[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 112 (Tuesday, September 12, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9353-S9354]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: September 12, 2006 (Senate)]
[Page S9354]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:cr12se06-169]                         

[[Page S9354]]
 
                       TRIBUTE TO ERSKINE RUSSELL

  Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, in 1 last minute on this day, I want to 
pause to pay tribute to a great Georgian and a great American, an 
individual we all lost last Friday morning in Statesboro, GA.
  On Friday morning of last week, 80-year-old Erskine Russell, former 
assistant head coach at the University of Georgia and later head coach 
at Georgia Southern University, died of a stroke leaving the 7-11 near 
his home on the way to his beloved Snooky's Restaurant in Statesboro, 
GA. Erskine Russell was a football coach, but he was far more than a 
football coach. He changed the lives of countless young men in Georgia 
and changed the attitude of the people of our State about higher 
education.
  Erskine Russell was a man who led the University of Georgia and its 
defense in 1980 to the national championship. Then, a few years later, 
he got the opportunity at a fledgling Georgia college--Georgia 
Southern--to establish a football team. He went there and went to the 
local sporting goods store and bought a football. He took a drainage 
ditch that ran by the field and named it the ``wonderful, beautiful 
Eagle Creek,'' and slowly but surely he recruited young men to come to 
Georgia Southern to play football.
  Within a few years, Georgia Southern went from just having a program 
to being a national champion. And he repeated that national 
championship again. But more importantly, all through his life, Erskine 
Russell did what only he could do: he led by example, not by lecture, 
what was right about America, what was right about living by the rules, 
what was right about playing by the rules, and what was right about 
moral character.
  Two thousand people appeared at Paulson Stadium last Sunday to pay 
their last respects to Erskine Russell--a man who will be missed not 
just for a short period of time but for the lifetime of all those whose 
lives he touched.
  In conclusion, talking about the lives he touched, when my son Kevin 
was in the 11th grade at Walton High School in Marietta, GA, he was 
tragically injured in an automobile accident. He was a junior football 
player there. Erk Russell took the time to write him a personal note 
when it was questionable as to whether he might ever play football 
again or even walk normally again. It was Erk Russell's inspiration and 
his caring, his challenging someone to overcome adversity, that led to 
Kevin's complete recovery and a year later his competition on the 
football field once again.
  That is just one vignette. It is just one cameo in a lifetime of 
service to young people.
  I pay tribute tonight to Erk Russell, to his family, and to all those 
who knew him, all those who loved him, and to all of us who will always 
treasure the fact that he was our friend.

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