Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, December 31, 1993 TAG: 9312310170
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By JACK BOGACZYK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SHREVEPORT, LA. LENGTH: Medium
Virginia Tech will carry more than the memory of a team doctor, friend and confidant into today's Independence Bowl.
Dr. Richard Bullock, Tech's team physician from 1971-88, died Thursday at his Blacksburg home after battling cancer. He was 76. Although he had been ill for some time, Bullock's death still jolted the Hokies.
"I'm just as sad as can be," said Eddie Ferrell, Tech's head trainer of 15 years who came to the Blacksburg school the same year as Bullock. "Doc helped me through some tough times myself in the past. It's so sad he couldn't have enjoyed more years of retirement before he became ill."
Ferrell said two Hokies' seniors - fullback Joe Swarm and linebacker Marcus McClung - will wear a neck collar developed by Bullock in today's game against Indiana.
"It's called the `Bullock Collar,' and he designed it himself," Ferrell said. "I talked to Indiana's trainer today, and he said he had just watched some tapes that Doc made about how to fit the collar for a player.
"It's a collar that protects the neck from making extreme motion. We've had a number of players wear it over the years. But Doc meant a lot more to us than just that."
That was evident last month when the Hokies voted to present a game ball from their victory at Virginia to Bullock. And when NFL star Bruce Smith returned to his alma mater last month, "the first person he asked about was Doc Bullock," said Tech assistant head coach Billy Hite, who met Bullock in 1979 when he moved to the school as an assistant coach.
"Doc was a very special person," Hite said. "He wasn't just a doctor, he was a friend to our players, our coaches, to me. The players confided in him. He was as genuine a person as you can be."
Ferrell said that while Bullock's warmth with players made him special, it was also his directness and diagnoses as a physician that made a statement in the halls of the Jamerson Athletic Center and Cassell Coliseum.
"He was firm," Ferrell said. "If you were talking about a player's health, he could - and would - tell you in a New York minute the way it was going to be. His directness was one of his strengths."
Bullock was always one of the first people in the Hokies' traveling party downstairs in the hotel for breakfast. And although it's six seasons since Charlie Moir resigned as Tech's basketball coach, those who traveled with Moir's teams will never forget the coach and Bullock finishing their on-the-road dinners regularly with pie a la mode.
Bullock, upon retirement after the 1987-88 school year, hired Dr. Duane Lagan as Tech's team physician. Lagan said his predecessor "had a marvelous record in taking care of the Tech athletes. Professionally, he was exemplary. He's extremely admired, not only at Tech, but by people at other institutions we go to play."
Bullock, a Toledo, Ohio, native was a 1939 graduate of the University of Toledo and a '43 graduate of the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. He came to Tech in 1971 after giving up a private practice in McArthur, Ohio.
He is survived by his wife, Fran, one sister, five sons, a daughter and 11 grandchildren. McCoy Funeral Home in Blacksburg is handling the funeral arrangements. Services will be 1 p.m. Monday at Virginia Tech's War Memorial Chapel in Blacksburg.
Tech athletic director Dave Braine was only in Blacksburg one year before Bullock retired. He said Tech's athletic community and the university as a whole was saddened by Bullock's death.
"He was more than a doctor," Braine said. "He was a confidant, a friend, a father figure to many athletes who played at Virginia Tech."
by CNB