Sports Leisure

Of all the greats who have come out of Georgia, the one the Atlanta Touchdown Club picked for its inaugural Legends of the Game honor was George Bernard Maloof. And the TD Club could not have made a better choice.

He grew up in poverty. He never knew his father. He was raised by his mother and grandmother, both of whom were on welfare. Knee and ankle injuries almost ruined his football career. A drug and alcohol problem almost ruined his life.

It has been 56 years since Atlanta Tech High had a football team but its spirit lives with the Fourth Quarter Club.

William Jerry (Bill) Chappell deserves to be called legendary. The former Dalton head football coach - the second winningest coach in the history of Georgia high school football who two years ago was admitted to the state of Georgia Sports Hall of Fame and last year was selected to the Georgia Athletic Coaches Hall of Fame - never had one losing season.

In the annals of college football, many coaches have better won-lost records than William Alexander (Bill) Curry, but none were more respected or more interested in the welfare of his players. Go as far back as Stagg, Rockne, Heisman or as recent as Dodd, Dooley or Jordan and you will find no one who preached that the human soul was worth much more than winning football games.

Talk about the All-American boy. Meet Emmet Jopling Bondurant, II, nationally renowned attorney at law. He's Jack Armstrong, the miracle Mets and the incredible Jets all rolled into one. He beat The Coca-Cola Co. in a lawsuit brought by Coca-Cola Bottlers and defeated Atlanta's most prestigious law firm, King and Spalding, in a sex discrimination suit.