Super Bowl champ from Macon tops Macon Touchdown Club list

A four-time Super Bowl champion from Macon, and winners of national championships on multiple levels highlight the 2017 list of speakers for the Macon Touchdown Club.

Familiar names will be joined by new speakers, such as J.T. Thomas, a Lanier graduate, ESPN's Dari Nowkhah and former Alabama quarterback Brodie Croyle.

The group's season gets started on Aug. 26 with the second annual Middle Georgia Kickoff Classic at Mercer, with Central facing FPD and Mount de Sales battling Howard.

Thomas, a member of the Macon and Georgia sports halls of fame, gets the weekly meeting schedule started on Sept. 11. He was Florida State's first African-American football player, and was a first-round pick of Pittsburgh in 1973.

Mercer head coach Bobby Lamb follows on Sept. 18, two days after the Bears visit Auburn.

George O'Leary, Georgia Tech's head coach for seven-plus seasons and retired from Central Florida after 12 seasons, visits on Sept. 25.

Georgia Tech's current head coach Paul Johnson is set for Oct. 2 with Maconite, Mount de Sales grad and Samford head coach Chris Hatcher on Oct. 9. Nowkhah, one of the SEC Network's primary anchors and announcers, speaks on Oct. 16.

Croyle, who passed for 6,382 yards and 41 touchdowns at Alabama from 2002-05, makes his Macon Touchdown Club debut on Oct. 23. A week later, longtime Wake Forest head coach Jim Grobe — who spent the 2016 season as interim head coach at scandal-plagued Baylor — is the guest.

ESPN college football announcer and former Georgia offensive line standout Matt Stinchcomb returns on Nov. 6, with new Georgia State head coach Shawn Elliott — who played at Appalachian State and coached there and South Carolina — on Nov. 13.

Army head coach and former Georgia Southern head coach Jeff Monken closes out the season on Nov. 20.

The annual jamboree is already scheduled, for Feb. 2 and with Auburn head coach Gus Malzahn as the featured speaker.

Membership cost is $250 for the season, including the jamboree. Cost each week for non-members, who needn't be accompanied by a member, is $30.

The club meets on Mondays, starting at 6:30 p.m., at the Methodist Home for Children at 304 Pierce Ave.

For more information, contact executive director Lloyd Perkins at 256-6374 or visit www.macontouchdownclub.com.

This story was originally published June 16, 2017 at 7:10 PM with the headline "Super Bowl champ from Macon tops Macon Touchdown Club list."