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Ex-Gators coach Pell dies at 60
Updated: Tuesday May 29, 2001 6:50 PM
GADSDEN, Ala. (AP) -- Former Florida football coach Charley Pell, who helped lay the program's foundation for success before his career was derailed by NCAA sanctions, died Tuesday after a battle with cancer. He was 60. Pell, who had been suffering from cancer in his pancreas and other organs since last fall, died at a Gadsden hospital, said John Marshall, a spokesman at the company where Pell worked. A former Alabama player, Pell coached the Gators from 1979 through 1984, leaving after the NCAA levied 59 sanctions against the program. He confessed to the violations and resigned, accepting all responsibility. But Pell, also a former head coach at Clemson and Jacksonville (Ala.) State, expressed bitterness recently at the irreversible damage toll the NCAA case took on his career. "I took the blame for everything to exonerate every other coach on the staff," he told The Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel in an interview in May. "I always believed I did too good a job of that. All it did was cause a lot of grief." Pell moved to Southside, 20 miles from his hometown of Albertville in north Alabama, last year to be close to his two children and three grandchildren, taking a job as a vice president at National Auction Group. Pell's inability to resurrect his career contributed to a suicide attempt in 1993. He briefly returned to coaching at Lake Region (Fla.) High School near Lakeland, going 1-9 in his lone season. The coach who once inspired "Give 'em hell, Pell" bumper stickers wouldn't get another opportunity. Even the NCAA investigator who spent 30 months investigating Pell's program at Florida thought he deserved that. "As a coach of football, Charley has and had few peers ... He has paid more dearly for his mistakes than others have for similar mistakes," Doug Johnson wrote in a letter of recommendation for Pell. "There are coaches coaching today who have done far worse than Charley, and have paid significantly less or not at all." Do people remember Pell's legacy too much for the off-the-field transgressions, and not enough about his work to upgrade Florida's athletic facilities and lift the program's finances out of the red. Norm Carlson, in charge of Florida's football media relations then and now, said people who known the Gator program properly remember Pell for his work to upgrade facilities and lift it out of the red. "He made very, very significant and lasting contributions to the football program at the University of Florida," said Carlson. "I've worked at Florida 40 years, and we've never had anybody who worked harder than Charley Pell at anything. He was a workaholic who was devoted to his players and coaching." The players are now returning the favor, organizing a June 23 fund-raiser and golf tournament to endow a scholarship in Pell's name to help the children of former Florida players. Mark McGriff, who was part of Pell's final recruiting class, said Pell asked them to start the fund at a reunion last summer. McGriff spoke several times a week to Pell's wife, Ward, in recent months, including last Thursday. "She was telling me he was going downhill every day," said McGriff, whose family lived in the same neighborhood as Pell. "She really thought he was going to make it to June 23, because he really wanted to be part of that. We all thought he'd be here in a few weeks." McGriff's recruiting class took the brunt of the NCAA sanctions. "Those of us who love coach Pell and respect coach Pell don't have grudges," he said. "He started building the program to where it is now." Pell was a two-way lineman on legendary Alabama coach Bear Bryant's first national championship team in 1961, and a graduate assistant on his second in 1964. Pell is survived by Ward Pell, his wife of 32 years; three
children and two grandchildren.
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