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Georgia Bulldog fans may have been like me when they heard the name Warren Belin for the first time. Who dat? But the more I heard the more impressed I became(click here). Then it occured to me that if Coach Belin has been the linebacker coach at Vanderbilt for the past eight years, then he coached a young man I know from my Alma mater, Marietta High School.

Herdley Harrison played for Coach Belin from 2002-2005 and I caught up with Herdley over the weekend on Facebook. I was coaching at Marietta while Herdley was a Blue Devil. His email back to me is below:

Hey Coach,

Nice to hear from you! As it’s been a really long time.

And you’re right I did see that Coach Belin and his family were headed to Athens.

As for Coach Belin, he’s a stand up guy that cares very much about his faith, family, his players, and his team. As much as he was a coach he was also a father like figure for me when I was in school dealing with some issues he was the first person there to comfort me.

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His office door was always open and he would love it when players would come by to watch some film with him. I remember even watching some film of the guys that he was recruiting to Vandy.

I remember finding out about the death of my grandmother after the Florida game and he was there with me as my mom broke the news to me. And even though I didn’t practice much that week as I had to fly back to Georgia for the funeral he was constantly checking on me and making sure that everything was okay and he made the decision to let me start the following week.

When I was going through the recruitment process he was very straight forward and stated that the best players were going to play no matter what. He said above else he always expected his players to compete and never wanted us to become complacent. He stayed true to his words and he was just as competetive as we were on the field. He’s always ready to go and always excited. And he would always be sporting a bright smile. Not to say that he wasn’t serious as he was also known to be sporting a scowl on the sidelines just as much. He demands perfection from his players and he wants them to demand perfection from themselves. I remember a game in which I had gotten a tackle for loss and when he came up to slap me on the helmet to congratulate me, he whispered in my ear that it would have been a 3 yd loss if I hadn’t taken a false step. I always knew that when we came to practice we had to put on our hard hats as we were coming to work. It was common place for Coach B to lose his voice regularly.

I have great memories of playing for Coach B and I wish him nothing but the best at UGA.

Hope that helps.

Just one more bit of evidence that Coach Richt is leading the Dawgs in the right direction.

Go Dawgs!

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