All in God’S Glory: Adoption to the College Football Hall of Fame

By Curtis Cliff Kell

This book takes you on a life long journey from being adopted by two loving people to the College Football Hall Of Fame. Along the way you will read adout all the trials and tribulations of a record setting athlete trying to make life defining decisions plus having to deal with a premature, unexpected, unprepared, career ending injury.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jun 2, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496907813

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© 2014 Curtis Cliff Chip Kell. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 10/30/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4969-0829-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-0828-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-0781-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014907986

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Edited by: Amy Owen

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. In The Beginning

2. Backyard To Organized Sports

3. Eighth Grade Stardom

4. Enrolled In Avondale High School

5. The Recruiting Wars

6. On My Way To Big Orange Country

7. It’s Football Time In Tennessee

8. Adjusting To A New Era

9. Crossroads

10. Entering The Real World

11. A Fish Out Of Water

12. Back To Teaching And Coaching

13. The Last Years Of A Career

14. Retirement

15. A List of God’s Blessings in Athletic Awards and Achievement

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to Jesus Christ for sacrificing his life on the cross in order to forgive all of our sins in an imperfect world so that we may have the choice for everlasting life. In Luke 23:34, Jesus said, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.

FOREWORD

Most children have a dream and set their sights on what they think they want to do or who they want to be like when they grow up. It usually never crosses their mind to have another plan or a second choice if the first one doesn’t work out! Some people grow up thinking that they are invincible. My thoughts were no different. I was adopted into an athletic oriented family, raised by a father who was a high school football coach, and I thought my plan was set. I was going to be a professional football player for as long as I wanted and then retire into a life of whatever appealed to me at that moment. I never thought about a career ending injury, or poor decision-making, or any other obstacles that could destroy that dream in the blink of an eye. From early in my life, I was taught to never quit, to avoid depending on sports enhancing drugs, and to never make excuses. Finally, I realized that GOD really gave me the strength to bust through the barriers to a lifetime VICTORY! This is my story.

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Curtis O. Kell Chip Lydia H. Kell

CHAPTER 1

In The Beginning

We all have dreams we reach for from our childhood throughout the rest of our lives. We rarely consider the possibility of those dreams disintegrating; much less how we would react if that happened! This is the story of how I recovered from a shattered dream and how my faith in GOD put all the pieces back together again.

My name is Curtis Cliff Chip Kell. I was born March 10, 1949 at Crawford Long Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. This is the story of my life from the time I was adopted by my mother, Lydia Hodgson Kell, and my father, Curtis Ona Kell.

I was a teenager when I learned my adoption was not a typical one from an adoption agency. The Kell’s family doctor brought them together with my biological mother. My biological mother had made the decision to give me up for adoption in order to marry a certain gentleman she was once married to before my existence. I was told the story during my teenage years because I had to decide if I wanted to meet my biological mother. My decision was, No! As far as I was concerned, the parents that were raising me were my true parents, and I could never ask for any more loving or caring people.

My mother, Lydia Hodgson Kell, was born in Gainesville, Georgia on October 3, 1921. Edith Hodgson and Bill Hodgson, who were her parents and my grandparents, divorced early in her life. When my grandparents divorced, my grandmother married Sidney Juvette. My mother attended Gainesville High School and later went to North Georgia College, where she met my father Curtis Ona Kell. Curtis was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, by his parents, Curtis Zegler Kell and Susie Ramey Kell, who were both from Rabun County, Georgia. My father, who grew up with the nickname Jug, after the cartoon character, Jughead, once told me the story of how he met my mother, whose nickname was Tootsie. He saw her from a dorm window as she was walking on the track. He proceeded to throw on a raincoat with nothing else on and run her down and introduce himself. Both of my parents graduated from North Georgia College. Soon after graduation, my father enlisted in the Army Air Corps as a pilot. During his training, my mother drove to Texas and they were married in McLennan County, on January 1, 1944 before he was sent overseas.

The B-24 my dad was flying was shot down on a bombing mission over Germany September 13, 1944. He was injured in the Alps of Yugoslovia when the crew had to bail out of the plane. After staying four months in an Italian hospital, and flying his max number of missions, he was Honorably Discharged April 15, 1945 at Maxwell Field, Alabama. For his efforts he received the following awards: E.A.M.E. Ribbon, Bronze Battle Star, Air Metal, First Oak Leaf Cluster (Bronze), Purple Heart and Distinguished Flying Cross.

