SUNDAYS & SEPTEMBER 7th’s WITH THE APOSTLE PAUL:  On September 7, 1974, exactly fifty one trips around the sun ago as I write, I watched the white with orange “T” helmeted Tennessee Vols play UCLA on TV. Like all our state, I knew #7, quarterback Conredge Holloway. I would get to know the Vol fullback & return man that day on a personal level in the fall of ’76. His name was Paul Careathers, he was my football coach. I got to know him on the field, in our cramped locker room, but most acquainted in a little gym where “X” marks the spot. A spot where a chalkboard used to hang & I grew to appreciate the sonic squeak of chalk meeting green slate. On Sunday afternoons, he & I would discuss our previous & next game. I learned to set aside the ME, the personal for the greater good of the corporate, the WE. To relish everything about being a quarterback & Coach knew QBs. From the time I saw him on TV in Neyland Stadium until he arrived at Elbert Long School, he gave Canadian football a try with Holloway in Ottawa, bracketing his Canada venture, he was drafted & went to training camp twice with the Oakland Raiders, their QB was a gunslinger named “Snake”. In 1976, on top of being cut by the Champions of both of North America’s pro football leagues, he met his latest QB, me. His contacts with greatness led me to find that facing 10 men & 20 eyes in a huddle, being convincing in the call, the huddle breaking clap of 11 pairs of hands shaded in colors from God’s kaleidoscope, behind a center at the line, pausing, surveying, barking commands, 11 boys thinking they were men for 1 cause was preparing me for more than proper execution of “19 Veer” or “50 Monster”. Those chalk talks were prep work for showing up on time, being dependable, being a good family man, handling defeat by saying nothing & victory by saying less, having character & not being one, to trust fundamentals over emotion, that while emotion is a fine thing, I’ve found, when a linebacker or life delivered a slobber knocker, without a solid base, I’d have been as bewildered as a televangelist at a Billy Graham Crusade. Three weeks ago, the last wall of the old Elbert Long School fell. It was the wall that held an old chalkboard that now is a pile of rubble. Like a victim of Stockholm Syndrome, I find a strange pleasure in the last walls to fall meant the most to me, particularly if one has read previous pieces, the final wall. It sits in rubble now but helped me  stand in life’s rubble or as the original Apostle Paul penned to the Corinthians, “run in such a way as you may win”. On September 7, 2017, Coach lost his battle with kidney disease but the lessons I learned from him carry on. Tomorrow, I’ll walk across another small gym floor as an educator & he’ll be one of those riding on my shoulders & I’ll think about squeaking chalk & 3 rules he gave me for leading a huddle:
1- Sometimes, being in charge means ticking (he used a different word, but this is a family show) people off
2- Win men’s hearts & they’ll follow you anywhere
3- There is no substitute for preparation in the 4th quarter

I’ve only had keys for that little gym for a short time, but I’m already finding out I’ve had the three keys I need for a while.
I wish I had better words but Kenny Chesney took ‘em when he wrote & sang “Coach”:
“For all your time, your heart & your soul, you deserve a lot more than a toast
So here’s to you & thanks again
We’ll love you & we’ll hold you in
Our hearts there with
The things that matter most
We’ll never forget you, Coach”
I’ll never forget you Coach,
Thanks for the Sundays
With love, Mike