Dan Pitts and the lessons learned from Augusta National
This is the time of year when our attention turns to green jackets and amen corners.
We are obsessed with pin placements and the speed of the greens at Augusta National. We marvel at the beauty of the azaleas and dogwoods. We name-drop golfers like Tiger and Jack as if we are on a first-name basis.
I, too, am passionate about The Masters, the greatest golf tournament in the world.
It also takes me back to the afternoon I spent with a legendary high school football coach 25 years ago.
It was Sept. 8, 1995, and it was a few hours before kickoff on the night Dan Pitts won his milestone 316th career game, making him the winningest high school football coach in state history.
Only, Pitts wasn’t extolling the virtues of the fullback trap — a play he ran in every one of the 459 games he coached at Mary Persons High School.
His mind was on the golf course.
If football was the love of his life, golf was a close second. He spent years analyzing the “X’s and O’s” of golf swings. He enjoyed laboring at the driving range more than traversing the fairways, much the same way he relished two-hours practices scrimmages more than the glare of Friday night lights.
He began attending The Masters in 1956, the first year it was televised and three years before he arrived at Mary Persons in rather serendipitous fashion, having never been a head football coach or an assistant coach.
He was a Masters patron for many years and never missed a weekend round at Augusta. He followed Arnold Palmer around in the days before Arnie had his “Army.’’
His lifelong hero was Ben Hogan, maybe the best ball-striker all time. At 5-foot-8, Pitts was the same height as “Bantam Ben.’’
He admired Hogan’s work ethic.
“I would watch him on the practice tee, follow him on the course, then go back with him to the practice tee after his round,’’ Pitts said. “I never once came close to meeting him. I guess I admired him because he worked harder than anybody else.’’
Elbow grease is one of the many qualities I always have admired about Pitts, a man who knows success comes before work only in the dictionary.
An opponent might have superior talent on its roster, but Pitts was determined nobody would out-work him or his players. In 39 seasons, he never missed a day of practice.
Pitts retired from coaching in 1997 with 346 victories. (He has since been passed on the career list by three other coaches – Larry Campbell of Lincoln County, Alan Chadwick of Marist and Robert Davis of Warner Robins and Westside-Macon.)
He remains revered in Forsyth, where a city street and the high school stadium are named after him.
Two weeks ago, I went to visit the coach on a rainy Friday morning. He is 88 years old, which is 16-over-par in golf vernacular. Mary Lynda, his wife of 62 years, died two years ago.
We sat in the living room. He was reading David McCullough’s book on the Wright Brothers. His dog, Rags, who is deaf, sat at his feet. The little dog got his name when he showed up in the carport looking like a pile of rags.
We reminisced about his coaching days and my years as a sportswriter.
We talked about golf.
We talked about life.
We did not talk about dying.
Coach Pitts has stage 4 lung cancer.
Last fall, he went for his daily walk. When he returned to the house, he felt as if he had been blindsided by a blitzing linebacker. After two rounds of chemotherapy, he made the decision to discontinue treatments.
A coach’s sphere of influence goes beyond sideline huddles and locker room pep talks. You don’t have to play for man like Dan Pitts to be motivated and inspired. Almost everyone in this town can tell you how he has impacted their life in some positive way.
When I got up to leave, I thanked him for being part of my life. I told him how much he meant to me and that I loved him.
He told me to come back and see him again.
I promised I would. And I will.
Ed Grisamore teaches journalism at Stratford Academy in Macon. His column appears on Sundays in The Telegraph.
This story was originally published April 11, 2021 at 7:00 AM.