Working with kids, Keith Hatcher gets a daily reminder of getting older.

            Monday was just such a day, with the Mount de Sales head football coach serving as a host to St. Peter Clever and Lanier grad J.T. Thomas, who also happened to be a four-time Super Bowl winner.

            Thomas talked with the Cavaliers, who had some questions for the first African-American player recruited and signed by Florida State. One question regarded the great players Thomas competed against and with, and legendary names like Roger Staubach, Kenny Stabler, and Lynn Swann came out.

            “Our kids were sitting there, they’re not very responsive,” Hatcher said to laughs. “We’re walking out and one of my guys comes up to me and says, ‘Coach, who is Roger Staubach?’”

            The crowd on hand Monday night for Thomas’s visit to the final regular-season gathering of the Macon Touchdown Club laughed, and then was interested in hearing about just those players and those days.

            After one of the longer and more wide open and eyebrow-raising introductions in recent years at the club, by former Lanier teammate Bobby George, Thomas spoke for more than 40 minutes.

            And for a club that skews more to retirement age, it was a trip down Memory Lane.

            Many in the crowd remembered Goot Steiner, one of the state’s legendary coaches. Steiner went 86-74-5 in 17 seasons overall, but he was an astounding 58-8-2 in six seasons at Lanier and successor, Central.

            Lanier reached the state semifinals in 1967 and 1968, and Ralph Clark was one of Thomas’s teammates on that 1967 team. Clark was in the audience.

            Thomas grew up in the civil rights era, and Steiner wasn’t one to tolerate much intolerance.

            Thomas introduced Clark, and noted that people didn’t know how Clark prevented a riot in Valdosta.

            The Poets had traveled south, and stopped at a restaurant. This was a new experience, Thomas said, for the five black players on the team.

            Upon entering the establishment, Steiner was told “We don’t serve them.”

            Steiner asked for that to be repeated, and it was. Then he asked for a menu.

            “I’m saying, ‘Oh my God, what the hell’s gonna happen?’” Thomas said.

            Steiner:” I see you serve fish. I see you serve chicken.” Then ostensibly nodding toward the five black players: “I don’t see them on the menu. We don’t eat ‘em, either.”

            They were served, but the drama wasn’t over. Thomas made sure he sat next to Clark to get through the restaurant experience properly. The other black players then watched Thomas, who listened to the waitress and other responses throughout the process.

            Then came the main course, and Thomas didn’t hear enough, started getting nervous. The waitress came to him.

            “Black angus?”

            Thomas paused, with quality comedic timing.

            “I’ve been called a whole lot of things in my life,” Thomas said. “I didn’t come to Valdosta to be called ‘black angus’. I’m about to rise up, and Ralph sees me.

            “He said, ‘say ‘steak. Say steak.’’ I had no idea that black angus was a steak. Ralph negated that (situation) because we were about to go off in that restaurant.”

            Calmed and fed, the Poets beat the Wildcats 7-0 in the middle of a 7-3 season.

            Part of Thomas’s talk dealt with finishing strong, and he touched on how the Pittsburgh Steelers of the early 1970s came together from a quasi-segregated to integrated team. Black players went one way, white players another.

            One was a wealthy doctor, Vaughn Nixon, with a nice home in the suburbs who invited players and their families there after games.

            “Now, you had 95 percent of the players after each home game going out to Dr. Vaughn Nixon’s mansion,” Thomas said. “Live entertainment, food. So all of a sudden, we’re partying together.”

            Walls began to come down amid the back-of-the-bus era.

            “We’re getting to know each other on the different levels, (more) than ever before,” he said. “Our families, our kids getting with each other.”

            Chaplain Hollis Haff had a bible study, and it grew to where the majority of players and coaches attended chapel services at the same time.

            “Not only were we playing together, partying together, we were praying together,” Thomas said. “If that hadn’t have happened, you wouldn’t have seen that bond, you wouldn’t have seen that great dynasty team.

            “If they hadn’t come in, we never would have won four Super Bowls.”

            The older night crowd had nowhere near the trouble with questions as the earlier young crowd did, with some of the same inquiries about players and coaches.

            Steiner remains a favorite name to talk about with that generation, when football in Macon stood with football anywhere in the state.

            “He treated everybody the same,” Thomas said. “Great guy in the civil rights era.”

            Steiner was fair, and used the same names and terms – not safe for grandma’s ears – for everybody.

            “He didn’t care,” Thomas said. “But you knew, for some reason, he wasn’t yelling at you, he was yelling at what you were doing.”

            One night after a road game, Thomas sat outside waiting for his father to pick him up. Steiner sat down with him and they talked.

            “He put his arm around me and he said, ‘you know what? You’re going to play football one day somewhere.’ Thomas said. “I had no idea what he was talking about. He was so prophetically right.

“What I hate about that, he died right after I got drafted. He never got the opportunity to see me play.

            “Yet he had told me. He was my greatest coach.”

            Thomas also played for the similarly-minded Chuck Noll, who he said learned how to get the most out of each player, regardless of different approaches.

            “A great communicator,” Thomas said. “It was amazing to watch him communicate with every guy on the team differently.”

            Thomas raved about playing with Vietnam vet Rocky Bleier, said Terry Bradshaw was and is smarter than he gets credit for, and listed the likes of Fred Biletnekoff, Paul Warfield, Bob Hayes, Billy “White Shoes” Johnson, and Steve Largent among others as the top receivers he faced.

            Thomas was part of the legendary Pittsburgh “Black Curtain” defense, and teamed with Vidalia native Mel Blount in the secondary.

            “Mel was one of the greatest cornerbacks … next to me,” Thomas said, then noted attending a recent event. “Mel got all the interceptions. I said, ‘Are you people stupid? Mel had 60 interceptions, J.T. had 20 something.’

            “I said, ‘In order get 60 interceptions, how many times they have to throw to you to get 60 interceptions? If you such a bad-ass, how about throw at me?’

            “They didn’t call it a ‘shut-down corner’ in my day, they called it ‘an easy day at the office.’ Now they pay for shut-down corners.”