A One of a Kind Coach and Human

GEETEELEE

GEETEELEE

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The Amazing Pepper Rodgers

thesouthernvoice.com

A One of a Kind Coach and Human; The Amazing Pepper Rodgers -

“If football came down to personality, Pepper Rodgers never would have lost a game.” So said sportswriter I.J. Rosenberg. Colorful, ahead of his time, and marches to his own drummer, others have said. One thing is sure; he left his mark on football and all the people he touched in his incredible...
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GEETEELEE said:
The Amazing Pepper Rodgers

thesouthernvoice.com

A One of a Kind Coach and Human; The Amazing Pepper Rodgers -

“If football came down to personality, Pepper Rodgers never would have lost a game.” So said sportswriter I.J. Rosenberg. Colorful, ahead of his time, and marches to his own drummer, others have said. One thing is sure; he left his mark on football and all the people he touched in his incredible...
thesouthernvoice.com thesouthernvoice.com
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Fabulous read. Thanks!

Pepper is one of those guys who is remembered better than he was appreciated at the time. Tech football was at a crossroads during his time. The program being ignored by the Tech administration. Outside of a conference, money was short, and attendance was waning, yet he managed to win most of the time. In his six seasons, he went 6-5, 7-4, 4-6-1, 6-5, 7-5, and 4-6-1. Four of his six seasons he would have been in a bowl today. Those 6 seasons, he played Notre Dame, UGAg, and Auburn (6x), USCe (5x), Clemson (4x), Tennessee and Miami (3x), Pittsburgh (w/Tony Dorsett 2x), and Florida, Alabama, and Purdue (1x). All these in addition to playing the typical trio of Tulane, Dook, and Navy.
 
Quite a character by every measure. Professionally, he probably should have stayed at UCLA, but he did make a splash when trying to duplicate his success at his alma mater. The pocket book thing...well, I don't know about that, especially as he was trying to compete with so many dominate conservative coaches of that era.



Pepper Rodgers never fit the football coach mold and didn’t try to. That made him great.


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Perspective by Liz Clarke

May 16, 2020 at 6:26 p.m. EDT

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UCLA Coach Pepper Rodgers works out with quarterback Mark Harmon in September 1972. (AP)


Every football game produces a score. Every coaching job ends with a win-loss record. In a sport that’s measured in yards and inches, field goals and touchdowns and statistics of every stripe, the measure of Pepper Rodgers was in laughs and relationships.

A football coach of wide-ranging talents, Rodgers also was an aviator and novelist who could play the ukulele, do a cartwheel and tap dance. An average yet fully committed singer, he knew the words to nearly every college football team’s fight song. Not just the first verse but every verse of every fight song of every school that gave him a job — from Florida, Air Force, Kansas and UCLA to his cherished alma mater, Georgia Tech — along with every other team of consequence.

With Rodgers’s death at 88 on Thursday from complications suffered in a fall in his Reston home, football lost a free spirit and innovator who had a hand in shaping the playing careers of quarterback Bobby Douglas, running back John Riggins and defensive end Reggie White, among others, and the coaching careers of Steve Spurrier, Terry Donahue, John Cooper and more.

Rodgers never fit the mold of the stereotypical football coach and didn’t bother trying. He wasn’t a jut-jawed, all-knowing autocrat with heightened paranoia. And he didn’t view reporters as adversaries; he was among the first coaches to support TV cameras on the sideline and female journalists in the locker room. As for players, he deployed whatever personae were necessary to coax their best — equal parts cheerleader, alchemist, comedian and evangelist.

On the sideline at one game during his stint coaching the USFL’s Memphis Showboats, Rodgers brayed at his squad, full voice: “We’re gonna win this game, somehow! I don’t know how! But somehow we’re gonna do it!”

He was a skillful matchmaker, too, achieving what Daniel Snyder couldn’t do alone: He lured Spurrier, whom he helped win the Heisman Trophy at Florida and later gave a boost to his nascent coaching career, to the NFL in 2002 to lead the Washington Redskins.

Spurrier’s pro football tenure ended with a 12-20 record two seasons later. Rodgers, whom Snyder had made the Redskins’ vice president of football operations in 2001, departed soon after.

But his calendar stayed full. With his wife, Janet Lake Livingston, a painter whose effervescence matched his, Rodgers was an avid tennis player, enjoyed golf and was a frequent honoree at universities around the country, most recently inducted to the Sugar Bowl Hall of Fame’s inaugural class of 2018.

I met Rodgers in 1990, when I was covering the NFL’s expansion-team derby that ultimately boiled down to Baltimore; Charlotte; Jacksonville, Fla.; Memphis; and St. Louis vying for two teams. Rodgers was the frontman for the Memphis bid, backed by Federal Express CEO Fred Smith. For reporters covering the years-long process, staking out NFL owners’ meetings in hotel lobbies was a tedious, necessary part of the job. But there was never a boring stakeout when Rodgers worked the hall.

