Bobby Pope: Macon Touchdown Club set for 70th season
As you would expect, the majority of the Macon Touchdown Club membership is made up of Georgia Bulldogs fans, but give the club credit for sharing its leadership among other programs.
The past three club presidents have been Russell Deese, an Auburn man, Mallory Jones, who is a dyed-in-the-wool Georgia Tech supporter, and this year David Mann, who wears the crimson and white of Alabama. A Georgia man and a former player for the Bulldogs, Pud Mosteller takes over the podium next year after serving as the vice president this year.
Pud, a Conover, North Carolina, native, played for the legendary Wally Butts and the Bulldogs from 1953 through the 1956 season, earning All-SEC and honorable mention All-America honors as a sophomore. He says a highlight of his playing career was beating the Florida Gators 14-13 in Jacksonville during the 1954 season.
After graduating from Georgia he was with the New York Giants for nine weeks under offensive line coach Vince Lombardi before suffering a knee injury that ended his career. Mosteller confirmed what most people say about Lombardi that he was one of the meanest people he had ever been around. Mosteller then coached and taught at Hart County in Hartwell and Jordan in Columbus before moving to Macon to teach at the Academy for the Blind, where he stayed for one year.
He worked for the state of Georgia as an investigator for five years before beginning a 33-year career in pharmaceutical sales, and on the side, he started officiating high school football games. From the prep game, he moved on to the SEC where he served in the role of umpire for 25 years. He officiated 12 bowl games. Mosteller says his most memorable game as an official came in 1981 when he was on the field for the Auburn-Alabama matchup in Birmingham when Alabama defeated the Tigers 28-17 to give Paul “Bear” Bryant his 315th career victory, making him at the time, the winningest head coach in Division I college football history.
Mosteller was selected for induction in the Macon Sports Hall of Fame in 2004 and was honored by the Georgia chapter of the National Football Foundation and the College Hall of Fame in 2006 for lifetime achievements.
The Macon Touchdown Club begins is 70th season Monday when Mercer head coach Bobby Lamb kicks off the year. Lloyd Perkins, who has taken over as the club’s executive director from King Kemper, has lined up an impressive list of speakers this season. Following Lamb will be 1981 national championship head coach at Clemson Danny Ford, Samford head coach and Macon native Chris Hatcher, Willie Fritz of Georgia Southern, Tony Barnhart, SEC head of officials Steve Shaw and Barbara Dooley, who is the Ladies Night speaker. Georgia Tech’s Paul Johnson is up next and will be followed by UAB head coach Bill Clark, Bert Williams from GMC and Jeff Monken, who coaches at Army.
Membership dues for the 11 regular-season meetings plus the club’s annual Jamboree after the first of the year are $250. If you are interested in joining the club, contact Perkins at 256-6374 or Mann at 742-3381.
All meetings are held Monday nights during the football season at the Rumsford Center on the campus of the Methodist Home for Youth and Children on Pierce Avenue.
Contact Bobby Pope at bobbypope428@gmail.com
This story was originally published September 7, 2015 at 11:43 AM with the headline "Bobby Pope: Macon Touchdown Club set for 70th season ."