Once Jug and Tootsie were finally back together again, they made a decision to turn down an airline pilot job that my father was offered that would take him to South America. Instead, my father accepted a teacher and coaching position at his alma mater Southwest Dekalb High School in Decatur, Georgia.

My mother lost a baby due to a tubal pregnancy and was told by the Doctor she would never be able to have children. This is when, by the grace of God, I entered the picture. Five years later my parents adopted my sister, Hollie. Now we were a four-member family.

The one thing I can remember about my sister’s adoption is that my mom and dad asked me if I wanted a brother or sister. Well, I said sister, so maybe that had a bearing on the decision, maybe not, but that’s the way it turned out!

I’ve been told a lot of stories about my younger days, and here are a few of them. One particular thing I did was jump up and down in my crib and bounce it all over the living room to get where I wanted to go. Another one of my memorable stunts was when I had just started walking. I came into my mom and dad’s bedroom on a Saturday morning, while they were still sleeping, and proceeded to hit my dad in the mouth with a pair of pliers. The next thing I knew, he had backhanded me clear across the room. The good thing was there were no injuries!

I can remember great times with my family. We would go over to my grandparents’ house and celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve, then come home and go to sleep so we could get up the next morning to see what Santa Clause had left under the tree! My mother and dad always made sure Christmas was special for my sister and me. I also really enjoyed Friday nights at our house. Mom would make cinnamon toast right before Walt Disney came on the tube!

My mother took care of the duties around home. We had good nutritious meals, clean clothes to wear, and were expected to do certain chores around the house. My mother always took care of the cuts, bruises and burns, took us to the doctor and the dentist, and kept us as healthy as possible.

My dad was a big, burly man with the biggest forearms and hands I had ever seen, as well as being a tough football coach, but I also remember my mom being a pretty tough ole’ gal when she had to be! One day a traveling salesman came to our door and Ma, as I have always called her, told him to move on because she wasn’t interested. Ma went on about her duties, and for some reason, I continued to watch the salesman. He headed next door to my Aunt Liz’s house. I already knew no one was at home. After watching him knock on the door for several minutes, I could see him enter the house! I quickly ran and told Ma what had happened! She told me to stay put while she grabbed a 22-caliber rifle and headed that way. The next thing I saw was her leading the man down the front sidewalk at gunpoint! I then took off running and caught up with her right as she met another neighbor at the corner of his house. After calling the police he asked her for the gun and she gave it to him until they arrived. When the police were told what had happened, our neighbor, Mr. Adams, opened the barrel of the gun only to find out it wasn’t even loaded.

Last but not least, my mom made sure we did our homework and studies. Through it all, we always had a lot of love in our family.

One of my clearest memories is the day I embarrassed my dad when he came to pick me up from elementary school. I was in the first grade and never liked going to the bathrooms in the school because they were always dirty. So, when the final bell rang one rainy day after school, I ran as hard as I could to stay ahead of all the other students and be the first to get outside. When I got outside, I stopped, put my books down, and began peeing off the sidewalk, not realizing of course, that all the car rider parents were parked outside and witnessed the whole thing! Needless to say, I can imagine what my dad felt that day when I went straight to his car and got in and acted like nothing ever happened.

I can also remember riding two miles or more after elementary school to get to Southwest Dekalb High School to watch afternoon football practice. Weekends were also full of football. One particular Saturday when my dad was having practice, one of the managers and I filled up the sunken showers in the dressing room with water, made a swimming pool, and floated around on dummies during practice. When the players came off the field, they were not very happy!

As I continue to tell these stories, I think you will see that tagging along with my dad everywhere made it pretty obvious that I was heading for a lifetime of athletics.

I had another major interest I might as well bring up now and that was my curiosity in cars, trucks and just about anything that had a motor. I used to beg my folks to take me to see the broken cars! I could spend hours playing in a junkyard exploring wrecks. I was also infatuated with planes as well. I think my love of planes can be attributed to my father’s experience as a veteran Air Corp. pilot in World War II.

I was eight years old when my dad taught me how to drive. He took an old 1940 Chevrolet in on a debt that someone owed him and gave it to me to drive around our two acres of land. I would take Hollie and our dog, Mike, on endless trips up and down our dirt driveway stirring up dust. One day an angry neighbor stopped me and asked, don’t you ever run out of gas? My answer was quick and short: yes, but my daddy just buys me more!

I can thank my dad for introducing me to weights when I was ten years old. The attitude in those days was that weight lifting