When ETSU planned to reinstate football in 2013, Head coach Carl Torbush joined the Buccaneer family. He remained head coach until 2017, when he retired from the coaching profession. 

Coach Torbush was a fan of many sports. As an athlete, his favorite was baseball. In his youth, he played with the Kansas City Royals rookie league team for a summer and continued playing baseball all his life. 

Torbush passed away on Monday, Nov. 6, at the age of 72. 

“Coach Torbush was a classy guy. I knew him for a long time, being from Jefferson City. He actually did his student teaching for my dad at the old Jefferson High School. There wasn’t a time that I saw Coach that he didn’t talk about how my dad swung the meanest paddle he’d ever seen,” shared current head coach George Quarles. 

“Coach was one of those guys who loved people and obviously was a great football coach that did it for a long time at a high level. It’s a sad day because of the great impact he had on so many people. It was a life well lived for sure.” 

Torbush was a beloved and well-accomplished coach across all collegiate football. He held coaching positions across multiple universities like Ole Miss, the University of Alabama, Texas A&M, and the University of North Carolina, where he worked his way up the ladders to become head coach for the Tar Heels. Afterward, he came to East Tennessee State University.

Photo of Carl Torbush coaching at the University of North Carolina. (Contributed/sports.yahoo.com)

“I think Coach was the perfect guy for the job at that time. One thing that sticks out about him now that I’m coaching and working in college football is that he was 100 percent genuine and 100 percent authentic all the time. He was not in it for a big contract or to get his name in the paper; he was in it for the right reasons, and it was evident he was in it for us. He was one of the good guys. There is no question that Coach cared about all of us,” said Austin Herink, one of Torbrush’s old players.

Herink was the first quarterback of the reinstated program for the Bucs as a redshirt freshman for the 2014-2015 season. He stayed on as the quarterback all throughout Coach Torbush’s career and after his retirement. Herink completed his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at ETSU and then transitioned into his own career in football outside of being a player. 

Herink currently works for the University of Arizona as an analyst for the head coach of Arizona football. 

“Coach was probably the most helpful of anyone in my life in terms of getting into this profession. It’s very difficult to get into the position, and he made more phone calls for me than anyone else. He was always there to bounce ideas off of and give me advice. I’ve always wanted to emulate him,” shared Herink. 

“You knew where you stood with him. It was never unclear if he cared about you as a person. That’s the approach I strive to take, to treat people the right way. He had all the values that someone from East Tennessee had in their hearts. I try to keep those values in my life. Being from East Tennessee, there is just something different about the way people truly care about each other that you don’t see in other places.”  

Coach Torbush will forever be remembered within the hearts of everyone, and his legacy will live on at ETSU as the caring coach who brought football back to Johnson City.

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