Frank Orgel winning his biggest ballgame

AUBURN, Ala. — Frank Orgel has a bit of a wild streak.

Last month, the 1956 Albany High graduate and former assistant coach for the East Carolina, Clemson, Auburn and Georgia football programs took on an adventure that many several years his junior would dare not do: rappel off a 19-story building at the Riverchase Galleria in Hoover, Alabama.

It was the second annual “Birmingham Over the Edge” fund-raiser for the Tanner Foundation for Neuromuscular Diseases. He attended the inaugural event in 2017, and his military background — 30 jumps as an Army paratrooper — gave Orgel the courage to want to attempt the feat himself.

“The guy said, ‘Aw, I don’t know if we should let you do it or not,’ ” Orgel said of the first time he attended the Galleria rappelling event. “I went up to the guy running it. He looked at me, grabbed my arm, and he shook me out. He looked at me and said, ‘Yeah, I think we can put you up first next year.’

“And he kept his word.”

Orgel wasn’t going to back down. Nothing — not even the deadly neuromuscular disease that he has battled for the past decade and has him getting around in a wheelchair — was going to stop him.

Taking on a killer

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, or ALS, can move quickly in its victims. Many die within 3-5 years of diagnosis.

A decade following his diagnosis, however, Orgel continues to put up a strong fight.

The disease has taken movement from the left side of Orgel’s body. He needs a wheelchair to get around. But, thanks in part to daily physical activity, the disease has yet to cross over to his right side. He can move his right leg, and the only thing affecting movement in his right shoulder is some bursitis that has built up.

“The disease attacks the insulation around the nerves,” Orgel said. “When it eats the insulation up completely, the nerve dies.

“The doctor isn’t sure, but he said, ‘The exercise that you are doing might be what is making your disease so slow. Your nerve endings on your left side are still firing, they just aren’t firing very hard. That means a lot of the insulation is gone. But the (right) side is good. We can’t say if the exercise is what is keeping you mobile as you can be or not.’

“By this time, I shouldn’t have any movement in my arms or my legs. The doctor said he couldn’t explain it. But whatever we’re doing, we’re going to keep doing it as long as I can do it.”

Orgel said he works out two days a week on a Quadricizer, a piece of therapy equipment designed to help build arm and leg endurance. He also swims two days a week.

Maintaining mobility in his right side has been the focus of his physical therapy. That was what allowed him to successfully take part in the fund-raiser in suburban Birmingham and what allows him to continue to travel.

“It wasn’t really on my bucket list, but I put it on my bucket list,” Orgel said of the rappelling opportunity. “How many chances do you get to do something like that?”

This week, his travels bring him back to Albany, where the Southwest Georgia Auburn Club will honor him tonight at its annual banquet at Doublegate Country Club by naming a scholarship after him.

Sharing stories

While ALS has cost Orgel some of his ability to move on his own, his mind is still clear. And he loves to share tales from his career in coaching.

As a student-athlete at Georgia, Orgel roomed with Pat Dye, the future Auburn head coach. They spent a lot of time together as coaches after Orgel’s NFL career was cut short due to injury, first with Dye as head coach at East Carolina in the 1970s, then at Auburn in the 1980s.

In between East Carolina and Auburn, Dye worked for a short time as Wyoming’s head coach. While considering whether he should join Dye out west, Orgel received an intriguing offer to stay closer to home.

“We were going (to go to Wyoming) when we sat down and the phone rang,” Orgel said. “It was Danny Ford. He said, ‘Are you ready to come to Clemson?’

“He tried to hire me the year he got the job, and I turned him down. But he called me and asked if I was ready to come to Clemson now. I said, ‘Daniel, let me think here. I can go to Wyoming, or I can go to Clemson. What do I do?’

“He said, ‘Let me pick you up in the plane in the morning.’ And I went to Clemson for a year.”

Keeping up

Orgel and his wife, Sarah, have moved back to Auburn after living for several years in Albany after Orgel took the Dougherty County athletics director position in the late 1990s. A golden retriever, Gracie, serves as a welcoming committee of sorts for friends who visit their home.

“When Pat went to East Carolina, he had four goldens, I believe,” Orgel said. “He said there wasn’t any way he could take care of four. He gave us one, and we kept her. We kept two out of the first litter, and we’ve always had golden retrievers since.”

Coaching colleagues, as well as former players, make frequent visits. He’s one of the few people allowed to watch Auburn football practices, and Orgel said he and current Tigers head coach Gus Malzahn talk frequently.

Orgel keeps a positive outlook. He’s already drawing up plans for another big event next year.

He doesn’t use the word “if.”

“There’s another building in downtown Birmingham that’s higher than 19 [stories],” Orgel said. “I think it goes 25, 26 stories. They’re going to do it there next year. I told them that I would get some of my old linebackers out there. I think I’ve got some of them that are crazy enough to do it.”