In 1972, Bobby Ross was the linebackers coach at Maryland, 35 years old and on his way to the top of the coaching ladder. The ascent would ultimately place him in leadership of Georgia Tech’s 1990 national championship team and the San Diego Chargers’ appearance in the Super Bowl in the 1994 season.
It wasn’t hard for him to notice a graduate assistant named Frank Beamer. The former Virginia Tech cornerback worked hard, minded details and offered useful suggestions.
“His ideas were always very good,” Ross said. “From all that, you just knew he was going to be a good football coach. You just knew that.”
When Ross was offered the head coaching job at the Citadel after his one season at Maryland, he took along Beamer (as well as another grad assistant named Ralph Friedgen). With that, Ross gave wings to one of the most successful coaching careers in college football history. After 29 seasons and seven conference championships at Virginia Tech, Beamer will retire from his alma mater at the end of the season, having made the announcement Nov. 1.
By a most serendipitous turn, when Georgia Tech and Virginia Tech meet Thursday night at Bobby Dodd Stadium, Ross will be there to greet his dear friend as Georgia Tech will be celebrating the 25th anniversary of the 1990 championship. Friedgen, the Jackets’ offensive coordinator on that cherished team, will likewise be in attendance.
“I’m going to try to say hi to him, for sure,” Ross said of Beamer. But “I don’t want to bother him on game day.”
Ross coached at the Citadel 1973-77, leaving for an assistant coaching job with the Kansas City Chiefs. Beamer stayed behind, later jumping to Murray State, where he was an assistant and later head coach. There was far more to the imprint that Beamer left on Ross than his football acumen.
“His ability to get along with people, No. 1,” Ross said in a phone interview this week. “That wasn’t the most important, but he could get along with everybody. Everybody liked Frankie. They respected him.”
Ross recalled a player at the Citadel who was struggling with his grades and the school’s military environment. Beamer, who was the player’s position coach, began to play racquetball with him and tried to get to know him on a personal level, which proved instrumental in his eventual success.
When Ross wanted his son Kevin to learn football, he sent him to Beamer’s camp at Murray State. Beamer waited for Kevin at the bus terminal.
“Frank was genuine – what you saw was what he was,” Ross said. “There was no pretense. He was what he was, and it was all good.”
This week, Beamer essentially paid Ross the same compliment.
“I think he was probably a coach that knew more football than anybody I’ve ever been around,” Beamer said at his news conference Monday. “He can talk offense, defense, special teams. He knew it all. But the best thing about him was how much he cared about players and coaches and that part of it.”
They met as opponents for the only time in 1990. A week earlier, Georgia Tech had stunned Virginia on a last-second field goal, a critical turn on its way to No. 1. Beamer’s team was in his fourth season at Virginia Tech, then a football independent, trying to get his team off the ground.
“I knew this, that Frankie’s teams were always going to be very well-disciplined and they were going to be physical and they were going to be a physical football team,” Ross said. “I told our team about that, and they did not disappoint us.”
For the second week in a row, the Yellow Jackets escaped with a last-second field goal, this time for a 6-3 win at Grant Field.
If all goes as planned, they’ll meet on the same field under far different circumstances, 25 years later. One is closing a career that almost certainly will be honored by enshrinement in the College Football Hall of Fame – coincidentally, less than two miles from Bobby Dodd Stadium. The other will be rekindling memories of a most special season.
Two close friends, sharing the view from the top of the ladder.
