Blakeney's ride with Trojans comes full circle

EDITOR'S NOTE: Larry Blakeney, Troy's head football coach since 1991, will retire after Saturday's game against Louisiana-Lafayette.

With that, take a look at who Blakeney is, his family and his life — away from football.

Below is a story that appeared in a 2009 Advertiser magazine, "Coaches Confidential."

TROY – The temperatures are approaching 95 degrees, the pavement at the Troy Piggly Wiggly sends the warmth back up in a sauna-like flow and people haggardly work toward the front door and its air-conditioned relief.

It's a nondescript summer day, save for the specialty being served at the cafe inside — "Meatloaf Monday" — and the sight to be seen out front, between the newspaper racks and ice storage cooler.

There sits Larry Blakeney, the Troy University football coach and one of the most-recognizable people in town, with his knees almost up to his chin, big smile on his face and every thought on the then-6-year-old girl in front of him.

Caroline, Blakeney's granddaughter, barely had to plead with her Poppy to come outside after Blakeney wolfed down his meatloaf, two sides, piece of bread and sweat tea.

The duck, a small ride just outside the front door, similar to ones you'll find at many grocery and discount stores, has become a post-lunch tradition whenever Caroline is in town and they eat at the Piggly Wiggly.

Blakeney and Caroline walk hand-in-hand into the sticky heat; she leads him, eager for the kiddy entertainment. Just before they take their place in both seats of the two-person ride, Blakeney carefully pulls out two quarters, asks if Caroline is ready and drops them into the slot.

Away they go.

For the next minute or two — however long Donald Duck continues his seesaw action — his football accomplishments and his Hall of Fame honors are a secondary concern.

Caroline's smile is the most important.

The ride ends and Blakeney needles Caroline that she has a longer climb down. By a twist of fate (or maybe weight), Blakeney is almost on the ground and Caroline is hoisted about three feet higher.

"Hey, Caroline," Blakeney teases, "I ended up lower than you."

She shrugs, he laughs and she gets to the ground. Caroline grabs his hand again and leads him toward the front door and the cool air, toward the next act in the after-lunch script. Blakeney readies to grab his billfold again.

"I guess it's time for ice cream now," Blakeney says.

Family first

Blakeney is the most-visible representative of a school that has campuses worldwide but has carefully nurtured its reputation as "one university."

He runs a Division I-A football team that has regularly contended for Sun Belt Conference championships, heads up a squad of more than 100 players and guides a staff of nine full-time assistant coaches.

But he and wife Janice, during the buildup to the start of Troy's preseason practice, are focused on doting over their three grandchildren. Instead of "coach" and "Mrs. Blakeney," it's Poppy and MiMi.

Caroline, who lives in Tennessee, is the oldest and came down for a midsummer visit. Just before the July 4 fireworks hit in earnest, Larry, Janice and Caroline went to Atlanta for middle grandchild Madeline's fifth birthday.

The youngest, Danielle, is Madeline's sister and turned 3 that October.

"We are into our mode of trying to see grandchildren," Blakeney said.

When football hits full gear, Blakeney doesn't have to go far to be reminded of his family.

Family pictures are inescapable in his office, with one meeting table converted into a family table, complete with 22 pictures right down to the senior class pictures of twin daughters Julie and Tiffany.

"That was a senior portrait out of Charles Henderson with the same jacket on," Blakeney said. "They really look a lot alike there, but they both have their hair cut short now. I have to move around and look at them somehow."

He can share the story behind each, right down to one of the three grandchildren together taken in a department store studio. He can even land himself in a bit of trouble over one: "This is Janice more years back than we'd like to admit."

There are, of course, more in his billfold stacked on top of each other in such a way that Blakeney warns he can't easily dig them out.

The Blakeney home, barely a mile from his office, close enough that he could drive his golf cart to work with no problem, continues the theme.

"It's just too many," Janice says, unabashedly without remorse.

