Normally I wouldn't post somethin' like this here, but Erk Russell has been such a fixture in my part of Georgia that I believe his passing deserves mention.
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Coach Erk Russell, born in Birmingham, Alabama, graduated from Auburn University. He went on to coach football at the University of Georgia and then, in the eighties, coached at my Alma Mater, Georgia Southern University. He took the Georgia Southern Eagles to three NCAA Division I-AA championships.

I never had the chance to meet Coach Russell, but I have felt his influence in Statesboro and at Georgia Southern all my life. You can't walk that campus without feeling that he's there, part of the grounds and the buildings, part of the faculty and the students. He was by all accounts a good man, a just man, whose motto was "Just do right."

The world has been made a lesser place by your death, Coach, but it's a far greater place for your life. Rest in peace, Erk.

Erk Russell (http://news.georgiasouthern.edu/2006_PressRels/Sept06/erk.htm)

Aww, I've never heard about him, but it's always sad when someone who made a positive difference dies(or, well, really when anyone dies...)

:rip:

Hey October,

Thanks for postin' here. He really was a great man. I saw some of the funeral on the news (really wanted to go but wasn't able). There were grown men there, ex-Georgia Bulldogs and Georgia Southern Eagles players, cryin' like babies. It about broke my heart to see it.

Some of my favorite Erk Quotes (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Erk_Russell):

"My first 31 years in this business were like a guy eating at a buffet table. Later, when I came here to Georgia Southern, it was like eating the dessert." - Reflecting on his career in 1998

"The South, to me, is fried chicken and catfish caviar --- that's grits --- and good-looking women."

"We had a group of about eight boys in the Navy, all from the South --- South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi. In the barracks we took the corner, drew a line, said, 'No Yankees' across this. We didn't really mean it, but they thought we did."