Extra Points: The Torbush Legacy

By Lee Pace

The numbers are staggering nearly three decades later—11.5 points and 218 yards a game allowed over the 1996 and '97 seasons; two shutouts and nine more games with the opponent held to 10 points or less; eight Tar Heel defensive players being drafted into the NFL over two cycles.

Admittedly, offenses in college football in the mid-1990s weren't running hurry-up attacks all game and wielding quarterbacks and receivers who'd been playing in 7-on-7 leagues since kindergarten. But still …

It was a remarkable era of Carolina football from 1988 to 1997 with Carl Torbush calling the shots as the Tar Heels' defensive coordinator and linebackers coach. Apropos of his unassuming and humble nature, though, Torbush never took a sliver of credit.

"Everything relates to athletic ability," he said in the spring of 1997. "We have good athletes. We're asking them to do more than before. A lot of people think we're sprinkling magic dust around. Then these visiting coaches get in here and see these 4.5, 4.6 forties moving around and say, 'Hey, maybe I could coach these guys.'"

Torbush died Sunday at the age of 72 after a period of declining health in a Knoxville hospital, leaving Tar Heel Coach Mack Brown and the Carolina community to reflect on Torbush's 13 seasons in Chapel Hill—10 running the defense and three as head coach.

"We lost Carl Torbush way too soon," Brown said. "He was a great man who cared deeply not only about Carolina football but people. He loved to coach, he loved defensive football and was a guy who could rally the players around him. His toughness definitely bled through to the rest of the team.

"He was the architect of one the best defenses ever in college football. That will be his legacy. Recruiting those players, developing them, teaching them, putting them in the right places—he touched every piece of that."

Brandon Spoon was a linebacker from Burlington who was recruited by Torbush and then coached by him during his career from 1996-2000.

"We were loaded with talent and it was Coach Torbush's brainchild," Spoon said. "He maximized the ability we had and put us in situations to be great. We were so prepared when we took the field. Practices were intense and focused. We had such good depth and created great competition. We were able to make good players superstars because you could never rest. You knew there was another great player right behind you. He demanded perfection and attention to detail."

Torbush had the opportunity to move with Brown to the University of Texas in December 1997, and in fact he and his wife Janet were in Austin shortly after Brown took the Longhorns' job when it looked as if Georgia Coach Jim Donnan would take the Carolina job and return close to his hometown of Burlington and the school where he had worked under Bill Dooley in the 1970s. But Donnan decided at the 11th hour to stay in Athens, and Baddour called Torbush back to Chapel Hill and offered him the job, much to the approval of the Tar Heel players, who were in the midst of a 10-2 and 11-1 run over two years, and certain big-name recruits.

"I am reaffirming my commitment to UNC and am really excited about it," said Julius Peppers, a defensive end from Bailey, N.C. "UNC is where my heart is and where I want to be. I want to be a Tar Heel."

As did Torbush from his boyhood days in East Spencer, outside of Salisbury.

"I'd been mesmerized by those Carolina blue helmets from childhood," he said. "I can remember coaching at Ole Miss in the '80s and seeing those Carolina assistants with their coaching shirts and wondering, 'What would it be like coaching there?'"

Torbush was known for his strong faith, and he spoke often to church groups and Fellowship of Christian Athlete retreats and could cite Bible verses to make points without ever seeming to push his views where they weren't appreciated. His favorite gift to his players upon weddings or child births was a Bible.

He was recognized for his sunglasses and salt-and-pepper mustache. His coaching mates knew him to drink black coffee all day even in the heat of summer and stop for Cheerwine at convenience stores on recruiting trips. Morning defensive staff meetings stopped promptly at noon so Torbush could get in his daily three-mile run around the Carolina campus. "Stress relief," he'd say. "We could solve the world's problems if everyone ran. And besides, I can eat what I want at dinner."

Ah, that infamous appetite. "I'm a foodaholic," he would readily admit, adding he preferred the spring Rams Club functions that served a buffet "over a plated dinner where they scrimp on the portions," and he knew every all-you-can-eat joint in his recruiting territory.