His office walls are covered with football-related awards, from conference championships to coach of the year honors, except for one corner. It has a framed photo of Blakeney's beloved dog and a picture of a cowboy above an empty gun holster.

Max was Larry's dog, the only male companion he had in the house with a wife and three girls. "The only thing that saved him for a while was we had a male German shepherd," Janice says.

Max's full name was Maximilian Osmose and was a gift from longtime friend Jimmy Rane, the Auburn booster whose lumber company is known for its Osmose line. Larry proudly boasts of the red ribbon Max won at the Pike County Fair one year.

The photo of Max was a gift of Danielle Turk, the wife of Huntingdon coach Mike Turk, a former longtime assistant of Blakeney's.

Blakeney sadly smiles when he looks at it. Max started as a puppy for one of the girls, "grew out of puppyhood and became Larry's dog. They moved out and went to college. Max stayed around a long time," Larry said.

Max had to be euthanized. He was 13.

The Blakeneys won't have another dog.

"It's just real time consuming and you get real attached to them, especially when you get old like me," he says. "You get more sentimental about your wife and grandchildren and kids. You ain't got enough overflow for dogs and cats."

Gunsmoke

The cowboy and holster are symbols of a friendship that started through Janice's real estate business. Janice was showing houses to an incoming Troy freshman and her father when the dad accidentally slammed his thumb in a car door. Near campus, Janice took him to the football offices for quick treatment.

They've all been friends ever since.

Because of that, Blakeney had the opportunity to meet one of his childhood idols, actor Dale Robertson, whose biggest roles were in Westerns way back when Blakeney was a child.

There's a signed photo of Robertson above the empty holster.

"This holster was worn by Dale Robertson. He was one of the cowboys on TV back through the years," Blakeney said, listing a few of Robertson's roles he remembers, including the show "Tales of Wells Fargo."

"Y'all are too young," Blakeney said. "I got a gun, too, but I don't know what I did with the gun."

It's not a real gun. To repeat: Blakeney does not, nor ever has, kept a real gun in his office.

Blakeney begins a quick search for the stage gun, opening an office drawer or two before giving up. A few minutes pass before Janice arrives and confesses her role in the gun's absence.

"Can you imagine some of our players being in here and getting mad and thinking that it works?" Janice said. "I guess you could find out who your enemies are."

She admits she has the gun at home.

Home life

The Blakeneys moved into their current house in 2000 and, though the girls had grown up and moved away, have four bedrooms.

Their first house when they moved to Troy a decade earlier is in the same neighborhood and was much bigger — 5,000 square feet vs. 3,000. You need room to raise three girls and regularly entertain guests.

"The sad thing, we used every bit of it," Janice said, before laughing and comparing it to their new home. "We made these bedrooms smaller so people didn't stay as long. We learned."

The old house had four bedrooms upstairs, one for each of the girls and a guest, and a full basement.

"That one had stairs and we're getting a little too old," Janice said.

But the old house still has memories. It was where the daughters grew up and became women, where Larry rested as Troy football converted from a Division II powerhouse to Division I-AA to Division I-A and its current place as a Sun Belt Conference power, where Janice decided to become a realtor to complement her decorating business.

Moving out even has a story.

Daughter Tiffany married in the Bahamas the same August that the Blakeneys had sold the house, but the parents were hosting an after-wedding party. When they sold the house, they had two weeks to move out — and the deadline hit the day after the party.

Football practice was in full swing, so you can guess how much Blakeney helped with the packing and loading.

"Somehow, Larry had to work," Janice said, still teasing him almost a decade later. "Did you catch that? Larry was busy."

Larry grinned back. "At least I made the wedding."

They love the new house, too.

Outside is a backyard pool they rarely use and a frontyard flower bed they recently planted, though they realized a colony of fire ants had joined them. "We had to get the hose pipe to get them off us," Larry said.

Inside there's the sizable kitchen, the dining room and the sectional couch, which points directly at the flat-screen TV, inside. The short end is Blakeney's regular spot, giving him a prime television viewing position.

