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Throwback

Georgia Military College\'s Bert Williams uses bulldog tenacity to take a bite out of the JUCO elite
by: David Purdum
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Attention all coaches: Think conditions are tough where you are? Try taking a group of talented, but often-immature, teenagers and transforming them into not only Division-I football players, but also into NCAA-caliber students. Oh by the way, you have only two years to do it.

Seems like an impossible mission – for the average coach. Luckily for 24 Georgia Military Bulldogs, who, in the last three years, have made the leap from the junior college located in Milledgeville, Ga., to an NCAA Division-I program, Bert Williams is not an average coach. Bert Williams is an old-school disciplinarian and a difference-maker on and off the field.

“I love the feeling of being able to make a difference in a kid’s life while he’s here,” said Williams, who is in his fourth season as head coach at Georgia Military. “Most of the players that come here didn’t have another option. Whether they were highly recruited but couldn’t qualify academically or they weren’t recruited at all. Frankly, it’s nice to see when that light turns on in a kid’s head, and he stops wandering aimlessly and starts doing the things to put himself in position to accept a scholarship.”

In his six years at Georgia Military – three were served as offensive coordinator (1997-1999) – Williams has had a hand in 39 student-athletes playing football at and getting a degree from a NCAA Division I school. Thirty-nine Bulldogs have moved on to play at and graduate from a Division I-AA school, and 44 at Division II programs. That’s 117 players, most of whom, upon arrival at GMC, were unable to meet NCAA academic standards, that are going to graduate from a four-year school. A 37 percent increase compared to the six seasons before Williams came to Georgia Military.

“I find myself here, at Georgia Military,” Williams said, “where I get to coach talented young men at a school that is committed to holding young men to a high standard ... off the field is more important.

“I’d probably get in trouble quicker about a problem off the field than I would if we had a couple of losing seasons. Well, maybe if we go 0-10,” he joked.

In his three years as head coach, Williams is 28-4. A 0-10 season seems a little farfetched.

A new breed of Bulldog

Williams, 34, replaced current Washington Redskins defensive line coach Robert Nunn as athletic director and head football coach at GMC in 2000. In his first year, the Bulldogs went 7-3 and had the second ranked defense in the NJCAA – not bad, but not good enough, because the first-year coach had a feeling something special could be had the following season.

So, before the players left for Christmas Break, the coaching staff held a meeting to inform the players, “a new breed of dog was going to take the field in 2001.”

“There was going to be some changes,” Williams said. “Our players needed to find a sense of ownership, responsibility for the team. We needed to get these guys, attention. We needed to get our players to do the things they needed to do, not only be successful on the field but in life.

“In the meeting, I talked about how the U.S. Marines had a motto, ‘Semper Fidelis,’ which means always faithful to your brothers, family. We needed to build that kind of relationship on the teams to be as successful as we all wanted to be.”

Wholesale changes were made. The law was laid down. The 2001 Georgia Military Bulldogs were going to obedience school. No excuses, no complaining and be responsible.

When the team returned from break, the coaches selected six players who were the most likely to become team leaders and had them draft off-season workout teams. The group leaders were responsible for their team’s intensity, punctual attendance, attitude and even off-the-field discipline problems. They could either trust that their group would make it to workouts on time, or they could wake up early and make sure everybody was on time. If one player was tardy or lagged, everybody in the group would be punished. If a complaint was heard during a drill, the entire group would have to immediately start over and finish it without complaining. There were three basic rules: no excuses, no complaining and be responsible. And they stood firm for each and every player.

“In order for a team to have success, it is essential they trust each other,” Williams said. “It’s a cliche`, but it’s true – when it’s fourth-and-one and you’re trailing in the fourth quarter, you can’t look down the line and see a guy who you know has been skipping reps in the weight room or missing math class. There can’t be any doubt in your mind.”

With the new system intact, Williams says he saw a dramatic change from what he had seen the season before.

“That 2000 freshmen class was fantastic,” he said. “They really started taking responsibility for themselves on the field and in the classroom.”

The best example of the 2001 team’s change, Williams says, was the Bulldogs’ opening-game against Middle Georgia College.

“I don’t think we got a first down until the second half,” he remembered. “It was a defensive struggle. Our offense turned the ball over a couple times. But we never quit, and not a single negative word was uttered on our sideline.

“The last thing our offense needed was some griping from our defense. Our defense was always encouraging our offense, even after they would come off the field after going three-and-out.”

Georgia Military squeaked past Middle Georgia 14-7 and never looked back, finishing the season 11-0 and defeating Butler County Community College 31-17 for the NJCAA national championship, the first of any kind in GMC history.

Perseverance

Williams’ stubborn, old-school style can be traced back to his days, appropriately coaching another pack of Bulldogs at the University of Georgia, where he spent four years working as a graduate assistant (1990-1993). “Coach Williams is a very organized, intelligent young man,” said former Georgia head coach Ray Goff. “I think coach Wayne McDuffie was a big influence on him. He was a hard-nosed, committed coach, and that rubbed off on Coach Williams.”

“The late Wayne McDuffie taught me more about football in three years of working with him than I have learned in all the others,” said Williams.

McDuffie coached the Bulldogs’ offensive line from 1977-81 and later joined Goff’s staff as assistant head coach from 1991-95.

“One of the biggest things Coach McDuffie taught me was an attitude more than anything,” Williams said. “He was so good at getting players to reach their potential and sometimes more. He had a knack at getting good players to become better with his energy. He put relentless expectations on his players. Mediocrity was never going to be good enough. Settling for anything less than 100 percent just wasn’t good enough. That’s something we still teach here.”

