray told the Charlotte Observer that Mr. Gregory was one of the three finest linemen that he coached, or that his teams played against, in his 35-year career.
Johnny Gregory, a brother from Columbia, S.C., fondly recalled the 1961 Cotton Bowl match-up that pitted Duke against Arkansas. The Blue Devils won 7-6.
"I remember like it was yesterday," his brother said. "Duke was very good and beat almost everybody. I was just in awe of the whole situation."
After graduation, Mr. Gregory joined the Navy rather than pursue the pros. He graduated with honors from the University of South Carolina School of Law and settled in Atlanta.
Here, he was a trial lawyer 13 years before moving into management with the Coca-Cola Bottlers' Association. He took over as its executive director in the mid-1980s, and retired in 2001.
"He did a bang-up job," said Tom Haynes, Mr. Gregory's successor at the association. "He built a solid organization and very strong relationships with the bottlers. He was a good steward of the association's resources."
Though the lineman never married, he didn't pine for family, his brother said.
"He had his Duke family and his Coca-Cola pals," he said. "He had multiple families."
Additional survivors include his mother, Sophie Christopher Gregory of Aiken; a brother, George Gregory, also of Aiken; and a sister, Maria Taylor of Lexington, S.C.
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