"We may watch two network shows a night," Blakeney said. "I'm no reality guy. I hate reality. I wish they would ban it. I wish they had a network for reality."

Told there is a reality television channel, Blakeney yearns for those shows to be exiled to it, never to return.

"I wouldn't have to dodge it on NBC, CBS or ABC," Blakeney said. "I'm a Golf Channel and ESPN guy a little bit. I'm not a huge ESPN freak like some people are, but I like to watch golf.

"They cover golf so well on TV. It is just unbelievable the pictures you can see from above and from ground level. It's great. You can really learn something by watching those guys play."

Janice and Larry can't agree on how much football they watch while they're at home together, though football isn't far away.

On the coffee table, there's the 75th anniversary book of the Sugar Bowl, which Blakeney participated in three times as an Auburn assistant. All of Troy's coaches received a copy.

Above it is a Troy commemorative book about the school's 100 years of football. Troy Normal School went 1-0-2 in 1909, scoring six points all season. Nearby, Blakeney has his collection of rings and jewelry from his time at Auburn, save the two watches he gave to friends.

The Blakeneys will make time to watch an NFL game if it features a former Troy player, but otherwise differ on how much football comes across their screen. Larry said they watch some "but not that much."

"Yeah, compared to scouts, he doesn't watch much," Janice responds. "All the time. When the TV's on."

But Larry isn't a couch potato. He helps with the cooking, when needed — "I'm a grill master" — and can provide some entertainment.

Twice a year, he'll belt out tunes from the family piano, which sits in their living room below a painting daughter Kelley bought on a trip to Ecuador. His playlist is admittedly limited.

"My sister Charlotte is really dynamic on the piano. She plays for her church and all that," Larry said. "I took piano for five years, but football and athletics took over my piano career."

Larry breaks into "Be Still, My Soul," quietly admits he can't play it very well and loudly asks Janice: "You like that?"

"I hope it doesn't show up on a picture," she says.

Janice (thankfully) does most of the cooking, though Blakeney isn't very picky. The Blakeneys have a taste for healthy food; Larry said he enjoys asparagus and broccoli before turning to Janice to ask: "What's the white thing I like? Cauliflower."

"He's like Mikey from the commercial," Janice says. "He'll eat anything."

Larry does his part on the grill. Janice allows him to finish cooking the steak or salmon, though Larry has his strategy broken down like he was choosing a third-and-long play.

Which hashmark are you on? What plays have been working? Where on the field are you?

"You have to determine on a gas grill how high to get your heat and how long to keep it on there at that heat," Blakeney said. "We've learned to do salmon on tinfoil. You have to cook it at high heat, but the tinfoil helps you take it right out of the skin.

"You can season it up with lemon and all that."

Larry starts searching for a particular spice to show off. He looks over the kitchen counters, wheels around to look in a particular spot and then reaches for a certain cabinet. That part draws Janice's ire.

"You don't have to open that drawer," she says as Larry starts to pull. The cabinet is stuffed.

Marital banter

Janice and Larry, like most best friends, endlessly needle each other.

For example, asked about his golf prowess, Blakeney doesn't mind saying he's pretty good. The Troy coaching staff will occasionally hit the links during the summer and Blakeney likes to say he performs well in those situations.

Sure, then-defensive coordinator Jeremy Rowell, a player on Blakeney's first Troy team in 1991, had recently shot a 79 to beat Blakeney by two strokes, but those defeats are the exception.

Regularly, the ol' coach is the one taking honors, he boasts.

Janice, slightly grinning while Blakeney talks, puts the needle to his balloon.

"Ask him if they let him," she says.

Blakeney says he never cheats on the course. If a tee shot sails into the woods, but remains in play, that's where he'll take his second swing. He doesn't adjust a lie, nor do his partners ever wonder if his ball will, without a club's guidance, suddenly appear in a fairway.

"I'm a purist, cuz," he said. "I don't kick the ball."

Janice: "He may throw a club, but he doesn't kick a ball."