Three decades later, every memory involves a laugh, such as the time Rodgers quipped that Jacksonville didn’t deserve an NFL team because no one ever wrote a song about Jacksonville.

A born performer, Rodgers was a 5-year-old star at the Kiddie Revue at Atlanta’s old Fox Theater in the 1930s, dancing and singing in his tiny suit and top hat as the country emerged from the Great Depression.

As a scholarship athlete at Georgia Tech, he led the Ramblin’ Wreck to an unbeaten season in 1952; he threw a touchdown pass and kicked a field goal in a 24-7 Sugar Bowl victory over Mississippi. He was named Sugar Bowl MVP the next year, throwing three touchdown passes in a rout of West Virginia to close his college career.

Drafted in the NFL’s 25th round by the Baltimore Colts in 1954, he opted instead to finish his degree and enlist in the Air Force to fly F-105 jets. Then came assistant coaching stints at Air Force; Florida, where he was Spurrier’s quarterback coach; and UCLA. Kansas gave him his first head coaching job, and UCLA came calling not long after the Jayhawks’ Big Eight co-championship and Orange Bowl appearance to cap the 1968 season.

Rodgers’s wishbone offense and wide-open personality played well in Westwood. Addressing his Bruins before a game against Stanford, Rodgers said: “Men, the rest of your life the Stanford man is going to have the best job, make the most money and marry the most beautiful women. This is your last chance to knock him on his ass!”

While on the West Coast, Rodgers wooed a Hollywood star by marrying Livingston, a former actress, and mentored another in UCLA quarterback Mark Harmon. But he had no use for pretense or pomp, riding up on a Harley for his first day as Georgia Tech’s coach in 1974 and sporting a new perm to boot.

Though a natural cutup, self-deprecating humor was his forte. Reflecting on his coaching achievements in a 2018 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Rodgers said: “I proved everything a man can prove in coaching. I proved I could win with good players, [and] I proved I couldn’t with bad ones.”

From childhood, Rodgers called his parents by their first names, Franklin and Louise. Later in life, he insisted his grandchildren do the same and call him Pepper. To generations of football players and coaching assistants, he was Coach Pepper — or “Peppah,” as he pronounced it.


He had a Rolodex of football greats at his fingertips and checked up on his former players and fellow coaches often. He also checked in with reporters. Invariably, whenever I was bogged down on a long story and struggling to finish, my cellphone would ring at some point.

“Miss Liz … ” he would start. “I haven’t seen your byline lately!”


I was never quite sure whether he thought I had been fired or had fallen gravely ill. But I suspect it was just the coach in Coach Peppah telling me, in his way, to get off the bench and start writing.

By Liz Clarke


A member of the Sports Department's enterprise team, Liz Clarke covered Washington's NFL team for eight seasons. She has also covered nine Olympics, three World Cups and written extensively about tennis, auto racing and college sports since joining The Post in 1998. Twitter Twitter
 

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stinger78 said:
Fabulous read. Thanks!

Pepper is one of those guys who is remembered better than he was appreciated at the time. Tech football was at a crossroads during his time. The program being ignored by the Tech administration. Outside of a conference, money was short, and attendance was waning, yet he managed to win most of the time. In his six seasons, he went 6-5, 7-4, 4-6-1, 6-5, 7-5, and 4-6-1. Four of his six seasons he would have been in a bowl today. Those 6 seasons, he played Notre Dame, UGAg, and Auburn (6x), USCe (5x), Clemson (4x), Tennessee and Miami (3x), Pittsburgh (w/Tony Dorsett 2x), and Florida, Alabama, and Purdue (1x). All these in addition to playing the typical trio of Tulane, Dook, and Navy.
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Back in those days we played a more SEC schedule than some SEC schools.
 
GEETEELEE said:
Back in those days we played a more SEC schedule than some SEC schools.
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It got that way over time. Those were the years Bear (UA), Graves (UF), and Dodd were working to get Tech back in the SECheat. USCe wasn't in the SECheat in those days, but they were soon enough, so I'll count them.

1974: South Carolina, Auburn, and UGAg
1975: South Carolina, Auburn, and UGAg
1976: South Carolina, Tennessee, Auburn, and UGAg
1977: South Carolina, Tennessee, Auburn, and UGAg
1978: South Carolina, Auburn, Florida, and UGAg
1979: Alabama, Florida, Tennessee, Auburn, and UGAg

That 1979 schedule held all the way through 1981 when Florida dropped off. From 1982 to 1984 it was the other four teams plus a very good UNC team. All in addition to Clemson and Notre Dame. No wonder Curry had such a rough start.
 
No coach could have done more to engage the student body. He genuinely liked hanging out with college students. His coach’s show broke the old mold of coachspeak and film watching. It was entertaining. There were drop ins to frat houses and dorms as part of the show. I am glad he was the coach my sophomore through senior years.
 