Tragically, McDuffie committed suicide after Goff and his staff were replaced after the ‘95 season. But as difficult as losing his mentor was, Williams persevered, something he had become pretty good at throughout his life.

Brian Williams, Bert’s younger brother, had been diagnosed with a serious health condition at birth. The complications eventually would force Brian to have a heart transplant in Aug. 1990.

He’s battled five or six forms of cancer, Hodgkin’s disease, two types of lymphoma; he had experimental hip surgery – hip replacements on both.

“Certainly, he’s one of my heroes,” said Williams of his little brother, who is now 28. “I don’t know anybody that has gone through the trials and tribulations that he has at such a young age. And to do it with such character and a positive outlook, overcoming impossible odds ... he’s taught me so much.”

In that championship season of 2001, before practice, Williams would make the 90-mile trip to visit his brother, who was receiving chemotherapy in Augusta, Ga. “The team was aware of Brian’s problem that year,” he said. “And I talked to a few players on an individual basis about my brother’s illness. We discussed grief and loss, but we also talked about how you can’t shut down.”

A big part of Williams’ ability to overcome the difficult circumstances he has faced has been his wife Cathy. “For a football coach, she’s the best one could ask for,” Bert said of his wife of 10 years. “She runs the Bulldog Room for our boosters, and has been supportive every step of the way. She always tries to be involved, helping out where and when she can.” Bert and Cathy have two sons, 2-year-old Zachary and 6-year-old Parker.

Once a ‘Dawg, always a ‘Dawg

After his time at Georgia, Williams became an assistant head coach and offensive coordinator, again, for a pack of ‘Dawgs at Union College (Ky.). During his three-years at Union College (1994-1996), where he worked under former Arkansas State front man Tuck Woolum, the Bulldogs finished in the NAIA Top 20 twice and his offense ranked in the top 10 nationally in total offense, rushing offense and scoring.

So, when Williams accepted an offer to become offensive coordinator at Georgia Military in 1997, he had a good idea how he wanted to run his offense.

“Georgia Military is a unique place, a special place,” said Nunn, who is currently coaching defensive line for Steve Spurrier and the Washington Redskins.

“You have to get the kids to buy into the system, wearing a military uniform, and they have to buy into the things that the program teaches on and off the field on how to improve themselves.

“Besides being a very sharp ‘X’s and O’s’ guy, Bert believed in what was taught there, and that really helps, if you believe in what you’re teaching. He was very good at that.

“As far as discipline goes, it was one set of rules for everybody, a set of boundaries, and you don’t go outside them.”

Relying on a potent two-back running game, the Bulldogs offense, under Williams, has been a perennial leader in rushing offense, total offense and scoring. But Williams says it is his team’s attitude that is more important to their success.

“One of the biggest parts of our success running the ball is mental,” he said. “We want our players to have an attitude, a physical, tough attitude. We want them to have a nasty demeanor, a state of mind where they’re feeling invincible. We want opponents to feel they’re in for a tough fight when they get ready to play Georgia Military.”

Williams establishes that attitude in practice, which, at GMC, is known for its physical nature.

“Schools will come watch us practice in the spring, and the common comment is they’ve never seen a practice as physical as ours. Obviously, we have to be smart, avoid crazy situations that may cause an injury. But we believe if our guys can’t tackle our scout-team running back, they aren’t going to be able to tackle the other team’s best running back.

“Again, we want to establish a toughness, a state of mind at each position. We want each player to realize his contribution is crucial for the success of each play. A great example is one time we had a receiver bust his tail all the way across the field to take out the free safety. What was a 15-yard run, became a touchdown.

“We spend extra time with our scout team, giving them extra reps, so there is an understanding of each player’s contribution. The scout team needs to be as good as they can be. If not, we won’t be able to prepare the offense or defense for the speed of the game or the talent level they’re going to face.”

Among the changes Williams’ made before the 2001 season was an emphasis on special teams. “We committed ourselves to make sure when we said special teams are just as important as offense and defense, that we were doing the necessary actions to prove we meant it. We put our best players on special teams, regardless if they start on offense or defense.”

Williams also held a practice in the heat of the day that was devoted to nothing but special teams. “Special teams are when games get turned around, when big plays happen. We tweaked our system around our best players on special teams and put a little more in than just our base kickoff.”

Nothing like the first tee at Augusta

“At some point, I would like another opportunity to coach on the D-I level,” Williams said. “I enjoy the pressure that comes with it. But that said, I’m lucky to get to coach at a school that is so dedicated to making those differences in a kid’s life, helping them gain that scholarship and putting them on the right path in life.”

While he enjoys the pressures of coaching on the D-I level, he says he may never have been more nervous than in 1999, when he teed it up at August National Country Club, home of ‘the Masters.’

“My goal was to break 100, and I shot exactly 100 with three pars and a birdie,” he remembered. “I was so nervous on the first tee. I worm-burned it down the right side about 140 yards. My caddie, a guy by the name of Tips, got ready to hand me an iron, but I told him to hand me the driver. He said, ‘Are you sure you want to hit that again?’ I hit in the screws and knocked it down by the green and ended up making par.”

Is anybody surprised?

Georgia Military Coaching Staff

Bert Williams - Head Coach
Jeff Tatum - Offensive Coordinator, Assitant Head Coach
Taylor Burks - Defensive Coordinator
Rob Manchester - Secondary Coach, Recruiting Coordinator
Desmond Coleman - Defensive Line
Dwayne Robertson - “Dog” Safeties
Greg Chapman - Offensive Guards and Centers
Darrell Ingram - Running Backs
Paul Mills - Head Athletic Trainer
Nic McClean - Equipment Manager
Karen Wright - Administrrative Assistant






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