From: Carl R. Holladay
To: 'Scott Portis' ; 'Bobby Ward' ; 'Ward, Paul - 08'
Cc:
Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2007 7:40 AM
Subject: RE: Coach Ward
Scotty et al.
Thanks for the stories about Coach Ward. I, too, remember him fondly.
I can identify with the Ray Chandler stories. Once, during recess, while we were playing baseball, I made some snide remark about him, not realizing the danger of doing so while he was holding a baseball bat in his hands. A few seconds later I felt it in the pit of my stomach. I thought I’d never breathe again. Needless to say, I watched my words from then on.
One memory from football practice. Coach Ward was working with the linemen over on the far side of Pudor Field. It was one of those drills where the linemen broke up into two groups, one carried the ball, the other tackled, the action taking place between two blocking dummies Coach had placed to create the lane. No sooner had the ball been given to me than I realized that I was facing Warren Blankenship, with nowhere to go but straight ahead. I figured that my young life was over. At Coach’s signal, I forged ahead, but Warren had mercy on me. If you ever need an image to connect to the Scripture, “It’s a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God,” think of Warren. Needless to say, I was happy to see him graduate that year and move on to higher things.
For some reason, I remember Coach Ward’s clipboard. Never have I seen a clipboard put to so many good uses. Of course, it held his plays and other papers for practice. But I think I recall it being used to hammer lazy players on the helmet or bust them in the seat of the pants, and who knows what else? Others can correct me here if my memory is playing tricks on me.
Others are right in recalling how Coach Ward, Mr. Pudor, and others taught us discipline and teamwork. As for the latter, one lesson I still remember, and have recalled over the years, is how he taught us to kick-off. Walking up and down the field, he told each of us on the kicking team to look to the other end of the field and imagine a lane 5-10 yards wide that we were responsible for. “If everybody protects his lane and lets nothing through, they can’t run a kickoff back,” he’d say, or words to that effect. Over the years, I’ve sometimes reflected on that as a pretty good defensive strategy in other situations.
He was also a superb teacher. I still have vivid memories of how he taught us to block and tackle. He not only taught us, but he also showed us. He’d get down in position, with his calf muscles bulging, show us how to spring off the line, and actually block the other player without holding him. To this day, I still can’t believe they allow NFL linemen such free use of their hands. As for tackling, he insisted on putting your shoulder into the runner’s gut, reaching for his legs, clasping your hands, and putting him on his back. Football for him, at least in my brief experience, was a game of basics, and he taught them well.
Not that I ever mastered either of these, but Ricky Lankford, Buster Barger, and I seemed to have done something right as we held down the left side of the defensive line our senior year. We lost our first game (to Milan, I think). We used a single wing (I was playing right guard). The next week, Coach Ward switched us to a T (or split-T) formation, which we used the rest of the year. I was switched to defensive end, and I think we went undefeated that year. He drilled my assignment into me. I was to cross the line of scrimmage, take down the pulling guards, and turn the play in. If the QB kept the ball and turned in, he was mine (or Ricky’s). If he handed off, Buster as the outside linebacker would take care of the running back. I recall that a good bit of that year I spent lying on my back watching pulling guards and tail backs running over me.
One more story. There was the time, I think it was against Bruceton, but it may have been in practice, when we were lined up for a play, and one of the defensive linemen sounded off about how he was going to pulverize us, and without missing a beat, Guy Fowler was heard to exclaim, “The wind blows might nigh every night!”
I’m sure some of the details are fuzzy and have probably been created out of the fog of memory. Others are welcome to correct me.
Regards,
Carl
Carl R. Holladay
Charles Howard Candler Professsor of New Testament
Candler School of Theology
Emory University
Atlanta, GA 30322
Office: (404) 727-4017
Fax: (404) 727-2494
Mobile: (404) 754-8265
