By Michael A. Lough

The Sports Report

centralgasports@gmail.com

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He doesn’t look or sound anywhere near as old as many of his colleagues with similar resumes – length-wise or winning percentage-wise – and seems to have hardly changed, albeit with less up top, than almost two decades ago in his debut.

Chris Hatcher is so “Macon” and so “Macon Touchdown Club” that it might be hard to remember that he has the Division II Heisman stashed somewhere along with a Division II national championship, and that he used to be the boss of Will Muschamp and Kirby Smart, and has coached with a who’s who in the business.

He also hired his cousin back in the day, Mount de Sales head coach Keith Hatcher, who introduced him Monday night at the Macon Touchdown Club.

Keith was a two-sporter at Mars Hill, and needed an internship to complete graduation.

“He couldn’t decide if he was going to be an insurance salesman, a financial planner, wanted to be an athletic director,” Chris Hatcher said. “I think I still have a plan you sold me awhile back, about 30 years ago.”

Keith went to Chris, then at Valdosta State, and had the position of JV football director of operations “created” for him. They talked about a grad assistant position, and Chris asked Keith wanted he wanted to coach.

“He goes, ‘I want to be an offensive coach,’” Chris said. “OK, good, you’l be working with the defensive backs tomorrow.”

Chris Hatcher was happy on two fronts.

His Samford Bulldogs got past a rocky stretch – including a loss to Mercer when his team was in the top 10 in the FCS – to win three straight games and stay alive, albeit with the need of great help, for a postseason spot.

Samford earned some national love with its performance at Florida State, where the Seminoles were might close to a stunning loss.

“Goes down to Florida State and lead the Seminoles for 57 minutes and 30 seconds. And then we run outta gas and get beat there very late in the ballgame.

“A devastating defeat. I kinda felt like Kevin Costner, as Kevin Costner in ‘Tin Cup’ came off the 18th green and he finally realized he had blown the U.S. Open. Could you ever imagine little ol’ Samford University, 4,000 students, saying that?”

Irrelevant to its big picture, Samford struggled after the loss, losing a week later by six to Mercer, then by seven at Chattanooga, and by 14 at top-5 Kennesaw State.

He’s coaching another Hatcher, son Ty, a redshirt freshman quarterback at Samford.

“You can tell he takes a lot after his granddad Edgar Hatcher,” he said of the former head coach at Monroe Academy, Northeast, and Southwest, a longtime TD Club member. “We put him in late in the game, we’re up 60 points (in the season opener against Shorter) running the clock out, just let everybody play, not trying to embarrass anybody.

“The third play of his series, he checks (to) a post pass, throws a touchdown pass to run it up on the other team. This past week, we put him in the game way ahead and I grabbed him around the neck and said, ‘You better not throw it.’”

His high school alma mater is having one of its best seasons since, well, he played, with a 7-1 record. The Cavs have clinched a winning season, only their 10th since Hatcher graduated in 1991, are assured a postseason spot, and are ranked higher than any Macon private school, and by a chunk.

“I just gotta say it,” he said, seconds after taking the podium. “How ‘bout them Mount de Sales Cavaliers?”

As was the case last week with Georgia Tech’s Paul Johnson, Hatcher noted his long history with the club, checking in at a long stretch of appearances covering his career at Valdosta State, Georgia Southern, Murray State, and now Samford.

It was when he was honored as a player of the week that Valdosta State head coach Mike Cavan, the speaker, became aware of him, offered him a walk-on spot that became a scholarship spot and a legendary Blazers’ career.

Hatcher had a story that fit his history, and how he went from sitting in the same seats as the weekly honorees, including current Mount de Sales quarterback Dexter Williams, and unrecruited to getting a chance and turning that chance into a stellar college playing career and then a coaching career nearing two decades as a head coach.

He told the story of a speaker at a team devotional, Charlie Plumb. He was a fighter pilot who was shot down on his 75th mission in Vietnam.

“He ejects, parachutes, lands in a rice field, gets captured,” Hatcher said. “Spent six years in a POW camp.”

He was tortured, lost about 100 pounds, and was released at the end of the war. Plumb was eating dinner at a restaurant and was approached by a man who recognized him, and ran through his resume.

“ ‘I’m the guy that packed your parachute that day,’” the man told Plumb.

Plumb: “What do I owe you?

Man: “I was just doing my job. I don’t want anything in return. Just wanted to let you know that I’m the guy that packed your parachute that day.”

That stuck with Hatcher.

“Everybody has gotten somewhere because somebody has packed their parachute for them somewhere along the way,” Hatcher said. “I’m very fortunate. I don’t believe I’d be the head coach at Samford or been a college head coach for 19 years if you guys hadn’t packed the parachute for me and continue to pack ‘em for all these young men that come through this town and play high school football, and recognize them on a weekly basis.”

He went through his Touchdown Club story, and what followed.

“(I) was able to do some really good things because you guys packed parachutes for high school student-athletes,” Hatcher said. “So, never take what you do for granted. I ask that you continue to do that, continue to be generous.”