Bobby Lamb, who took the Mercer head football coaching job in 2011, is faced with bringing football tradition to Mercer after a 72-year football hiatus. Lamb was the head coach for the Furman Paladins from 2002-10, but this will be his first coaching job in his home state.
In high school Bobby played for his father Ray at Commerce High School, and quarterbacked them to the 1981 Class AA state championship. That season Bobby took home the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s AA Back of the Year. Ray is recently retired and his two additional state championships at Warren County encouraged an induction into the Georgia Athletic Coaches Association Hall of Fame. Bobby’s brother Hal is Calhoun High School’s head coach, and has led the Yellow Jackets to five straight state championship appearances. The Lamb’s are rich in football tradition and with Bobby right in the heart of the state, that tradition will continue to grow.
“As a program, we started recruiting inside out,” said Lamb. “We want to get all four corners of the state first.”
LAMB THE LEADER …
After high school, Lamb quarterbacked at Furman from 1982–85. While leading the Paladins, he would beat three Division I-A opponents including South Carolina in 1982, Georgia Tech in 1983, and N.C. State twice, in 1984 and 1985. In 1985, Lamb led the Paladins to the Southern Conference Championship and was named Southern Conference Player of the Year. This experience in the game makes the Bobby Lamb Football Camps each year a growing success.
It’s been more than 30 years since Lamb was a freshman at Furman, working the Quarterback Receiver and Offensive Line Camp. Lamb has been associated with the camps since, and when he took the Furman head-coaching job in 2002, it adopted his name. Added to the summer slate of camps recently is a couple middle school camps, and a series of Elite camps aimed for recruitment.
“The middle school quarterback camp was my idea, and I put that in motion,” said Lamb. “Last year was our first year. It is a two-day one night quarterback camp for sixth, seventh and eighth graders where they will just concentrate strictly on the fundamentals of playing quarterback.”
Bringing hundreds of campers through campus allows Lamb to show off Mercer’s state of the art facilities.
“Our camps are two-fold,” explained Lamb. “Those [Middle School] camps are for kids that want to come to an old-fashioned camp hardworking camp where you get individualized instruction and you get maximum reps. I cannot tell you how many reps they get. If their arms are not sore and their legs are not sore then they have not been in our camp, but the other side is the Rising Senior Elite camp, which is pretty much our recruiting camp. We bring kids in and we try them out for one day and we show them our facilities and show them our campus.”
This year saw an influx in attendance, because Mercer now has the means to offer scholarships. During the 2013 season, Mercer will compete in the Pioneer League, and 2014 will mark the initiation into the Southern Conference and the Bears will be a fully-functioning D-I program.
“I certainly see this year being different with these [elite] camps,” said Lamb. “We’ve got two set up and we may think twice and next year and add a third one. I really think it is going to become very popular because now we are giving scholarships. And let’s face it these one day camps have become very popular the last five or six years. The bottom line is they are a tryout. You can basically tryout on a college campus. So you are investing $55 in hopes of getting a $40,000 per year education.”
As for the 2013 season, it will be a historic day for Georgia football. According to assistant coach Grant Cain, the Bears have already sold over 3,000 season tickets. The anticipation has been building since Lamb’s arrival, and the coach and his players have been as patient as possible.
At the spring game, 4,000 fans filed into the beautiful Moye Complex to watch Lamb’s inaugural team.
“We’ve got a beautiful 10,000 seat stadium and all the bells and whistles,” said Lamb. “Plus our Medical, Engineering, and Law school gives us so much to offer these young men. If you combine our facilities and academics it is hard to beat us.”
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