If you are the NCAA's oldest current coach and you are, literally, older than sliced bread, you obviously have an interesting story to tell.
Any one of us would love to discover a hidden treasure. Webster's dictionary defines treasure as accumulated or hidden wealth; something regarded as valuable.
Robert Edward Heck, Georgia State's 84-year old head softball coach, is an untapped treasure and his humility would never allow him to brag or boast. He's still a bundle of energy who tries to do everything himself. But, when forced over time to slow down and talk a little, we found some impressive stories to share.
Get comfortable and let's learn a little bit from a man with a college degree, two master's degrees and who is a graduate of the Advanced Management program at Harvard. You could also say he has his doctorate degree from “the school of hard knocks” with the obstacles he has worked his way past.
Let's listen to a man who has been behind the Iron Curtain of Russia, crossed from East Berlin to West Berlin when the wall was still up and traveled through a dozen European countries.
Let's check in with a man who was a high-ranking executive in the Federal Reserve and served as a Head of Bank Supervision and Regulation with 160 employees under his command. Even then, just like today, he and the Federal Reserve had to remove bank owners and close banks.
We'll hear about the sport and growth of women's softball from a man who started coaching ladies teams in the 1960s and started Georgia State's fast pitch program literally from scratch 25 years ago in 1984. With 658 career wins, we might learn about the preparation required for success.
Maybe we'll understand the grit and determination that makes him and any of his student-athletes the best they can be with his mantra: “Excuses don't get the job done.” Maybe he was Nike before Nike's ad summed it up: “just do it.”
And before you think at 84 years old he has lost his marbles, let me assure you that he actually sold them. As a
kid growing up, marbles was a big game, so he had saved some of his and sold them as an adult for $250 to a collector. So, technically he doesn't have all his marbles anymore, but his mental acumen now is, indeed sharp, keen and witty.
Born in Wheeling, W. Va. in 1925, little Robert came into the world with hard times ahead. Calvin Coolidge was President, F. Scott Fitzgerald had just penned “The Great Gatsby” in April and the Scopes “Monkey Trial” about the theory of evolution had the country in an uproar in July. Bob could get together with some other famous 1925 babies and discuss the old times with the likes of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, baseball legend Yogi Berra, actors Dick Van Dyke and Angela Lansbury or blues great B.B. King. Other 1925 babies who made their marks include Robert F. Kennedy, Johnny Carson, Sammy Davis, Richard Burton, Paul Newman and obviously, many of our parents or grandparents. Robert Heck has already seen 15 chief executives come and go from the White House.
Heck is currently the oldest NCAA coach, ahead of even Joe Paterno, who is 14 months younger than Bob, or Bobby Bowden, who is four full years younger than Bob. Some consider Georgia State's new football coach, Bill Curry, as a senior coach, but Curry is 17 years younger than Bob. And, to get back to the beginning of the story about sliced bread; it was invented in 1928. So see, Bob is truthfully older than sliced bread. Heck, computers were not around then because folks were just glad the ball point pen came around in 1938 when Bob had just become a 13-year old teenager.
While Bob was four when the 1929 stock market crash changed America, the entire 1930s Depression era affected Bob's childhood and elementary school years. Bob's family had moved to Pittsburgh, where his father was an on-and-off mill worker. Bob and his dad would shovel coal deliveries from the city streets into basements of the homes when the majority of homes were coal-heated in those days. His dad would even drive north to Lake Erie to fish and bring them back to Pittsburgh and sell the fresh catch of fish for cash. It was anything to make a buck and just survive in those days. Bob admits to not knowing any different or suffering any more than others, but he did note that he got free milk at school as an underprivileged youth. And he laughs when he remembers his father going outside on the porch and shooting off a gun, then coming back into the house and telling the kids that he had just shot Santa Claus so don't be expecting much for Christmas. Any gift under the tree was truly an unexpected treasure.
In 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected for the first of his four terms to improve the economy and Bob's sharp mind remembered the childhood rhyme that went “Roosevelt's in the White House, eating bread and jelly; Hoover's in the pigpen, sliding on his belly.”
Bob's family found work in Charleston, S.C., in 1937; Bob became a Southerner at age 12 and has been a Southern gentleman for the past 72 years.
To Bob's credit, he did well in school despite not having the comfortable homes and conveniences we enjoy today. He graduated from high school at the age of 16 in a memorable year, 1941, and he was already working to earn money as a teller at a Charleston bank to help the family meet expenses. He remembers riding his bike to the corner grocery store on Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941, and hearing the radio talk about this place called Pearl Harbor and a Japanese invasion that killed unsuspecting Americans and eventually got the United State into World War II.
Just before his 18th birthday, Bob joined the Navy to serve his country like most others. From 1943-46, petty
officer Heck was a storekeeper whose main mission was to figure out how much it cost to feed each man each day at the Naval Air Stations he was assigned to in South Carolina. All the D-Day invasions and atomic bombs dropped in Japan were just news of war that came back to the states, but Bob gratefully appreciated all those serving overseas and accomplishing the life-altering missions.