Larry: "No, I don't. But I've been meaning to tell you I need to buy a new driver."

Husband & wife

They've been at it for more than a quarter century.

Janice Powell and Larry Blakeney first met in the '60s when Blakeney, fresh out of his native Gordo, was a hopeful quarterback at Auburn.

Events conspired to lead Blakeney to Auburn in the first place. Blakeney, whose parents wouldn't let him play youth football until he was in seventh grade, was being recruited by Auburn, Mississippi State, Georgia and nearby Alabama when he was in 10th grade.

His high school coach played at Alabama and ran the same offensive system, but the Tide "didn't recruit me nearly, nearly as hard" as the others. He crossed Georgia off his list when "my momma wouldn't let me visit Georgia 'cause it was too far and they wanted to fly me over."

Blakeney, obviously, later chose Auburn over Mississippi State. Fellow player Dwight Hurston was his roommate the next year.

One night, "for some reason," Blakeney says, they went to the local bowling alley. Seniors from Opelika High School, including Powell, were there for yearbook pictures. The suave and debonair Blakeney introduced himself.

"That's when we first met," he said. "We dated off and on and went on our separate ways."

Fast forward almost 20 years and Blakeney is an Auburn assistant. He and fellow assistant Steve Dennis, Troy's athletic director from 2005-12, took a trip to Montgomery. The Southeastern Conference's football officials were meeting and having a golf outing. Auburn regularly sent a couple of coaches and the duty fell to Dennis and Blakeney.

At dinner, Blakeney noticed a familiar face, Janice. Both had recently gone through divorces.

"Janice had a date and we bumped into each other in the restaurant and spoke," Blakeney said. "That's how we got back in touch."

They married in January 1987, though Blakeney made sure to get permission from all three of Janice's daughters. The oldest was 5. He also proposed to Janice in front of them.

They had a small ceremony in Auburn, just family and close friends. The crowd included longtime Auburn equipment manager Frank Cox, "a great friend," Larry says, whose emotions were always hard and cold.

They didn't stay that way that day when Janice and Larry were pronounced man and wife.

"Larry turned around and kissed me, and then turned around and kissed all three girls," Janice said. "He (Cox) started bawling. I thought it was my mother.

"I turned around and Anita said, 'My gosh, I've never seen him cry and I've been married to him 30 years.' "

Coaching success

Football-wise, despite one major incident, Blakeney has also been a success.

The Blakeneys came to Troy in December 1990 and Larry took over a Division II program that was transitioning to Division I-AA.

The next year, the university stood behind him when major NCAA rules violations at Auburn focused on Blakeney's relationship with player Eric Ramsey and illicit payments to Ramsey.

By 1993, the Trojans reached the Division I-AA semifinals and lost to Marshall. In 1996, they were back in the semifinals before a 70-7 loss to Montana.

Blakeney knew the school was moving up to Division I-AA when he arrived, but when the Trojans decided to keep going to Division I-A, Blakeney enthusiastically supported that, too.

The Trojans played their inaugural Division I-A season in 2001 and beat Mississippi State for their first high-profile victory. In 2004, Troy fully joined the Sun Belt Conference.

Troy's Veterans Memorial Stadium, capacity 5,000 when the field opened in 1950, had a renovation in 1998 that pushed seating from 12,000 to 17,500. Another expansion pushed capacity to 30,000 in 2003.

The team hit a high-water mark in 2004 with a nationally televised win over nationally ranked Missouri. The Trojans also reached their first Division I-A postseason bowl, the Silicon Valley Classic.

Troy won five straight Sun Belt championships from 2006-10.

More than wins

But the wins and losses aren't his football badge of honor. It comes when the phone rings and a former player, whether from two decades ago or yesterday, is on the other end. Or when the Trojans are playing on the road and some former Troy star turned NFL player is on the sidelines with them.

They're just as proud of the non-players.

