Dr. Dale Lick and his wife Marilyn called Statesboro home from 1978 to 1986 while he served as President of Georgia Southern College.
In 1983, Dr. Lick announced the restart of football at Georgia Southern. Then he stunned the state when he announced legendary UGA Defensive Line Coach Erk Russell as the head coach.
That was over 40 years ago, but to many of us who lived through that magical time in our communities history, it seems like yesterday.
On a recent visit back to Statesboro, Dr. Lick and his wife Marilyn sat down with me and shared some of their favorite memories of their time in Statesboro and from restarting football.
Looking back on his time at Georgia Southern there are three things he is most proud of. The first is beginning a school of nursing. The second was restarting football. The third was making sure there was a marching band to support the football program.
There were many challenges along the way, but Dr. Lick understood the one key that every successful leader possesses and that is to surround yourself with the most talented people you can recruit. He excelled in this.
Here are highlights from our conversation in Dr. Lick’s words:
School of Nursing
“Em Bevis had helped start a nursing school in another country. She was nationally recognized at the highest level you could be recognized in nursing. Just by happenstance, she lived just north of Savannah. The Vice Chancellor that I had to work with relative to nursing told me to call Em Bevis. When I called her she said I have been waiting on this call my entire life. Will I help you? Of course I will, she said. The rest is history.
She was so good. She got several of the nurses from Savannah to come and help her start the program."
Close call to leave
"It is interesting how things happen. Sometimes you luck up. I have been very, very lucky in many things and I have been lucky in saying no to some things as well. A couple of different Universities tried to recruit me while I was serving as President of Georgia Southern. I considered leaving but none seemed to be the right fit.
For example at Old Dominion University I had been there as a dean before I accepted the Presidency of Georgia Southern. They invited me to come back to be interviewed and they told me after the interview that the job was mine.
The problem was the previous president's power had been taken away and the chair of the board was doing a lot of the internal running of the University. You could tell, by listening to him that he was going to want to continue doing that. You can’t run a university that way having the board chair getting involved in the internal running of the University. On the way home, I called and said I am not coming. I told him thanks, but it is not the right fit.
I ended up at the University of Maine as President after leaving GS. Then from Maine we went to Florida State."
Football and Marching band
“I called the President of UGA at the time as a matter of courtesy and told him I wanted to talk to Erk Russell about coming to Statesboro. I could tell he thought I was nuts. He then asked me to call Vince Dooley the head coach. Vince laughed when I told him.
People said that I didn’t have a chance in getting Erk to come to Statesboro. Sometimes, even when the situation seems impossible, the circumstances make it possible. There were several circumstances playing in our favor but the one that attracted him the most was the ability to start a program from scratch.
Erk came to visit three times and people gave him a sense of community here. My first meeting with him was at the Holiday Inn on South Main. On the third trip his wife Jean came with him. At the end of the day they came over to my office. It was after hours as we sat in my office.
Erk said to me, “Dale, I have three questions.”
Question 1, I had a good answer for.
Question 2, I had a good answer for.
Question 3, I had no answer whatsoever for and the phone rang. I got up and went out to my secretary's desk to answer it and it was Si Waters. Si was part of a group of community leaders later known as the "Dirty Dozen" who were working to help recruit Erk to Georgia Southern. Si said, “Dale here is what we can do for Erk and that is to give him a house.”
I came back in and sat down and answered Erk’s third question.
It was remarkable. After he decided he was going to come, we made preparations for the announcement and we had him stay at our home that night so nobody would know who it was and no one would see him.
Then the next day we announced Erk Russell.
A few months later I attended a Rotary meeting in Atlanta where Vince Dooley was the speaker. Before he started he said, “there is the guy, right over there. He is the guy we are going to get.” As he pointed at me and then he laughed and talked about how I stole Erk Russell. He was actually very kind in his remarks.
It is funny how things go around that way, but you know it was just meant to happen. The other couple of guys we were looking at were good coaches and I think would have been good but Erk was something special and I really had to get him. He had to be our coach. Somebody said you know he is the best coach in the country and at the time he WAS probably one of the best coaches in the country.
On football, I said we would not have football unless we had a marching band. Some of the band people loved that and some of the band people did not want that. But I said that is the way it will be.
When I raised money to start the football program I told people some of this money is going to go for a marching band."
Navigating opposition to football
"When I was considering this decision I called schools that had added and dropped football. One school that made an impression on me was when the President said that his school couldn’t afford football so they dropped football. He said the President told him that they then realized they couldn’t afford not to have football. That really had an impression on me.
Valdosta State heard we were thinking about starting football. Their President called me and said no way would he put in a football program.
When I announced football, within a week he announced football. The difference is we went division I-AA and he went division II. They are still in division II.
I gave the internal group a vote on football. The students, faculty and staff were allowed to vote. The faculty voted against it. Students for it. Staff for it. So two out of three, it was a go.
I had to somehow deal with the faculty. The vote was the best way I knew to deal with them. Some of the faculty and some people in the community were very negative against starting football. One guy was on my advisory board which helped me raise money. So he was very important to me. He pleaded with me to not start football. He threatened to resign if we started football. He kept his word and resigned. Then he and his son were some of the first to buy a box at Paulson Stadium. You just had to make believers out of everyone.
Sometimes things are meant to happen, the right things just occur along the way and that is what happened.”
Leaders who made a difference
"The magic is in the kind of people you look for and then you share with them what you are trying to do and what they will be able to do they either buy into or they don’t. I have been very successful in recruiting some really outstanding people everywhere I have been.
They all become believers in my philosophy that we are here to serve."
Ric Mandes
"Ric Mandes I inherited. He was definitely a big part of my magic here. He had a sense of the region and an insider's view that I really needed. So he traveled with me and he went with me to these places to talk about football. He wouldn’t do any speaking, but he went with me.
He was an extraordinarily good advisor, he was very helpful.
Before I started football, we made 29 visits around the state talking about football. I got very positive responses.
We were coming back from down south after one of these meetings that really encouraged me and I told Ric in the car we are going to go for it. So we did. He was enthralled."
Bucky Wagner
"As we were deciding on football we were interviewing an athletic director. We had an athletic director but he was approaching retirement. I recruited Bucky Wagner, but he took a job up north. He was there just one day. It was winter. He knew that was not for him. So he became really interested in coming to Statesboro.
I needed someone who could work with Erk. Erk was just unbelievably wonderful, but he was really different. I needed someone who could hold and help him, answer his questions and get some things done to help him. Bucky was the man to do that.
Bucky did a great job. He did exactly what I needed."
Snookys and Bruce Yawn
"Bruce was always a great supporter. He had a great relationship with Erk. Snooky’s was Erk’s place. Bruce played for Erk at UGA. That is where their relationship began."
Allen Paulson
"I met with him and when we decided to start football I went and met with him again and asked for a one million dollar gift to start the construction of the football stadium.
He said, 'well Dale I have two other groups wanting a million dollars. You are the third one. He said let me think about it and gave me a date to follow back up.' I was traveling and stopped at a payphone to call him. He answered and said I have decided to give you one million dollars and will mail you a check. Most people don’t even know how to write a check for a million dollars. That check is framed somewhere over at the university.
Then he helped GS with the engineering school."
GS Football Celebrated 40 years
Dale and Marilyn Lick have retired in Tallahassee, Florida. GS recognized the Lick’s and their grandsons Parker and Wesley at a football game celebrating 40 years of football last September. This touched them deeply.
GS Athletics has put together a series of videos capturing some of the greatest moments in the rich 40 years history of Georgia Southern Football.
CLICK HERE to watch the videos.