When the war was over and Bob was a civilian again in 1946, life was far from easy. During the war and into post-war times, the rationing of food, gas, tires and the like affected everyone's lifestyle and day-to-day existence. Industrious Bob got a job back at the bank in Charleston as a teller and began to think about his future and getting a college education.
With all of the servicemen looking for a place in college, too, getting accepted anywhere was a long and tedious process. The University of Georgia was one of the many places Bob had applied and when they told him to bring his GI Bill and come on, he enrolled in 1948 as a 23-year old freshman. He had to sell his 1946 Plymouth, one of his few possessions, for some cash to support himself before heading off to Athens, Ga. It was get-in, get-out and go-about-your-business, noting it is far from what the college experience is today.
In 1951, at age 26, Heck, now a cum laude college graduate with a degree in education, had the goal of becoming a teacher. He moved to Atlanta, a town with 325,000 residents and under a million in the metro area, to start his master's degree at Emory and has always had ties to the city ever since.
After earning his first master's degree in 1952, the 27-year old Bob landed a job at Druid Hills High School. That was way out in the country from downtown Atlanta, and the Mathis Dairy Farm and all its cows were behind the school at Briarcliff and Lavista Road. On his teacher's salary, Bob could only afford a well-used 1936 Dodge to get him to and from work.
Atlanta was just beginning to grow and to get to the action you had to ride the trolley car to downtown. Bob remembers the three big theaters in town were the Loew's (“Gone With the Wind” premiere, the Fox out on Peachtree Street, and the Rialto, which is now part of Georgia State University's campus. Those were the hot dating spots to take the young ladies, Bob recalls. And the downtown Rich's was the center point of the shopping district and a landmark for city events. Bob anchored into First Methodist Church downtown on Peachtree Street in 1952 and has remained a member ever since.
As history unfolded, Heck was at a bank in Buckhead on the day when he and America learned the horrible news in 1963 of John F. Kennedy's assassination in Dallas. Through the years, Bob was impressed as Atlanta made the transition through the Civil Rights movement and remembers how spellbound the city was at the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. The city was so quiet and respectful for the funeral and what it meant.
Bob's long been a sports fan of all Atlanta sports. How many can say they were at the first-ever Atlanta Braves game and the first-ever Atlanta Falcons game when those two teams made their debuts in Atlanta in 1966, some 43 years ago? He is still a Falcons NFL season-ticket holder to this day.
Heck's coaching career actually took root in Atlanta as an assistant football coach and the head track coach for widely-known and respected Druid Hills High.
If you know Bob, you know he was coaching to win. The football team played for the state title in Valdosta, but he coached two of his track teams to state championships. His assistant track coach, Jimmy Carnes, followed him as head coach and Carnes went on to a longtime track career that included being inducted into the National Track Hall of Fame and the state Sports Halls of Fame of both Georgia and Florida (where Carnes was head coach at U of F), while being an assistant coach for the 1976 Olympic team.
In 1957 at age 33, Heck was offered a head football coaching position at a new high school, though he really was thinking of a career path as a principal. During that time, a principal had to be married, so bachelor Bob didn't go that route.
Instead of coaching, he opted to turn his career back to banking and accepted a role as a bank examiner with the
Controller of the Currency's office. A bank examiner monitors, assesses and evaluates banks in compliance with the requirements of the Federal Reserve. That involved a lot of travel to various banks, so Bob was headquartered in Washington, D.C., for about 18 months. To add to his bachelor's degree from Georgia and his master's degree from Emory, Heck later added a master's degree in business from Georgia State without ever leaving his job.
Bob's banking career continued to blossom and he moved on to the Federal Reserve Bank and rose up the ranks. As the Atlanta Federal Reserve Head of the Bank Supervision and Regulation, Heck had 160 banking professionals on his staff. He was chosen to attend the Harvard Advanced Management Program with 180 bank leaders from around the world.
While there were challenges and constant pressure for accuracy, Heck was twice in a position to have to take the stand in courtroom trials and remove bank owners, testifying to send a pair to prison for their illegal activities.
In addition to his important day job as a banking executive, Heck stayed busy in the sports world, too. He put on his black and white striped shirt, stuck the yellow hankie in his back pocket and wore the whistle around his neck to referee high school football games around metro Atlanta for 25 years, while also serving as a referee for high school basketball for five years.
One of Bob's hobbies was traveling around the world. So, while some of you may have had the experience of running out of gas in your car, Bob can tell you his story about running out of gas on a small chartered boat out in the middle of the Caribbean, one among many world travel adventures.
Bob remembers the Berlin Wall and the stark contrasts between the cities of East Berlin and West Berlin. He was searched and felt the sorrow for others as he was able to pass through Checkpoint Charlie to go from one side of the city to the other.
Bob was behind the Iron Curtain and saw first had the iron fist of communism. He saw their capital city of Moscow and historic Leningrad and realized what a tough existence the Russians had.
And, Prague, the capital city of Czechoslovakia, seemed particularly dismal and hard as he remembers that city.
