When Claude Felton was named sports information director at his alma mater on July 1st, 1979, little did he realize that in just over one year later, he would begin publicizing/promoting the top high school football player in the nation.
A player who would evolve not only into the greatest running back in the history of the University of Georgia but also arguably into the best running back in the history of college football.
Herschel Walker.
“I didn’t see Herschel play in high school,” said Felton, Georgia’s Hall of Fame and legendary SID who capped nearly a 45-year career serving UGA athletics when he announced his retirement on January 30 of this year.
“I think I saw some video or film of Herschel in high school, maybe on TV or somewhere else but never saw him in person,” said Felton. “I can’t remember, I think I might have seen him when he came in on a visit but I can’t remember much until he actually got here when the freshmen came in.”
But for young Claude Felton, the task of guiding Georgia’s sports information department – even with all the publicity and ballyhoo that Herschel was to bring with him to Athens from Johnson County High in Wrightsville – wasn’t too daunting. That’s because of the excellent training he had previously received at Georgia Southern University.
“I had two or three roles at Georgia Southern,” Felton said. “I was sports information director and I was actually public relations director there my last couple of years.” Felton, it should be noted, also served three years as an assistant tennis coach for the Eagles.
“When I came to Georgia, Coach (Vince) Dooley was the head coach and he was actually taking over the dual role of athletic director, starting July 1st of ’79,” he said. “Coach Dooley called me at Georgia Southern in the spring of ’79 and he had just hired Andy Landers (women’s basketball coach) and Jack Bauerle (swim coach) and he wanted to talk to me about the sports information job so probably me, Jack and Andy started relatively about the same time at Georgia.
“I think Dan Magill (Georgia legendary SID and tennis coach) gave Coach Dooley a recommendation on me and I tell you somebody else who talked to Coach Dooley about me was Harley Bowers of The Macon Telegraph. He was the other one I recall.”
Felton said the person most instrumental in his early development was Ric Mandes.
“My boss at Georgia Southern, Ric Mandes, was the head of what they call institutional development, which sports information and public relations all came under that,” Felton said. “But he was far ahead of his time as an institutional public relations person. He was doing things at Georgia Southern at that time that most schools hadn’t even thought about. He taught me just so many things and what I learned from him was certainly a lot of the basis of what I was able to do when I got to Georgia. But also, when I was at Georgia Southern, I had gotten to know a lot of the sports media around the state so that was a blessing as well, to have so many relationships already established with sports media when I got to Georgia.”
Back to Herschel Walker.
When the 6-1, 218-pound Walker, who was named Parade Magazine national player of the year at Johnson County, reported to his first Georgia practice in August of 1980, hardly anyone envisioned what the powerful and very, very fast tailback would accomplish in his freshman season in the red and black of the Bulldogs.
“Of course, Herschel as a freshman kind of took the country by storm, for a lot of reasons,” related Felton, who as the 1980 season moved along, would be tasked with researching the UGA and SEC records that Walker was now accumulating. “One for just what he could do on the football field,” said Felton, “but also, what the team was doing at the same time his freshman year … going undefeated and winning a national championship. Herschel finished third as a freshman in the Heisman Trophy behind George Rogers who was a senior at South Carolina and I can’t remember who was second (Hugh Green, Pitt). In those days there was no way a freshman was going to win the Heisman Trophy, no matter what. And his second year he was definitely good enough to win the Heisman; he finished second that year behind Marcus Allen and probably would have won it had Marcus Allen not been the first player I think in college history to rush for 2,000 yards in a single season. And the third year, Herschel was pretty much a runaway in the third year.”
Felton said that although Walker didn’t need much extra publicity due to his extraordinary exploits on the playing field, Georgia’s sports information department did begin to get his name on the national sports scene’s consciousness.
“We did some things all three years to some degree,” he said. “But there were no cell phones, no internet, no email in those days so pretty much everything you did was direct mail. We did quite a few direct mail pieces that went to media all across the country but you could only do it so often just because of the time it took for the mail to arrive. But pretty much everything was direct mail in those days and we did a lot of things. We had a lot of comparisons how he was doing compared to former Heisman Trophy winners, running backs and those sort of things. There were a lot of things we did all three years but probably his last year was the biggest year.
