[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 13] [Senate] [Page 17723] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]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. ____________________