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But you can ask Bob about all of England and the cities and castles he has visited, or the beautiful countries of Spain and Italy, or unique Switzerland and Belgium. And there have been the relaxing cruise ship tours that took him to more islands and seas and countries around the world. That's quite a contrast for the boy from Wheeling, W. Va.
Before you think Bob might be considered an “antique,” you'd better ask him about the real antiques that he has collected from his parents and their families back at an original 100-plus year old home in Sardis, Ohio, along the Ohio River. He has kept some old newspapers with famous headlines of the past 75 years as well for a unique collection.
And despite all the hard work and traveling, Heck found time to coach girl's softball summer leagues and church leagues dating back to the 1960s at Piedmont Park. It was these roots in softball that would eventually lead him to Georgia State a couple of decades later.
It was Bob's volunteer-sure-I-can-help attitude that got him involved with Georgia State in 1981 when he was already 66 years young and winding down his business career grind. Georgia State had a ladies slow-pitch softball team that competed even though it was not an NCAA-sponsored sport. He was hired full-time in 1983. By the time Bob was starting his coaching career, legendary basketball coach John Wooden had already retired at the age of 64.
In 1984, when the Athletics Director Dr. Francis J. Bridges said “let's make the transition to fast-pitch and the NCAA” over a two-year period, eager Bob said he just needed one year and he'd be ready to go in 1985. All he had to work with was a rough, over-used, well-worn all sports field, absolutely no locker rooms, no practice facility of any kind, no scoreboard for a field and barely enough to have some uniforms. There are some similarities to the starting of Georgia State's football program now, except without any major support from the university or fund-raising or excitement of the whole school. But, the starting from scratch concept mirrors some of what Coach Bill Curry has gone through with the start-up of football.
On March 2, 1985, Coach Heck and his Lady Panthers played the first doubleheader in school history with Florida
A&M and split the pair of games, providing the first day and the first win in school history. Bob's willing warriors went 15-24 that first year, taking some lumps from Mississippi State, Ole Miss, Michigan State, Florida State and other established programs.
That 1985 losing season, however, would be the only one for the next decade as Coach Heck recruited and coached his team to conference titles and respect. Bob wasn't just a coach, he was the facilities person for his field, he was the groundskeeper for his field and was even riding his tractor around the infield and marking the field on game days, not to mention rolling out the tarps when it rained. If there was work to be done before games, Bob was the one to make sure it got done. Not many softball coaches in the country had to deal with that full plate.
Month-by-month, year-by-year, Bob Heck built Georgia State softball. Obviously, that started with the players and winning games. But it included so much more like financing the playing field, putting up the fences and the scoreboard, building dugouts with bathrooms, financing his own indoor and outdoor practice facility to include locker rooms and a video meeting room, building stands for the fans with arm-chair seating.
While he was building the fields and facilities, he was building good softball teams and players. By just his fourth year, Coach Heck had his first 40-win season (68%), by year five he had his first championship team and in year six he had a second 42-win team. From years four through 11, he ran off eight straight 30-plus win seasons with six of those with 35 or more wins.
By the 10th year of the program, Heck had his fifth conference championship and his first NCAA bid. The team finished ranked in the top 25 in the nation and ranked No. 3 in the southeast. His pitcher, Kaci Clark, went on to a long softball professional career.
When athletics made the move from the Atlantic Sun to the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA), Coach Heck's softball team didn't miss a beat and rallied to win the regular season title and host the conference championship.
He has had a winning record in each of the four years in the CAA, being one of the four teams in the conference tournament every year, and averaging 32.5 wins a year.
Coach Heck's won-lost record could be even better than what it is since he makes up the schedules. But instead of picking up some easier wins, Heck goes out of his way to schedule plenty of the major schools with winning programs in order to challenge and better his student-athletes.
Coach Heck teaches his players how to improve and has had more than 75 players earn all-conference honors. It is a year-round process and if a player listens and reacts to what is taught, the improvement is steady and sure.
He coaches just as hard to encourage the students to perform their best in the classrooms. This fall, three of his players made the President's List (4.0 or higher), four made the Dean's List (3.5 or better) and 13 of the 21 team members (62%) made the A.D.'s Honor Roll (3.2 or better).
Generosity could be Bob Heck's middle name. He was one of the eight Founding Life Members of the Georgia State Department of Athletics by contributing at least $100,000 in a three-year pledge. He has been the head of the University-wide charity fund-raising campaign and a generous contributor to that program as well. The school had honored him with its prestigious Sparks Award because he exemplified the willingness to go the extra mile with good humor and perseverance.
Unselfish Bob was always putting his players first. “The young ladies of Georgia State deserve the best place to
prepare and play so we can expect the best from them and I will personally do whatever I can do to provide that for them.” Selfish Bob demands his players be students and hit the classroom tasks as eagerly as they do the softball challenges. The man with his education knows the value of at least one college diploma.
The future is still ahead for Bob Heck because as he says, “If you love what you are doing, you never have to get up and go to work. I really enjoy Georgia State softball and know we can do more so I am eager to get up and go every day.”
(Click on the photo album at the top of the story for even more photos).
