Band of Purple Brothers

The first week of August will always remind of my freshman year at Furman when freshman football players had to report three days ahead of the upperclassman.  It was certainly the biggest change of our young lives.  About 20 of us arrived on campus, not knowing each other or even if we could cut it as college football players.  Furman was a top tier Div. 1AA program headed by one of the most respected coaches in the country, Dick Sheridan.  He ran his football program with class and excellence, and expected such from his players. The demand for excellence heightened our anxieties and fears of adequacy.

I knew going into freshman camp that my roommate would be John Bagwell – a running back from powerhouse football program Summerville High School.  I had met Kelly Smith, another incoming freshman by happenstance earlier that summer.  Kelly was installing new flooring at Sears near my hometown.  I would soon meet 18 more players.  In three days prior to the upperclassmen arriving, we freshman bonded.  While we were individually competing to get the coaches’ attention, we were forming strong team bonds to last a lifetime.

After our first day, teammate Sammy Cooper called a meeting in his room for those of us living close. John and I lived in the same building, and we had about 12 freshman teammates in his room.  We went around the room and told each other where we went to high school, what position we played, and if we had a girlfriend or not.  I still remember many of those conversations 40 years later.  We all seemed to have a picture of our girlfriend, but I don’t think any of those relationships lasted through freshman year.

All but one of us made it through two-a-day practices with the upper classman.  The one teammate who did not was a country boy from the deep woods of South Carolina.  We came home from our second two-a-day practice with the upper classmen, and this kid’s pickup truck was parked next to E-Dorm with the bed of the truck backed up flush against the brick exterior.  He lived on the third floor and was throwing clothes, shoes and bedding into the bed of his pick-up truck.  He loaded up quickly and we never heard from him again.  For the remainder of us, we became as close as brothers. To this day, 12 of those teammates are on a weekly text string.

Sparing you all the college football stories, just know those three days in early August were transformative.  I met some of my best friends, four of whom were groomsmen in my wedding.  I have surf fished, bream fished, crappie fished, shrimped, alligator hunted, deer hunted, rabbit hunted, squirrel hunted, and dove hunted with many of these guys. Several will be interviewed in the coming weeks on our podcast (stay tuned). Military service and college team sports (especially football) build brotherhoods that are uniquely tight. I have been blessed immensely by the band of purple (Furman’s color) brothers.