“Herschel would still be the best running back I’ve ever seen, for sure,” Felton said. “A lot of Georgia people still say Charley Trippi might have been the best overall athlete ever to play for Georgia, which might have been true as he was a great baseball player, too. But, yeah, Herschel is still the best college running back I’ve ever seen.”
What, in Felton’s mind, was the best performance Herschel ever had at Georgia?
“Probably his freshman year against South Carolina when it was him against George Rogers,” Felton recalled. “And I believe that might have been Herschel’s first game on national television. And in those days, you had maybe one game a week on TV and that game against South Carolina Keith Jackson was the play-by-play announcer I recall. And Herschel had a real big day against South Carolina and we won the game (13-10), which kept us undefeated going into those last three games against Florida, Auburn and Tech. And of course, the next week against Florida was the Belue-to-Scott play and he had a big game that day too. He had several big games against Florida, which I remember. But that game against South Carolina as a freshman was certainly a big game that really promoted him onto a real national stage because it was the first time people were able to see him all across the country,” said Felton.
Walker, that game, outperformed future Heisman winner Rogers by rushing for 219 yards on 43 carries including maybe his best touchdown run ever at Georgia when he dashed 76 yards down the north sidelines, in the process outrunning several Gamecock defensive backs who had a perfect angle on Walker.
Felton has been inducted into three Hall of Fames for his exemplary work in his four decades at the university: the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) Hall of Fame, the Greater Savannah Athletic Hall of Fame and on February 24 of this year, the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame. Felton was also presented the Football Writers Association of America Ben McGrane Award.
But Felton, modest to a fault, is certainly not one to toot his own horn.
“A lot of that is due to the fact of really just being at Georgia because if you’re at Georgia, all the years I’ve been there, you get to work on a national stage, first of all,” he said. “And you get to work with some of the greatest coaches and athletes in the history of the college game in a bunch of sports, not just football. The same year I came was the same year Dominique Wilkins came. So, we’ve got a lot of great athletes in a lot of different sports which really put me in a position to work, like I said, in a national setting.”
As might be expected, Felton said the three national football championships the Bulldogs won in his roles as sports information director, then assistant athletic director, associate athletic director and finally senior associate executive athletic director, were the highlights of his career at Georgia.
“You have to say the national championships first of all but I would point out that since I’ve been at Georgia that Georgia has won 46 or 47 national championships in all sports,” he said. “And they all have been something special. I guess I worked most closely every day with football and to win that 1980 national championship was certainly special since I had been here only a couple of years then. But at that point you think we may never win another one. And I guess we went about 40 years before we did win another one. Certainly, these last two were certainly special because, like I say, it was another 40 years since 1980 before we won another one.”
Felton said he simply wouldn’t have made it his 44 plus years in his position without all the excellent assistance he received in the sports information department.
“If somebody asks me what has been my best strength over the years, it’s probably hiring,” Felton said. “Because I’ve had an unbelievable group of full-time staff, grad assistants and undergrad students who have all pitched in and just done phenomenal work and, as I’ve said many times, they’re the ones that most of the time made me look good. We had great stability with a lot of staff members who have been at Georgia a long time.”
Quotes
Claude is the person who gave someone with zero Sports Communications experience a chance for an internship in 2005 and then a full-time job in 2006. He’s the one who taught me that no detail is too small to cover and no media outlet is too insignificant not to help. He provided me with a nugget of his expertise daily and challenged all of us in the Sports Communications office to work up to the level of professionalism he had created. Claude was also a friend, a confidant I could trust and a friendly face at church after we had both come in from an away game in the early hours of the morning. He is a generous, caring, insightful and wealth of knowledge like very few others around. Claude means the world to my family and me, and I look forward to watching him embrace this next chapter and enjoy every fish that comes into the boat and every quail that hits the ground.
