Athens, 1954
You were eighteen years old,
when you received a letter
beckoning you to enter
into a world
previously unimaginable.
You were born to tired parents
as the third of six children
and the first and only
of them to go
to college,
a foreign place
to the poor.
Freshman nights were spent
on a single cot
in the locker rooms,
evenings as a walk-on
for the Bobcats’
football team,
days as a janitor
pushing a mop to the floors,
wiping the windows
that kept you in
the reality that lingered
within your dreams.
The coaches saw it all,
your talent and tactic,
your motivation
on and off the field,
and decided
to dress you
in green and white
as number eighteen
until you had received
yet another letter
beckoning you to enter
into a world
previously unimaginable
with the turn of a tassel,
making your mother proud
as your father stood
distant and indifferent,
only congratulating you
on finding a way
to leave the house
and go on your own.
You taught, coached,
married, and fathered
three children,
bringing my mother to life
and making it possible
for me to one day
listen to you rock
back and forth
on your rocking chair
in the living room,
mumbling to yourself
about plays made
on a flashing TV screen
and chuckling,
maybe reminiscing
on the days when
you were the one
running the play.
And here I am,
commencing on a journey
to another green and white:
the Thundering Herd,
a type of place
I was always
expected to go.
And I wonder,
as I go through the motions,
selling myself in words,
accomplishments, and character,
what if I were
to sell myself in blood;
what if I could show
that the perseverance
of number eighteen
accumulates in my heart
and forever courses
through my veins.