FAYETTEVILLE — In 2008, shortly after Steve Heidt watched the induction of his uncle and fellow former Albany High football great, Robert “Goo Goo” Heidt, into the Albany Sports Hall of Fame, he was approached by then-HOF president B.B. Rhodes and current president Bob Fowler.
“They said, ‘Steve, go home and send us a resumé — because one day we hopefully want to get you in
here,’ ” Heidt recalled. “And I just thought, ‘What in the world have I done to (deserve) this honor?’ ”
As it turns out, quite a bit.
Heidt, a former Indians football, swimming and baseball star from 1959-62, and two-time world clown diving champion — that’s right, clown diving — went on to be a standout football player at Florida. That, of course, was all before he became an Air Force pilot, then a commercial jet pilot for Delta and eventually a lawyer.
And thanks to any number of those accolades, Heidt will be one of six inductees into the Hall’s latest class Monday, when he’ll join his uncle and also his cousin, Billy Ray Schmidt — a former All-American swimming and diving champ at UGA — who was inducted in 2006.
“So I finally sent them my resumé, and out of the blue I was sitting here one day (recently) and I get a call from B.B., who just said, ‘Congratulations, Steve — you’re in,’ ” said Heidt, who now lives in Fayetteville with his wife of 43 years, Sandra. “It was just such a humbling experience being told you were good enough to get in alongside guys like Billy Ray and Robert because I thought they just hung the moon.”
Heidt may have thought the world of his uncle and cousin — who was the same age and lived just a half block away, “basically growing up as brothers,” said Heidt — but there are those like Rhodes who watched Heidt evolve into being more than worthy of the honor he’ll receive Monday night.
“He and Billy Ray together, or apart, were just amazing. Just amazing young men,” said Rhodes, who coached Heidt in just about every sport he attempted outside of Albany High at the local rec center, from swimming, to diving, to tumbling, to trampoline and eventually clown diving. “They both ended up working for the recreation center and (working as deck boys, life guards and swimming instructors). And during the summers, I’ll be darned if they didn’t start clown diving and go down to Florida and win the world championship.
“Not once — but two years in a row!”
For those unfamiliar with the seemingly now obscure sport, clown diving, as Heidt explains it, was an activity he originally got into thanks to his passion for tumbling and doing tricks on the trampoline — so much so, Heidt, his cousin and a group of young men actually would put on demonstrations throughout South Georgia during everything from shows at the rec center, to the halftime of local basketball games, to parades.
But during the summer — when it was hot — the show moved to the pool, where the boys found the sub-culture of clown diving, forming a team with three others — clown divers worked in five-man groups — and instantly became a well-known troupe.
“We’d dress up, have the make-up and had skits — we each had our own ‘shtick’, that we did,” Heidt laughed. “One guy would start, maybe do an individual dive, then the next guy would maybe use a prop, like a bow-and-arrow, and jump off the back of the third guy or something like that. Until it got to me and Billy Ray — we would go together. Our thing was we put on a pair of size 50 overalls — at the same time — and we would jump together. They (introduced us as) the ‘Siamese Twins’ because we would stay almost joined the entire (dive). We would do a one-and-a-half, or twisting-one-and-a-halves. It was great. People loved it.”
While also maintaining a successful football and baseball career at Albany High and working at his father’s popular local Albany restaurant, The Victory Club, clown diving became such an important activity to Hedit that the Albany troupe eventually discovered the Dixie Clown Diving Team Championships at the popular Florida amusement park, Cypress Gardens, where he says “around 15 teams from around the country” took part.
Believe it or not, the first year the boys from Albany entered, they won.
And the second year? They won then, too.
“We decided we wouldn’t press our luck and try for a third,” Heidt laughed.
By then in 1962, however, Heidt was 18 years old and ready to graduate as a three-year varsity letter winner in baseball and leader of the football team. (He didn’t really play basketball because, according to Heidt, “there was one problem with basketball: you couldn’t hit anyone. So when I’d play, I’d usually go in, get my five fouls in, like, three minutes — and I was done.”)
But despite growing up a Georgia Bulldog fan, Heidt’s decision on where he’d play football likely wasn’t a popular one: He chose the hated Florida Gators over UGA.
“Well, Georgia offered me as well, but I wanted to be an engineer at the time so I weighed education into my decision,” said Heidt, who then hesitated a bit before adding, “And at the time .... how do I say this politically correct? Well, Georgia wasn’t quite the educational university back then that it is today”
Heidt played on the same team as UF coaching and playing legend Steve Spurrier, starting his sophomore, junior and senior season at linebacker, where he was part of two Top 10 defenses nationally. He even led the Gators in tackles his senior year and played in the Sugar and Orange bowls in 1966 and 1967, respectively. He says his highlight was picking off a pass in the end zone and recovering a fumble his junior year against Florida State.
These days, he and his UF teammates still have a reunion every year in which the “Silver Sixties,” as they call themselves, meet annually in Crystal River, Fla.
After graduation, Heidt was drafted, opting to join the Air Force. He was eventually held back from going to Vietnam and stationed in Valdosta, becoming a flight instructor for five years until 1972.
Heidt parlayed his skills with an airplane into a job with Delta, moving to New Orleans and Cincinnati briefly before winding up in the Atlanta area — Delta’s primary hub — where he’s been for the last 40 years. Heidt flew mostly just in the Continental U.S., adding that flying international “wasn’t my cup of tea.”
But before he retired in 2003, Heidt and a friend from his military days utilized the G.I. Bill and took on a second career, attending what is now the Georgia State law school and become certified, practicing lawyers in 1976, establishing their own firm in the Atlanta area while both also worked as pilots.
“I was really a jack of all trades, I guess you could say,” he laughed.
Heidt, who has two sons — Dan and David — and two grandkids, apparently isn’t done. These days, the 65-year-old tackles the tennis court like he used to bring down running backs. He now plays clay-court doubles three times a week and tournaments every chance he gets.
“One thing I’ll say about Steve Heidt,” began Rhodes, “that boy always had his head on right and he really used his talents to accomplish a lot of things.”