Pinto beans and cornbread were his favorite meal, but all Southern cooking was just fine (including liver mush). His glovebox was full of Golden Corral and Bojangles coupons. In fact, Torbush met his future bride at Carson-Newman University in the cafeteria when he looked at a dessert bowl on Janet Gilbert's tray and said, "Are you going to eat that?"

"I married Carl and have been cooking for six or seven ever since," Janet said.

Torbush's first love was baseball, interesting given that his first at-bat in an East Spencer Little League game resulted in his nose being broken from squaring away to bunt and standing over home plate. He idolized Mickey Mantle, developed into an excellent catcher and, after playing football and baseball at Carson-Newman, was drafted by the Kansas City Royals and spent the summer of 1975 in the Rookie League before realizing his future was in coaching. Throughout his career he kept a baseball bat, ball and glove in the trunk of his car.

"You just never know when you might need 'em," he said.

At football practice, he'd crouch behind the defense during a drill and then explode on the snap of the ball, yelling at Dwight Hollier or Tommy Thigpen or Brian Simmons to GO GET HIM!!! He never cussed but was wont to call a linebacker who'd screwed up a "DRUT."

"That's turd spelled backwards," Spoon says. "That was his favorite. Coach Torbush never cussed, but he'd make up some words and lay right into you."

Spoon grew particularly close to Torbush after Spoon lost his father, Tommy, during Brandon's sophomore year in Chapel Hill. He said Monday he was "heartbroken" to hear the news of Torbush's passing.

"Coach Torbush was 100 percent himself," Spoon said. "How he was on the field in practice, with the media, was the same way he was when he recruited me in high school. He was as genuine a person as you could ever meet. He was honest and hardworking and expected that out of everyone around him. He truly cared about his players.

"I loved him like a dad, especially after my own dad passed. He was the kind of man you just didn't want to disappoint, to let down. He was a father figure to me. Without Coach Torbush, no telling what would have happened to me. He was a big influence."

Torbush left Chapel Hill after his three years as head coach with a 17-18 record, then over the next two decades played out his career running defenses at Alabama, Texas A&M, Carson-Newman and Mississippi State. In 2012, he left the fish bowl of big-time ball to work for old friend Turner Gill at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., then retired to the Tennessee mountains in Sevierville.

Then in 2013, Torbush took a call from Philip Fulmer, his freshman year teammate at the University of Tennessee before Torbush transferred to Carson-Newman. Fulmer was a consultant for East Tennessee State University, which wanted to resurrect its football program after a decade of dormancy. Fulmer thought Torbush the ideal man to lead the program, and Torbush's final act was taking a school with no players, no facilities and no stadium and working toward a 2015 relaunch.

"He's a genuine person," Fulmer told the ETSU community. "If you had a kid that was going to play college football, you'd hope he'd play for somebody like Carl Torbush."

He was an avid collector of sports memorabilia, and one of his favorite keepsakes was a film clip he was proud to show to fellow coaches and his linebacker crews wherever he went, from Tuscaloosa to College Station. It was a position drill from 1993 in Chapel Hill, the season when Bernardo Harris, Ray Jacobs, Rick Steinbacher, Kerry Mock, Eddie Mason, Mike Morton and Oscar Sturgis topped the depth chart, James Hamilton was a red-shirt freshman and Brian Simmons and Kivuusuma Mays were raw incoming recruits.

"Nine out of 10 players in that drill played in the NFL," Torbush said. "Can you imagine that? The only one who didn't was Steiny—but he was never in the wrong place and he'd take your head off. That was a special time, that was a special group of players."

Made all the more remarkable, certainly, by the presence of Carl William Torbush Jr.

Chapel Hill writer Lee Pace (Carolina '79) is in his 34th season writing about Tar Heel football under the "Extra Points" banner. Look for his columns throughout the season. Write him at leepace7@gmail.com and follow him @LeePaceTweet.

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