If there’s one aspect to take away from Errin Joe’s sit-down with GMTM’s Torrian Wilson, it’s that he absolutely loves the game of football. His life has been devoted to being involved with the game he loves, and Joe’s dedication to the sport has earned him a position that gives him joy each and every day.
Joe grew up in Lakeland, Florida, which is a quick hour and a half flight from where he’d end up making a name for himself in Atlanta, Georgia. There were signs that Joe would end up as a Yellow Jacket on the Georgia Tech campus even before he officially committed to the school. He had a clairvoyant vision when he was still in high school.
“I had a dream that I was playing in a game for Georgia Tech and I pancaked a guy. When I looked up, I saw the running back score a touchdown. All things pointed to Georgia Tech.” Joe said Via The Ledgernews.com.
He had a respectable career with Georgia Tech, as he was a part of the 2014 team that went on to win the Orange Bowl. While Joe tried to kick the tires on a professional career, there wasn’t too much interest, and he was forced to consider what he would do next with his life after his Yellow Jackets playing career ended.
Joe was an English teacher back at Lake Gibson high school in Florida for a year while he pondered how to get back into the football landscape. He tirelessly contacted coaches in the college circuit, hoping that something would break his way. In 2017, he got an opportunity, and he hasn’t looked back. He was hired by Florida International University as a quality control assistant, which paved the way for his eventual return to Georgia Tech.
“Coach Aubrey Hill gave me my opportunity…We ran into each other Pro Bowl weekend 2016. Once he got that job at FIU, he said ‘we got a position for you. It’s unpaid’”, Joe recalled.
Even though there was no monetary compensation, Joe made the most of his opportunity by working hard and continuing to put in his dues for the game he loved.
It turned out that both Wilson and Joe had a common figure in their lives who had an impact in their evolution as players and coaches. Georgia Tech assistant head coach Brent Key specializes in run game coordination and offensive line development, and has been a huge influence in Joe’s coaching career to date. Key also overlapped with Wilson when the GMTM fixture played at the University of Central Florida, and helped mold Wilson into a better player.
“We watched your old UCF film, he talked about you, the McCray brothers,” Joe relayed to Wilson with a smile. “He(Key) talked about how great your line was, he said it was one of y’all best lines.”
Entrenched back in comfortable surroundings, there’s no telling what the limit is for Joe as he continues to grow as a coach in a place that spurred his development as a player previously.