Leland Barrow – Senior Associate Sports Communications Director – University of Georgia Athletic Association
I know of no other person who has served in the same capacity as Claude Felton who did it as well as he did. What people need to know is he was not only masterful in the crafts of sports information and promotions, he was an excellent leader. He was honest supportive and a true friend to ALL of us! Just the best ever!
Andy Landers – Former UGA Women’s Basketball Coach
“When I talked to Claude when he did retire, he told me a story I had never heard. He said one of his first meetings when he was still down at Georgia Southern that Coach (Vince) Dooley came to him and said, ‘Now Claude, first things first, I just hired two new young coaches you need to get with.’ And that was Andy Landers and me. And it was pretty funny. Claude said, ‘I guess it’s one really young enthusiastic guy from some junior college up in Tennessee and also this young, real friendly guy that swam here and I hope he has some upside.’
“As time went on, I think some people forget one thing about Claude. I think he was the same age I was, 27 at that time. And Andy was too. So, the three of us, unbeknownst to each other, started at the same time. I didn’t know Andy; Andy didn’t know me and we didn’t know Claude until he came to us. The bottom line with Claude, I always felt he was like the anchor in our athletic department. He was savvy with what he did but his demeanor was always the same, whether it was something great going on he had to cover or something tough he had to cover.
“You talk about a baptism of fire is when he started, the year before Herschel came. So, talk about a learning curve I think Claude, under the circumstances, learned more in one year than other SIDs could have learned in a lifetime. Unless you were here at that time, the Herschel mania was almost inexplicable. You had to see it to believe it. The thing about Claude was that his influence stretched far and wide. One of my swimmers who ended up working with him just retired after an illustrious career at Alabama, and Claude is the father of so many successful SIDs across the country, there are too many to name. And the other thing about Claude, he never wanted for anything. He just did his job and didn’t care about the financial part and would have been just as happy if no one knew who he was. Bottom line, Claude was first class and we were lucky to have him!”
Jack Bauerle – Former UGA Swimming and Diving Coach
Felton a key cog in the Final Four’s operation
As he drove back from this year’s SEC Men’s Basketball Tournament in Nashville, Claude Felton wasn’t feeling that well.
Seems he had contracted a strain of the dreaded flu bug, an illness that made him bed ridden for several days and one that would result in nearly a total loss of his voice.
But Felton, who had just retired from his nearly 45-year SID position with the University of Georgia athletics department, knew he had to get well fast. In several weeks he was supposed to resume his role on the NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four media coordination committee. This year’s tournament was to be played in Glendale, Arizona at State Farm Stadium, home of the NFL Arizona Cardinals, with the semifinals on Saturday, April 6, and the championship this past Monday night, April 8.
As Felton recollects, this will be approximately his 25th year working the Final Four. He’s been working the SEC tournament for a good bit longer than that.
“The SEC basketball tournament, there’s several of us around the league that have been on it, the media coordination committee for that tournament,” Felton said. “So, we go and pretty much work for the SEC for that week, just helping with the media arrangements for that tournament. I would say I’ve done that SEC tournament for 35 years.
“The NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four media coordination committee, I’ve done it for about 25 years.”
Felton said his involvement with post-season tournament basketball through the years has been a most gratifying and rewarding experience.
“A fellow named Dave Cawood was the one who first got me involved with the Final Four committee,” he said. “I think probably about 1996 maybe. So that’s been a great experience for a lot of reasons. It’s been a great professional experience for me as you get to be around a lot of prominent people. Anybody that’s anybody in the national media is involved in the NCAA basketball tournament so it’s allowed me to develop relationships with all of them. But it’s also been beneficial for Georgia to have anybody serve on that committee because there’s only about eight or nine members on that committee that are from schools around the country.”
Felton said his role on the committee varies from day to day.
“Over the years we work a little bit with credentialing and we work with all the media arrangements … we set up all the media interviews with coaches and the players throughout the week with the general media group but also with CBS or TBS or the national networks that are doing the games as well as the national radio networks. I work a good bit with photographers as well, setting up the photography arrangements. It’s pretty varied.”