Jim Carlen lived a rare life -- coaching three major college football teams and winning the Heisman Trophy.

The roars could be deafening at the University of South Carolina when the coach ran George Rogers right into the record books.

By the time he got to Hilton Head Island in the 1980s, Carlen had been running with the big dogs since 1951, when he left Cookeville, Tenn., for Coach Bobby Dodd's Georgia Tech football team. While Carlen was there, the Yellow Jackets shared a national championship, won 31 games in a row and brought home trophies from the Orange Bowl, the Cotton Bowl and two Sugar Bowls.

Carlen was comfortable as the center of attention as head football coach at USC, Texas Tech and West Virginia University.

But there were no cheering crowds in the church halls of Hilton Head where Carlen pecked away at his rarest achievement: monumental blood donation.

When blood drives were held at Christ Lutheran Church near his island home in Shipyard Plantation or in the Fellowship Hall at First Presbyterian Church, Carlen was always one of the first in line.

The Island Packet ran a front-page story when he hit the 19-gallon mark of lifetime donations in August 1988. He'd been giving since Crawford Long Hospital in Atlanta called the 18-year-old freshman, asking for a pint of his A-negative blood. He gave until his health no longer permitted it.

Carlen died peacefully Sunday after a long illness at age 79.

His blood-donor card wasn't immediately available at his Columbia home Tuesday, but a friend of the family said Carlen might have become one of the nation's top blood donors.

It was a quiet act that got less attention in four decades of consistent giving than a single Saturday-afternoon touchdown. One of Carlen's closest colleagues in Beaufort County told me he never heard the coach mention blood donation.

Originally posted here:
USC coach known as a rare hero at quiet blood drives