PURE
ENER GY
DRE’ BLY KNOWS EXACTLY WHERE HE GETS HIS INFECTIOUS PERSONALITY BY LEE PACE
PHOTOS BY JEFFREY CAMARATI, UNC ATHLETIC COMMUNICATIONS & DRE’ BLY
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“Men are what their mothers made them.” — RALPH WALDO EMERSON
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f that’s the case, then it’s no wonder Dré Bly is a bundle of energy. The former Tar Heel All-America cornerback who now coaches that position for Mack Brown was raised by a pair of schoolteachers in the Tidewater area of Virginia. Dad D.A. Bly was calm and reserved, mom Gloria excitable and bubbly. “Gloria is a live-wire, full of enthusiasm, very outgoing,” says Kenny Browning, who recruited Bly out of Western Branch High. “His personality takes more after his mom.” “No doubt Dré got his bubbly, fast-paced, energetic personality from his mom. She is a ball of fire,” adds Carl Torbush, who was defensive coordinator during Bly’s 1996-98 Carolina playing career. Donald André and Gloria Bly were the first members of their respective families to graduate from college and both later became elementary school teachers. Their oldest daughter, Donna, became a high-school biology teacher. From his dad D.A., young Dré learned to reason and exercise caution. Dré was always undersized, and it was his father who insisted he start with baseball and soccer in a competitive venue before venturing into football.
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BORN & BRED
“My husband wanted to make sure that his body and bones were really developed before he actually got on the field with football,” Gloria says. When Dré got too excited, his father could reel him in. One school that made quite an impression on Dré during the recruiting process in 1994-95 was Syracuse, and Dré was bubbling over when he returned from his official visit. “Dad, they have a dome you play in. It’s so cool,” Dré chirped. “Son, have you stopped to wonder why they need a dome?” his father asked. That was that for Syracuse. An assistant coach at Western Branch High during Bly’s junior year kept telling Bill Myers, a Carolina graduate who worked in the school system and helped the football staff with prospect ideas and recruiting information, that they were “missing the boat on this Bly kid.” The coach one time told Myers that Bly couldn’t shoot a basketball but still scored 32 points in a game. “They started pressing and Dré is so quick, he just stole the ball and laid it in,” he said. The coach later told Myers that Bly couldn’t hit a baseball
