Frank Ros held out as long as he could. The captain of Georgia’s 1980 national championship football team had long held May 17 travel reservations for Barcelona, Spain. That’s where his mother lives, and he visits her there twice a year. He was just there in October.
Ros knew that with the world held in the grip of the coronavirus pandemic and his home country of Spain one of the countries in the world most severely impacted, he was probably going to have to forego the trip this spring. Still, he procrastinated in canceling the trip before he finally pulled the trigger last month.
Ros’s worst fears were realized last week. His mother was confirmed to have contracted COVID-19 on the morning of March 30. She died, alone, less than 24 hours later in the nursing home where she resided in the Barcelona suburb of Santa Coloma de Gramenet. She was 86.
“They diagnosed her on Monday, and she passed away at 10 o’clock on Tuesday,” Ros shared from his home in Kennesaw. “It was really fast. My speculation is, as bad of shape as Spain is in and her being elderly, they probably didn’t do much to save her. They just let her expire.”
According to real-time statistics kept by worldometers.info, Spain (135,032) ranks second only to the U.S. (356,007) in the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus worldwide. It's second only to Italy in the number of deaths (13,169).
And now Ros’ mother is in that number. As has become routine in Spain, they cremated her remains later that same night. Ros said he and his family plan to travel there “as soon they open the borders” to arrange a memorial service and get her affairs in order.
“There’s nothing you can do,” Ros said. “You can’t fly to Spain and you can’t fly back into the U.S. The sad part is she lived in a nursing home and had a private room, so she was by herself for the last four weeks. Even her husband couldn’t go see her. They think she probably contracted it from somebody on the cleaning crew. It’s just a terrible situation.”
As detailed in a "Georgia Greats" profile in the AJC in 2017, Ros is a first-generation Spanish immigrant. Francisco Perales Ros V was only 5 when he came to America with his family as political refugees. His father, Francisco Austuriano Ros IV, was imprisoned for two years in Barcelona after he created a newsletter for the Catalonian people during the dictatorship of Franciso Franco. They escaped and settled in Greenville, S.C., where his father worked as a mechanical engineer in the textile industry.
Ros’ father died in 1989 at age 59 of ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. A short time later, Pilar Ros returned to Spain and eventually remarried Pere Ferre Vinas. It is with Vinas that Ros has been corresponding via phone calls and email about his mother.
“Nobody knew she had the coronavirus until she was dead,” Ros said.
Today, Ros is best remembered as the hard-hitting inside linebacker that plugged up the middle for the “Junkyard Dawg” defense that paved the way to the 1980 national title. After a short coaching career, Ros had a long career as a sales and marketing executive with the Coca-Cola Company. He retired a few years ago.
One of the main things that keeps Ros busy nowadays is organizing events and corresponding with his teammates from the 1980 team. For now, at least, they’re planning an elaborate 40th reunion celebration in Athens for the weekend of Sept. 11-13. The team will be recognized at halftime of the Sept. 12 game against East Tennessee State.
“We usually have 90-95 percent participation,” Ros said. “I’ll call up every single one and make sure they’re there if I have to. But we’re all looking forward to that.”
And, yes, count Ros among those who can’t believe it’s been 40 years since the Bulldogs won a national championship.
"It really is hard to believe, because we were so close in '81, '82 and '83," said Ros, who was a graduate assistant then. "We really could have had four in a row; that wasn't beyond the realm of possibility. I thought we might do it under (Mark) Richt and, of course Kirby (Smart's) doing a great job. I do think we'll finally break that drought under his leadership. But, yeah, it's been too long."
In the meantime, Ros and his family are mourning the loss of his mother as best they can. Pilar Ros had been in failing health for several years now and had increasingly shown signs of dementia. But Ros said his mother recognized him when he was there in October, and they were able to communicate for brief moments.
He never dreamed that would be the last time he saw her.
“You realize this is real; it hits close to home,” Ros said. “It’s one of those situations where you can really go nuts and do nothing but worry about it, or you just deal with it. I’m pretty good about dealing with what is and not things you can’t control. But it’s just so sad.”
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