Football coaches

Well, football season has arrived in the Southland. It is time to get the extra TV set up, order the weenies, reattach the tailgate and get ready for the road trips.

College football rules in the south. We are becoming Pro Football fans, but we have long traditions and just get rabid about the Seminoles, the Gators, the Tigers, and Roll Tide Roll. We plan our lives around the games for the next three months. Someone once asked me in a live TV interview "Bubba, is football a religion in the South?" I said, "No, it's way more important that that!"

While we love to watch the players, it is the coaches that make the game. College football coaches become some of the most famous people in the nation, and we love them. After they end their coaching careers we elect them to Congress, the State House, make the principals of our schools, and continue to idolize them.

Most of the coaches I have known in my life were just great people. Some of them have said and done many of the funniest things I have ever seen. I never met a coach that did not have a great sense of humor. They have to have one, or they could not deal with life that comes with student athletes, stupid parents and long hours of watching film. As Bear Bryant once said, "You have to be crazy to do this job. You set your entire future on what 18-year-old boys are going to do on a Saturday afternoon!" He was right.

Over the years I have collected many quotes from some of our most colorful coaches. Enjoy them, I have for years.

"At Georgia Southern, we don't cheat. That costs money and we don't have any." Erk Russell / Georgia Southern.

After you retire, there's only one big event left ... and I ain't ready for that." Bobby Bowden / Florida State …Go 'Noles!

"The man who complains about the way the ball bounces is likely to be the one who dropped it." Lou Holtz / Arkansas

"A school without football is in danger of deteriorating into a medieval study hall." Frank Leahy / Notre Dame

"There's nothing that cleanses your soul like getting the hell kicked out of you." Woody Hayes / Ohio State

"I don't expect to win enough games to be put on NCAA probation. I just want to win enough to warrant an investigation." Bob Devaney / Nebraska

"In Alabama, an atheist is someone who doesn't believe in Bear Bryant." Wally Butts / Georgia

"You can learn more character on the two-yard line than anywhere else in life." Paul Dietzel / LSU

"It's kind of hard to rally around a math class." Bear Bryant / Alabama

"I make my practices real hard because if a player is a quitter, I want him to quit in practice, not in a game." Bear Bryant / Alabama

"Lads, you're not to miss practice unless your parents died or you died." Frank Leahy / Notre Dame

"I never graduated from Iowa, but I was only there for two terms - Truman's and Eisenhower's." Alex Karras / Iowa

And finally, "Terryl, you can't run the football and think at the same time, just run, don't think, it don't look good on you!" Paul Magee, my high school football coach.

Just thought you'd like to know…