Submitted PhotoNoel George coached baseball at Lowndes High School and Valwood.

Noel Joseph George,

A Life

Sept. 2, 1935-Oct. 11, 2017

It’s not often that someone is given an opportunity to look at a life in its entirety, but the mystery of death allows us to do just that. Human beings are such complex mixtures of the physical body and the physical mind that trying to explain how those two things come together and what they produce is almost impossible.

Noel George’s life is just another example of the beauty and strangeness of being born on this planet. He was given two great gifts: a strong mind in a strong body, and he used those gifts to the fullest, giving back to the world even more than he’d received.

In a time and place where athletes are adored and rewarded monetarily, which often leads them to destruction, Noel George, did the exact opposite. After his football career, which could have given anyone the big head, he took on one of the hardest careers, a math teacher.

He started teaching mathematics in Valdosta Middle School, making the princely sum of $1,900 a year.

Yes, he coached, every afternoon till dark, which gave him that generous extra, a $100 stipend for the year. He took the low seat, that hard thing, which scripture advises us to do.

And just as scripture says, the Host of the party, came and said, “Rise up, take a higher place.” Noel rose up, after one year in middle school, he was asked to join the high school coaching staff at the newly formed Lowndes High on Copeland Road.

Of course, being a good math teacher, one of those rarities so hard to find, put him a few steps ahead of others in the selection. Can you imagine, teaching five math classes a day: algebra, geometry, trigonometry, slide rule, and even calculus; whatever the school system needed, and then going out in the heat to coach until dark?

That was Noel George’s calling for 42 years, at Lowndes High for 30 years and at Valwood for 12. And he took each day, each hour, and used it with each student.

He did what we all are called to do, that cliché, “Bloom where you’re planted.” All of Noel’s seven children have mathematical brains; and every one took his example of getting an education and using it to make the world better. At some later date, I will go in to their various careers in order to thank all the vast number of fantastic teachers in private and public schools.

I call them “the communion of saints.”

As with so many of us, Noel’s grandparents were immigrants, coming to Georgia from Lebanon, escaping a civil war. His grandparents in the U.S. at first were peddlers, then able to buy small holdings of land, and then larger. They valued education and the opportunities that America gave them. Remember, this was a time of no welfare, no Social Security, no pension plans. Their children are the Smahas in Griffin, Ga., going back to their original last name.

The Georges came farther south, and Noel’s parents and aunts and uncles were small business owners, and one aunt became a nun in the order of St. Joseph. The Georges, the men and the women they married, valued education and opportunities; they worked hard at whatever was at hand. A few of them are still here in Valdosta, even more are in Georgia and throughout the world.

Noel was never one for self-aggrandizement on any level; I married him and never heard one word about his football career at any time. I learned of my husband’s achievements on the field from other people. When his mother began showing me a scrapbook of newspaper clipping and photos, I started getting the picture.

People would come up to Noel on the street and say, “I saw you play in the Peanut Bowl.” Once a troubled Valdosta student, who Noel tutored at night, admiring my husband’s trophies that I kept in our front hall, said, “You sure were lucky to play for the Wildcats.” I heard my husband say, “I was a big fish in a very small pond.”

Another time, when four burly men were sitting at an adjoining table to ours in Huddle House, one looked over and asked, “Are you Coach George, Night Train?” Noel nodded and kept on eating. Another said, “They’re still talking about you over in Thomasville.” Again my husband nodded.

I had to ask the men, “What were they saying?”

“It was a region playoff,” one man said, “and Night Train here scored a touchdown and then kicked the extra point. Then Thomasville got the ball and scored. When they tried to kick their extra point, Night Train blocked the kick. The score ended up 7-6, the Wildcats winning the game and the championship.”

I had to ask my husband, “What did Coach Bazemore say when you came back to the sidelines.”

Noel said, “He said, “Good block.” This is the only story I know of my husband’s football career.

But I did have the good fortune to have Noel as a teacher at Troy State when it had students at Moody Air Force base. (At 40 years of age, I was considering going back to college but unsure of my math skills. They were non-existent.) My husband often took night jobs to pay for our large family, teaching night courses, tutoring individual students, or refereeing basketball games. This was always after teaching and coaching a full day.

He was a good teacher: funny, interesting, and very kind, but most of all he made the difficult stuff of Algebra I & II understandable. He must have been good for later on, at VSU, I received A’s in college algebra and organic chemistry.

I say that Noel was very kind, but I’m afraid the licks he gave with a paddle were not. Many a man, who often looked older than my husband, would come up to me in the grocery store or the drug store or even at VSU when I was there and say, “Coach George gave me a paddling I’ll never forget, one lick only.” I would ask, “Did you deserve it?” And the answer was always: “Oh, God, yes.” And often, those same men would add, “It straightened me out permanently. It was exactly what I needed.”

Coach Tommy Thomas has one story, (and I hope I’m not getting him in trouble telling it) of a team he and Noel coached together. It was summer and an American Legion team of older boys who took losing very lightly. After an away game, on the way home, the whole team laughed and joked around on the bus, and this tomfoolery was not appreciated by the coaches.

Coming back into Valdosta, as each young man got off the bus, Noel gave them one lick with a paddle.

I have one other story about the 1980 baseball team that Noel and Steve Kebler coached to a AAAA state championship against Griffin. I was too nervous to go to the game and had to listen to it on the radio. Steve Roberts and Dave Waples were the announcers. Some very unrepeatable things were said but the best one was when Noel put Andy Malham in to bat near the end of the game.

Dave Waples said, “Coach George is an idiot, that kid hasn’t hit anything all year.” I half-way agreed with Waples. Then Andy hit a home run across the fence and the score ended 1-0, in Lowndes’ favor. Waples screamed, “Coach Noel George is a genius, a genius.”

Later, when I asked what made him put Andy in, my husband said, “He was due.”

And, of course, many here in Valdosta, some 50-plus-old men, will remember the famous Kool-Aid of the summer baseball camps that Noel and Tommy Thomas coached for many years. As they dished out the red drink, Noel would say, “It’s extra delicious today, boys; I washed my dirty underwear and socks in it last night.” Most of the kids knew it was a joke, but the next day, a few brought their own drinks.

With this article, I give you just a few little slices of Noel George’s life. In fact you might have a few of your own, and I would love to hear them and to have them. You can send them to me at haasrob@yahoo.com.

And remember the Chinese proverb: “The faintest ink is longer than the longest memory.” Write down your own funny, interesting, unhappy or tragic memories; they are the stories of your life and should not be lost. God bless.

Roberta George is a Valdosta resident and the founder of the Snake Nation Press.