Pepper coached the first college game I ever saw in person. Before Tech. Before UCLA, too. At Kansas. 1969 Orange Bowl. Penn state was 10-0 and ranked third, and Kansas was 9-1 and ranked 6. Kansas had John Riggins and Bobby Douglass. PSU had Jack Ham, and All-American and future country music star Mike Reid. Lydell Mitchell and Franco Harris were freshman, and did not play. It was a great game. Joe Paterno later said that it was his favorite game of all time.
 
I used to be a member at Canterbury Golf Club (since closed) in Marietta. Pepper lived in the neighborhood, off one of the par threes. Whenever, I played that hole the other members would tell stories of him and Billy Lothridge holding some wild parties.
 
I am convinced if Pepper could have made it to the Homer Rice era, he would have won several ACC titles. The man could recruit, he had good staff but had absolutely crap facilities and no support from the Hill. The schedule he played was harder than most SEC teams. My first game was the "no pass" win over ND. His coaches show was must see TV after church and I loved the somersaults when the Jackets ran out behind the Wreck.
 
He lost to uga in the last seconds in '76 and '78 while beating them in '74 and '77. He was awfully close to going 4-1 against them in his first 5 years. With those two extra wins, Dooley is gone and I don't think uga wins the 1980 MNC. Pepper deserved a lot better than he got. That '76 Notre Dame game was a thing of beauty.
 
Pepper’s personality would be a perfect fit for the current era, but he’d have to ditch his beloved wishbone. I was lucky enough to meet two GT coaches before I got out, Pepper and Dick Bestwick. Both are gone now, and that’s sad. Great guys.
 
CorpusJacket said:
Pepper’s personality would be a perfect fit for the current era, but he’d have to ditch his beloved wishbone. I was lucky enough to meet two GT coaches before I got out, Pepper and Dick Bestwick. Both are gone now, and that’s sad. Great guys.
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Pepper moved partially from the wishbone in 1977 and totally did so in 1978. With Gary Hardee at QB in 1977 he ran the veer a significant amount, IIRC, and with Mike Kelley at QB in 1978 he ran the I-formation with ELI. He was able to adjust according to the strength of his personnel. We went 6-5 in 1977 and 7-5 in 1978 but lost 3-4 very close games those years. Those were better teams than the records indicate.

That 1978 schedule was probably one of the tougher in college football, too. 1977 was a lot of good programs having not so good years. In 1977 we played @USCe, Miami, Clemson, @Tennessee, Auburn, @Notre Dame, and UGA. In 1978 we played USCe, @Auburn, Florida, Notre Dame, @UGA, and Purdue (Peach Bowl).
 
GT was Curry's first HC gig. Pepper had coached at Kansas and UCLA before coming to Tech. I think Curry probably sought out Dodd's mentorship, or maybe he accepted it when Dodd offered. As clapper said, it was said that Pepper's flamboyant, west-coast approach ran afoul of the sensibilities of many Tech supporters, and that ultimately got him fired. I also don't know that he was recruiting as well as he had been earlier, too. His first 2-3 classes were pretty epic, as was Fulcher's only big class. A lot of those guys went on to NFL careers. I'm thinking ELI, David Sims, Drew and Kent Hill, Jimmy Robinson, Steve Raible, Joe Harris, Lucious Sanford, Don Bessillieu, Don, Patterson, Reggie Wilkes, Al Richardson, Henry Johnson, Tony Daykin, Pat Moriarity, and more than one OL, guys like Leo Tierney, Randy Pass, Roy Simmons, Billy Shields, Ben Utt, maybe Mark Hunter,
 
stinger78 said:
GT was Curry's first HC gig. Pepper had coached at Kansas and UCLA before coming to Tech. I think Curry probably sought out Dodd's mentorship, or maybe he accepted it when Dodd offered. As clapper said, it was said that Pepper's flamboyant, west-coast approach ran afoul of the sensibilities of many Tech supporters, and that ultimately got him fired. I also don't know that he was recruiting as well as he had been earlier, too. His first 2-3 classes were pretty epic, as was Fulcher's only big class. A lot of those guys went on to NFL careers. I'm thinking ELI, David Sims, Drew and Kent Hill, Jimmy Robinson, Steve Raible, Joe Harris, Lucious Sanford, Don Bessillieu, Don, Patterson, Reggie Wilkes, Al Richardson, Henry Johnson, Tony Daykin, Pat Moriarity, and more than one OL, guys like Leo Tierney, Randy Pass, Roy Simmons, Billy Shields, Ben Utt, maybe Mark Hunter,
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I was in school from 71 to 76. I had classes with several of those players. Pepper was the best coach after Dodd until Ross arrived.

I have heard the stories about Pepper and the supporters. I have never understood why they turned on him given everything he accomplished as a player. Dodd and his teammates should have stood up for Pepper.
 
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