The Last Fall of College

When I was a Senior in college, during my last season of football, I would walk over to the gymnasium on late Sunday afternoons and sit in a hot whirlpool tub in my gym shorts for about an hour until my right knee felt loose. Usually, my buddy, Don Crossley would be in one of the other whirlpools. On the following Monday afternoon I would walk over to the lockerroom at Wilson Field, the old football stadium, after class, and paint my knee with atomic balm, a really hot, viscuous liquid liniment. It was dark orange-red and fragrant. When I pulled my knee brace over the knee, I would feel a comfortable heat on my knee which would last throughout the week. As we went through drills in preparation for the week's game, my knee would swell and feel more stable from the fluid.

After the game on Saturday afternoon, I would be bruised and swollen all over. After spending an afternoon of watching pro football on tv, trying to avoid having to watch the Redskins, who we all hated in my dorm apartment, Don and I would walk back to the trainer's room in the gym and start the process all over again.

My parents came to every game that year, as they had during my junior year. They got to travel to a lot of places, big and small: Sewanee, Tennessee; Danville, Kentucky; Georgetown, D.C.; Davidson, North Carolina; Emory, Virginia; Maryville, Tennessee. A few others I don't remember. Nice weekend trips in the Fall of the year; I hope they enjoyed the trips. It was an odd season. We had knew coaches. We worked harder. We felt like we were making progress, even if we were still losing most of our games. I still liked it. I look back on it fondly. My friends, coaches, trainers, professors and such. An Autumn thirty seven years ago. Man, I am old.