For example, Sohail Agboatwala was "just a long-haired graduate student," Blakeney says, when he started working with the football program. Once, he made hotel reservations for 30 rooms and his heavily accented English caused the hotel to say they don't offer "dirty rooms."

Agboatwala is now an associate vice chancellor at Troy who hosts an annual summer fish fry for the coaches and staff that the Blakeneys formerly hosted.

"When they leave, they continue to be family," Janice said. "Larry will help them however he can, I don't care if it's 20 years down the road."

They're devoted to him and he's devoted to them, almost — but not quite — as much as his family, who have regular reunions at Troy games.

The first fall Saturday after Blakeney retires will have an odd feel to it, the Blakeneys are sure, because, well, they don't know what they'll be doing that day.

"I may be playing golf somewhere, but I'll probably be watching a game," Blakeney said. "I may be dead."

Said Janice: "I won't know how to act. The Good Lord has been good to us so far, so we can't complain."

They'll probably be with one of the girls and tending to at least one grandchild, reversing the trend of the last few years. The girls, all Troy graduates, and grandchildren also come to as many games as possible, sitting with Janice out in a regular box seat. They use the enclosed stadium club only in inclement weather.

Caroline, in 2009, might have been the biggest fan of the group, though her screams weren't for the Trojans. They're for the guy with the stressed grimace and gray hair who turned 67 this fall, who became a member of the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame in 2009, who would climb the duck without pause or reservation.

"She can always sit and watch Larry play football," Janice says. "She will not get up at a game, even when it's raining. We will go up in the stadium club behind the glass if it's raining bad, but she'll stand right there at the glass.

"All she'll say is, 'Go Poppy.' "

TROJANS UNDER BLAKENEY

178-112-1 record, entering Saturday

8 conference championships, 15 winning seasons, 12 postseason appearances, 6 years with 10 or more wins

37 assistant coaches

1 head athletic trainer (Chuck Ash)

742 players who've lettered (654 through 2013, according to the school's media guide, and 88 who are due to letter this year)

21 players taken in NFL draft

1 Division I-A All-American (Leodis McKelvin, 2007)

17 total All-Americans

43 first-team All-Sun Belt players (2004-2013)

8 all-Division I-A independent players (2001-03)

32 first-team All-Southland players (1996-2000)

Year-by-year

2014: 3-8, finale vs. Louisiana-Lafayette on Saturday

2013: 6-6

2012: 5-7

2011: 3-9

2010: 8-5, New Orleans Bowl, won Sun Belt title

2009: 9-4, GMAC Bowl, won Sun Belt title

2008: 8-5, New Orleans Bowl, won Sun Belt title

2007: 8-4, won Sun Belt title

2006: 8-5, New Orleans Bowl, won Sun Belt title

2005: 4-7

2004: 7-5, Silicon Valley Classic, first year in Sun Belt

2003: 6-6

2002: 4-8

2001: 7-4, first I-A season

2000: 10-2, I-AA playoffs, won Southland title

1999: 11-2, I-AA quarterfinals, won Southland title

1998: 8-4, I-AA playoffs

1997: 5-6

1996: 12-2, I-AA semifinals, won Southland title

1995: 11-1, I-AA playoffs

1994: 8-4, I-AA playoffs

1993: 12-1-1, I-AA semifinals, first I-AA season

1992: 10-1

1991: 5-6

BLAKENEY'S NUMBERS

(entering Saturday)

For-- -- -- Against

7,827 Points scored 6,554

107,882 Yards offense 97,555

20,023 Offensive plays 19,798

51,198 Yards rushing 42,076

538 Rushing touchdowns 395

56,684 Total yards passing 59,849

4,714 Pass completions 4,821

8,181 Pass attempts 8,735

273 Interceptions 337

390 Passing touchdowns 371

— A. Stacy Long

Honoring Blakeney: Players, coaches reflect on legend (part 1)

Honoring Blakeney: Players, coaches reflect on legend (part 2)

Honoring Blakeney: Players, coaches reflect on legend (part 3)