Head Coach Tommy Tuberville on Joey Embry

May 19, 1998

"This is my 21st year as a coach and unfortunately I've had to go through some of these. I can't think of any tougher part of your job than to lose one of your team members. It's like what we say here at Ole Miss, 'this is the Ole Miss family,' and Joey was a very big part of this family -- not just as an athlete but as a person that worked very hard in our community through the FCA, with youth groups, and he was an inspirational leader with all of the players. He had worked his way back from a back injury last summer and went through a tough fall of rehabilitation. He came back in the spring and showed no signs of pain, but knowing he did have pain, he worked through that to become probably having a very good chance of being a starter this year. It's just unfortunate. We want to send out our sympathies to his family because is family is very close. They followed Joey on every step he's taken since I've been here. He was one of the first guys that I visited as a head coach here at Ole Miss and he's been with us for these three years. It's a tough loss because he's a guy that had a lot going for him, not just on the athletic field but academically. Very seldom did he make anything below an A. He was an inspiration to our players in a lot of ways. He's just going to be deeply missed."

Q: Do you have any plans or ideas about the team (and letting them know)?:
Coach Tuberville: "We've had hundreds of calls today from alumni, fans, friends, and teammates. Word of mouth travels pretty good. We hope that all of our players are able to find out what's happened here, and hopefully, I know most of them that have the opportunity will be able to come back and be part of the service this coming Thursday. I think we're going to take a bus from campus to the funeral and it's one of those things I know our players are going to want to be back for because he was a very close to everybody.

Q: (Head Athletic Trainer) Lynette Schwartz talked a good bit about how hard Joey's worked through rehabilitation and to get back through all those things and this was about to be his time. She really thought that he had gone the extra mile to get back?
Coach Tuberville: "He really had. He worked hard. He had some other health problems also that he worked through not just in college but through high school. He had back surgery last summer when I was having my back problems and we went to the same back doctor in Dallas. Myself knowing what he was going through during spring, I could hardly imagine him going through (spring drills) after having the back pain that he had. But he was a tough individual that was very low-key. You very seldom heard him say anything. He was a quiet type of person that people respected because whatever was expected of Joey he got done. We expected him to be out on the field next year 100 percent and he gave that in his rehabilitation. I actually didn't think he would be back until fall, but he went through every day of spring practice and never complained. It's just a tragic loss to his teammates that he won't be back with us next year because he spent so much time and effort to fulfill his dream of being a starter in major college football. And he was getting awfully close to doing just that.

Q: You've been through this with other players on other teams and other levels, is there any thing you can do as a staff, as an athletic program, and as a football team to help the other players deal with this?
Coach Tuberville: "Well, there's counseling that we'll use -- you do that in a lot of different things and we'll use that. This is life. There's peaks and valleys and this is just a very deep valley you reach sometimes hoping that you never have to go through. But it happens not only in athletics but in everybody's life sooner or later. We talk to our players all the time about not being invincible and that this could happen at any time. Joey was a big team member but he's going to a bigger team. The good Lord needed him on his team next year so (Joey) will be watching down on us. I'm sure he'll be with us."

WES YEARY, OLE MISS FCA REPRESENTATIVE

Q: As someone who knows Joey like you did, tells us a little bit about Joey and what he meant to the football team and about the work he did through FCA too?
Yeary: "Anytime you saw Joey or were around Joey there was always laughter and joy because he just brought a different perspective and a lot of joy to the room. He added that kind of thing to not only the football team but to our FCA huddle. It was neat watching him this year as he grew not only as a man through the adversity (his injuries) but as a Christian, in his faith and as God stretched him, and to hear him share that even with the coaches at Coach Tuberville's Coaches' Clinic how things that looked to be a negative were really turning to be a positive in his life. It was a joy to hear him share those kinds of things and to watch how it affected others as he took a stand around them.

Q: Coach Tuberville talks about this being the hard part of the job, because you deal with these athletes a lot, what will you do, obviously the football team will need someone to talk to, when everybody comes together?
Yeary: "Well, this is such a tough situation. It's sad because we lost a friend and a brother but there's also rejoicing. Rejoicing in looking back at the time we did get to share with him, to what he added to our lives and joy to knowing where he is now. For us as a group it's just a challenge to come together, to live as Joey lived. I heard someone saying this morning it's such a shame he had come back from this injury and had such a great spring and yet, that's how he should have been doing it, he was living life to the fullest and enjoying each moment of it. And it's a great challenge to us to make each day count and to rally under Joey's example, under his influence, and under this tragic situation to pull together and say, 'hey let's make it count'"

JUNIOR H-BACK SHELDON MORRIS:
"Well, personally, it was kind of a big shock waking up to that news. It's kind of hard especially when you haven't even started (the day) yet. I got the call at 8:30 this morning from one of our former players - he had gotten the news from somebody at the office. To me that was a big shock because I know he was working hard to get back from after going through rehabilitation on his back. He was looking for a lot of good things to happen for him this season. He worked real hard this spring. He's going to be really missed by every one."

SENIOR CORNERBACK GARY THIPGEN:
"Well pretty much, when things like this happen, it brings the team closer together in any situation. Right now we just have to pull together and know where all our goals are and do the same things that we know Joey would want us to do and don't veer away from that. It's no good if we're just shooting for those goals and don't reach them. We know what he would want and we're going to keep striving for that and keep him in mind. We know he'll always be with us and the rest of the Ole Miss family.

"Things like this happen and you don't ask why these things happen. Of course, it will be a loss for the team, the university, but we all must go on. Joey Embry was a good person, a good student. He was very intelligent and he worked real hard. Of course, his injury last year kept him from the game for a whole year but he wanted to get back out (on the field)." Q: You came here about the same time Joey did, can you talk a little bit about your friendship?
Thigpen: "We took a class together this past spring. He was always talking and laughing, he was very easy going and I saw that in him every other day in class. I'm going to miss that aspect of it too because he was in Business and I was in Accounting so we were taking a few classes together."

OFFENSIVE LINE COACH HUGH NALL ON JOEY EMBRY
"We're all shocked and in a state of disbelief. What a great kid Joey was. He could have said no to football so easily, buy he refused to give up. He was really a special person."

The University of Mississippi Athletics

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