Goff credits his father and Bud Willis for success

Jun. 18—MOULTRIE, Ga. — It should come as no surprise who Ray Goff credits for his football accomplishments.

The former Moultrie High and Parade Magazine All-American quarterback was selected recently for induction into the Georgia High School Football Hall of Fame.

Goff will be inducted with 39 other outstanding former Georgia high school football players on Oct. 21 at the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta.

His father Jim Buck Goff and his high school coach Virgil "Bud" Willis did not live long enough to see one of Colquitt County's favorite sons honored for his storied high school gridiron career.

But both played outsized roles in his success.

After saying he was surprised and "tickled to death" to be joining the state's high school hall of fame, Goff was quick to point out who put him on, and kept him on, the path to athletic achievement.

"My father was first, of course," Goff said of Jim Buck, himself an outstanding Moultrie High football player and the longtime Moultrie Recreation Department director.

"And Coach Willis was such an unbelievable person in my life."

Both the Goffs and Willis were inducted into the Colquitt County Sports Hall of Fame as part of its inaugural class in 2000.

All are Packer icons.

James Rayford Goff Sr. was a three-sport athlete at Moultrie High, lettering in football, basketball and baseball before graduating in 1948.

On the 1947 Packers football team, Goff and Owen Thomas, who went to play collegiately at Florida, were the ends.

He was a gifted receiver and scored 55 of the Packers 116 points as a senior and was named by the Atlanta Journal to its All-South Georgia Football Association team.

Among his touchdown receptions from quarterback Leon Manley was one in a 25-14 win over Cairo and two, covering 84 and 65 yards, against Americus.

Then, as his son would 25 years later, Jim Buck went to the University of Georgia to play football.

But he left after signing a professional baseball contract with the New York Yankees.

He played four seasons in the Yankees farm system as a first baseman before an injury ended his career.

In 1952, he was named the first director of the Moultrie Recreation Department and helped develop a thriving program in his hometown.

He ran the program for 38 years until his death at 60 in 1991.

Willis, too, was an outstanding three-sport athlete while growing up in Tifton.

He played on three Tifton High teams that went a combined 26-5 and was named All-State in 1949.

He went to the University of Alabama on a football scholarship, lettering three years and serving as the SEC-champion Crimson Tide's captain in 1953.

He played in the Senior Bowl and was an honorable mention All-American.

After playing professional baseball for three seasons for the Tifton entry in the Georgia-Florida League, he began his football coaching career under Pig Davis and Fred Tucker in 1955 in Tifton.

Three years later, he moved to Moultrie to become the school system's athletic director, supervising activities of 13 schools.

He coached the Moultrie eighth-grade team in 1959 and 1960 before joining the varsity Packers staff under head coach Knuck McCrary.

When McCrary suffered a heart attack in the 1965 game against Dougherty and died later that night, Willis was named Moultrie High's head coach.

He went on to post a 94-34-1 record in 12 1/2 seasons with the Packers.

Two of Willis's most memorable seasons came in 1971 and 1972 when he turned the offense over to the capable leadership and passing arm of Ray Goff.

In 1971, the Packers went 8-2 with Goff throwing for a then-school record 1,571 yards and 12 touchdowns.

In a loss to Valdosta, he passed for 321 yards, a Packers record at the time.

The next season, Willis and Goff helped lead the Packers to an 11-1 record and a berth in the South Georgia championship game.

Willis died at 2016 at the age of 85.

Goff, built on the mentorship of his father and his high school coach and had an outstanding career as a quarterback at Georgia, where he led the Bulldogs to the 1976 SEC championship and was named the conference Player of the Year. He finished seventh in the Heisman Trophy balloting that year.

Goff later returned to Georgia as an assistant coach and in 1989 was named the Bulldogs head coach, a position he held for seven seasons.