I find myself in Clinton, South Carolina for probably the last time. I am reminded of the time when Mickey Maynard and I drove up from Dunwoody in our Senior year to meet with coaches and prospective football players and work through some drills and tests to see if they might want us to play football for Presbyterian College. I would have to admit that I was ill-prepared for the event. Nevertheless, after going through the series of tests and failing to impress any of the coaches, Mickey and I drove back home, stopping once to get a hamburger in Greenville at a Shoneys. Later that month, a football coach from PC called me at my parent's home to let me know that they would not be offering me a scholarship to play football, but if I wanted to, I could attend PC, play football on my own dime, and possibly earn a scholarship somewhere down the road.
I declined. PC was not on my list of colleges in which I was really interested. Later that year, I was accepted for admission at Washington and Lee, Centre College and Vanderbilt University. As it turned out, I could have played football for two out of the three schools that accepted me, and did, for four years at Washington and Lee. Washington and Lee, which had a history as the oldest football program in the South. Washington and Lee, which had competed with Virginia, Virginia Tech, Army, Tennessee, Alabama, Auburn and West Virginia. Which had won the Southern Conference in 1950, losing to undefeated Tennessee by a touchdown in Knoxville, and ended up going to the second Gator Bowl to play Wyoming. Which had been named National Champions of small college football teams in 1961.
I turned down Centre, which had upset Harvard in 1921 and won the National Championship in football. Which had a proud history of playing Kentucky and other programs in the Ohio Valley.
In some sense, if I had decided to attend and play for PC it would have been a step down.
Some of this is sour grapes. Some of this is meaningless venting. It is time to go on and leave the past behind. It just hurts.
No matter how successful you are in making rational decisions and analyzing the situation, the emotions of the moment still hurt you.
About Me
- TBAYNHAMIII
- I was born in Kentucky, though my parents had been living in Knoxville before my birth. My mother's mother lived across the street from the hospital in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, which was convenient. I moved around quite a bit when I was young, but ended up in Georgia. I like to read and write and love food and drink way too much. I have a funny wife and daughter who has finished her batchelor's degree and is living with her grandmother in North Atlanta and studying advertising. I sometimes wonder what life would have been like if I had not gone to law school. Regrets come and go with the seasons.
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