When Smathers reveals he read the Lord of the Rings books, Burson reminds him that the author, J. R. R. Tolkien, was friends with C.S. Lewis. With that unshakeable foundation they grew a Burrow-Ja-Marr Chase-like connection.
“Sam was reading it as I was writing it,” Burson says. “He would fact check it, give me feedback and we kept at it together and we got it done last summer.”
Burson, 60, a 1980 Athens High grad who went away to become a sportswriter before sanity prevailed and put him back in the classroom a quarter of a century ago, had been mulling a book about several Athens County notables. Maya Lin, who was a senior at Athens High when Burson was a freshman, found international fame as a Yale undergraduate when she designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Atul Gawande, a surgeon and current assistant administrator of the United States Agency for International Development. Just to name two. Burrow, as Burson saw it, would be in the sports section of the book.
But after conducting a handful of interviews on Burrow with his parents, Robin and Jimmy, Smathers and a pair of coaches who saw him do it all in football, basketball and baseball in Fred Gibson and Jeff Skinner, Burson was convinced there was enough for a book on just Joe Lee Burrow. The 60 or so ensuing interviews confirmed it.
“The anecdotes,” Burson says, “just kept piling up.”
Such as how Smathers, who birthed the Athens youth football program in his garage still named “The Dawg Pound,” snapped at Burrow one day in the sixth grade. Burrow, already bringing Athens to unknown heights, was also the scout team quarterback and Smathers was trying to get his defense ready for its heated rivalry with Nelsonville. But Burrow saw how he could beat the defense and when he did easily, Smathers scolded, “Will you run the cards I gave you please. Nelsonville can’t do that.”
“Heck,” Smathers says now. “Nobody can do that.”
Smathers wanted to make sure they gave Robin and Jimmy the tasteful, classy book they wanted…
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