Memories of the beginnings of investment bankers I have known

I attended college with a fellow from Pennsylvania who played football with me at W&L. This fellow ultimately ended up as an investment banker in Orange County, California. However, I remember him most as the happy go lucky strong safety, with a good bit of talent but little discipline for studies or practice before the games.

When we were seniors, our last football game was scheduled against Georgetown University on their campus, located just outside of the District of Columbia. Two years before, we had driven up to Georgetown, stayed at a fancy hotel in Alexandria operated by a W&L grad, and whipped the Hoyas by about forty points. I remember slowly driving through downtown Georgetown after the game, watching the downtown liven up with Saturday revelers, and seeing all the nightclubs and taverns going full tilt.

When we were seniors, the game would have more importance. Not only was this to be the last game of our careers, but Georgetown had a much better team than in previous years. As the Friday afternoon before the game arrived, we dressed in our suits and ties, packed our bags and congregated in front of the team bus which would take us to Alexandria for the evening. At the appointed hour, the team members and coaches gathered together and milled around the bus waiting as the coaches conducted a head count of the team members. As we the head count was completed, word got out among the players that one member of the team was missing: the senior strong safety from Pennsylvania.

The coaches got immediately angry at the missing team member and quickly sent various team members and coaches around the campus looking for our missing senior strong safety. As time continued to tick off the clock, word began to spread around among the players that there was a good reason why our senior strong safety was missing. Apparently, he had already driven to DC in his own car to spend some time with his long time girl friend the night before the game.

After having given the senior strong safety sufficient time to show himself, the coaches finally made the determination that he would not show and the bus headed up toward DC. Miraculously, the senior strong safety did in fact show up at the hotel the next morning, with some lame excuse about sleeping through the time for the bus trip. The coaches quickly informed him that he would not start this last game of his senior year.

Unfortunately, the Georgetown offense was quite proficient that year and the need for the expertise of this particular senior strong safety became quickly apparent to the defensive coaches. However, it was only after halftime that he would find himself put into the game.

That game ended up being quite a dramatic game, the tale of which should be told later. I'll save that tale for a later time. Finally, the game ended, we headed back to Lexington and most of us seniors went on to graduate the following June. Unfortunately, that particular senior strong safety was not to graduate with the rest of his class that June. Apparently, his cavalier attitude during his football career was mirrored in his studies, as well. Nevertheless, somehow that senior strong safety was able to come back the next Fall to work on his graduation requirements and was ultimately able to graduate as an English major by the end of the next year (how he ended up as an English major after four years of study I still don't understand). His adventures as an assistant coach to the football team during that subsequent year are an interesting story as well.

It was only later after he graduated from W&L that he would travel westward to the land of John Wayne and the California Republican Party and become the successful investment banker that he has become. Odd. Still don't know how that happened.

He and Jack Reeves, who was the idol to the young defense when he was the senior leader of the defensive line, did show up for our wedding. We still have pictures of quite a large W&L contingent that hot, moist afternoon in August, 1983. Everybody from W&L looked rather crisp and cool despite the fact that it was unbearably hot and humid that afternoon. I was really happy that they would take the time to come to the wedding.

Anyway, those were the humble beginnings of one California investment banker. I think Jack Reeves is back in Virginia now.