By MONTE DUTTON
Dick Sheridan was a man of great fame. To his credit, he was inducted into most halls while he was still alive.
It’s probably impossible for me to name them all: college football, Furman, Furman athletic, state athletic, state football and now Southern Conference. At least.
The most effective way to get in a hall of fame is often being dead. It’s just the truth. One of life’s oddities is that most people never know what people think of them while they’re still alive.
Sheridan knew.
I never played football for Sheridan, but I knew and worked for or with him for most of a decade. Sheridan was once my landlord. We roomed together at the Southern Conference preseason meetings for a couple years.
We had our differences and made our peace. The last time we talked was outside a Furman football game. I told him a funny story he’d forgotten. After the game, as he was leaving, he thanked me for telling it.
I hitched a ride with Bernard Durham to North Augusta last summer for the remembrance on the football field where Sheridan once played. It was as hot that morning as one of his three-hour practices.
Men, we gotta get better.
Sheridan’s namesake was a martyr of the United States Military Academy. The second Richard Brinsley Sheridan died playing football for West Point against Yale on Oct. 26, 1931. The third, his nephew, became a football coach.
In eight years as head coach of the Paladins, Sheridan won 74.4 percent of his games, then moved on to North Carolina State, where he won 63.7 over seven years. At Furman, he won six Southern Conference championships and four in a row.
No one before him ever won the SoCon title, and Furman has been in it since 1936. Last fall Clay Hendrix’s Paladins won the 15th.
Sheridan was the greatest football coach in school history, and that’s unlikely to change.
N.C. State had little choice but to hire him away. His Furman teams beat the Wolfpack in 1984 and ’85. In fact, they won four in a row against schools now grouped as FBS.
During his first year in Raleigh, Sheridan was Bobby Dodd National Coach of the Year and ACC Coach of the Year.
Sheridan instilled pride as much as anything. Furman’s first SoCon championship was shared, and money was tight. Everyone received a white windbreaker that was simple and unlined. Sheridan wore it as if it was encrusted in jewels, tucking it into polyester coaching shorts. He lorded over a practice field. His attention to detail was astonishing.
An air horn signaled the change from one part of practice to another. If that horn went off 15 seconds early or late, Sheridan noticed.
On the road, Sheridan’s Paladins walked out on the field confidently. It was the best example I’ve ever seen of looking like they’d been there before. Theirs was a confident demeanor.
Sheridan was the best game planner I’ve ever seen. The best strategy for the opposition was throwing out the window what they’d previously done. Sometimes that caught him unawares. He was reluctant to depart from what he’d analyzed diligently. Most coaches seldom had to deal with that.
The line of succession has almost run its course. Since Sheridan left for Raleigh in 1986, every single Furman head coach has either played or coached under Sheridan. Hendrix is likely the last of the line.
The current Paladins weren’t born when Sheridan last coached. I’m sure his spirit lives in them. Furman under him was the school’s Camelot, and now he lives on in Arthurian legend.
Decision time is approaching. What’s next? Do I keep doing it the way I am now? Do I amend this site? Do I continue to concentrate on local sports coverage, or do I change my priorities?
I’m thinking. I’m thinking.
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