Lovely Eagle Creek sits simply off Tillman Street in Statesboro, Ga., tracing the sting of the observe discipline at Georgia Southern College, the place for greater than 4 many years, the creek has been thought-about holy floor.
However to name Lovely Eagle Creek a creek in any respect is, effectively … a stretch. It’s actually a drainage ditch. Its water often sits stagnant, attracting swarms of gnats to the sector in the course of the extra humid months of the yr. When Erk Russell arrived in Statesboro in 1981 to resurrect the soccer program, he gave it the title and declared its muddy water “magical” to encourage the workforce. The story caught. And Lovely Eagle Creek grew to become a central a part of this system’s mythos. Throughout each highway journey, Russell would carry alongside a jug filled with its brown water with him to sprinkle on the opponent’s discipline. To at the present time, initially of each new season in Statesboro, any new gamers or coaches are “baptized” in its magical waters.
Three years in the past, Clay Helton stood knee deep in that creek for his baptism, keen to start out anew. He got here to Georgia Southern after a dozen seasons at USC, the place he began first as quarterbacks coach, then offensive coordinator and at last the top coach. Throughout six seasons main the Trojans, he introduced a way of stability again to the USC soccer program after a decade of dysfunction. He even led the Trojans to a Rose Bowl win (in 2016) and Pac-12 title (in 2017) within the course of, one thing no different USC coach has carried out since Pete Carroll.
However recruiting slowed, self-discipline slipped and this system hit a wall. USC went 18-13 from 2018-20. Followers by and enormous blamed Helton. Then, two video games into the 2021 season, the college fired him.
USC coach Clay Helton stands on the sideline throughout a recreation towards Stanford on the Coliseum on Sep. 11, 2021. He was fired quickly after shedding to the Cardinal.
(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Instances)
On the time, he felt misplaced. His children had grown up carrying cardinal and gold. So what now? What was he and not using a workforce to teach? “I looked at [my wife] Angela,” Helton mentioned, “Like, gosh almighty, ‘I’m miserable.’”
The decision from Georgia Southern, on reflection, felt like divine intervention. It got here six weeks after USC lower him free, simply because it grew to become clear he couldn’t probably step away from soccer.
The next fall, Helton stood on the banks of Lovely Eagle Creek, gnats swirling overhead, questioning if perhaps its water actually was magic in spite of everything.
“As God closes one door, he opened another for me,” Helton mentioned. “And a door that’s been really good for me at Georgia Southern.”
New Georgia Southern soccer gamers stand in Lovely Eagle Creek, persevering with a practice of baptizing newcomers in its muddy water.
(AJ Henderson / Georgia Southern)
Helton will return to the Coliseum on Saturday to guide his new workforce, Georgia Southern, towards his outdated one, USC, in a reunion that, underneath totally different circumstances, might have been uncomfortable for all concerned.
How USC followers would possibly obtain him stays to be seen. However for Helton, there have been by no means any arduous emotions. Fairly the other, the truth is.
For Lincoln Riley, the coach who changed him at USC, Helton has been a sounding board each time they’ve crossed paths. Throughout previous three years, they’ve performed in the identical charity golf match at Pebble Seaside, and Riley mentioned he has “cherished” that point together with his predecessor.
“Those have been conversations I’ve appreciated,” Riley mentioned. “You see the kind of human being he is. It’s pretty special.”
Helton has adopted Riley’s tenure carefully. Requested how he would possibly really feel upon returning to the Coliseum, the Trojans former coach informed The Instances that he felt solely “immense gratitude that [he] even got that opportunity” at USC.
“To have the opportunity to coach the Adoree Jacksons of the world, the Sam Darnolds of the world, the Amon-ra St Browns and Drake Londons and JuJu Smith-Schusters, that doesn’t happen,” Helton mentioned. “That’s not a got-to, that’s a get-to. There were successes. There were failures, and that happens over 12 years. But the gratitude I had just to be a part of it, that was what’s hit me the most.”
Statesboro was a world away from Los Angeles, however when Helton first arrived at Georgia Southern, the college’s deep sense of custom reminded him of his earlier cease. He’d all the time been enamored with the historical past at USC, and at Georgia Southern, he acknowledged an identical delight up to now. He learn up on Russell. He liked the story of Lovely Eagle Creek and its baptisms. He liked how each recreation day, they loaded the workforce into outdated yellow college buses, and collectively, they sang the “Valley Song.”
“That’ll make the hair stand up on the back of your neck,” Helton mentioned.
Georgia Southern coach Clay Helton and lengthy snapper Jackson Wheeler (89) rejoice throughout a recreation towards Marshall on Nov. 11, 2023, in Huntington, W.Va.
(Kathleen Batten / Related Press)
He additionally knew when he took the job that adjustments have been wanted. The soccer gamers, for one, didn’t have sizzling water for his or her showers. However different infrastructure wanted updates, too. He implored the college to rent a nutritionist for the soccer workforce. He additionally greater than doubled the dimensions of the energy and coaching staffs.
“We may not be able to do as much as a USC,” Helton mentioned, “but when we do it, our players feel it.”
Underneath Russell, Georgia Southern gained 4 Soccer Championship Collection nationwide titles in six years from 1985-90. However the college’s final nationwide title was 1 / 4 century in the past. The Eagles nonetheless ran the identical choice offense that Russell first put in.
So Helton introduced the pro-style offense to Statesboro. It was, for some, a tradition shock.
“It’s hard when you do that, especially for your fan base, to be able to be like, ‘OK, let’s welcome this,’” Helton mentioned. “Some of them have grown up on the option. So you needed to have some success in Year 1.”
Fortuitously for Helton, he took the Eagles to a bowl recreation in his first season, beat Nebraska on the highway and even notched a top-25 win towards James Madison. The city purchased in.
Helton took the Eagles to bowl video games in every of his two seasons after that. And in February, the college supplied him a contract extension by means of 2029. It appears, for now at the least, like Helton will keep at Georgia Southern for the lengthy haul.
He’s thrilled about that.
“Statesboro has felt like home ever since I set foot at the university,” Helton mentioned. “We’ve built a home, Angela and I have. … Hopefully they’ll let us stay for a long time. And if we can have a run like we did at USC and we can have a decade or more, that would make me really happy.”
Helton deliberate to carry his Georgia Southern gamers to the Coliseum on Friday to get the shock and awe out of the way in which early. A few of them had even by no means flown on a airplane earlier than the workforce’s journey to California. He’s most excited, he says, to see their faces as they run out of the tunnel.
USC coach Clay Helton runs onto the sector together with his Trojans earlier than going through Stanford on the Coliseum on Sep. 11, 2021. It was the ultimate recreation Helton coached earlier than he was fired.
(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Instances)
He is aware of he’ll really feel nostalgic, too, when the time involves run out of the tunnel Saturday.
“USC was special to me,” he mentioned. “It was a place that changed my life.”
However this time, as Helton takes the sector, he’ll carry one thing new together with him, one thing that had by no means set foot within the Coliseum earlier than.
A jug of that magical water, from Lovely Eagle Creek.
