Football Lessons

Today is the first day of practice for the 2008 high school football season and on this monumental day I reflect back to my high school playing days. I think back to 1972. My gosh, can it be that it’s been 36 years since I was one of these young warriors, full of piss and vinegar and ready to take on the world. It seems like it was yesterday. Sometimes it seems like it was another lifetime ago.

I was lucky enough to play for Keith Richardson, who in my and a lot of other people’s opinion was one of the greatest high school football coaches ever in the history of high school football in South Carolina. Coach Richardson made us good football players, but he made us better men. Sure, he taught us how to win football games, but more importantly, he taught us about life. My teammates and I learned that nothing is impossible, that together as a whole we were stronger than individuals, to love your teammate like a brother, to play hard but to play fair, and to never give up.

Throughout my life when I have hit roadblocks I have called on the lessons that I learned from Coach Richardson, and time and time again these lessons have given me the encouragement that I needed to go on. Many of my teammates have told me the same thing.

Keith Richardson taught us how to be men, and for that myself and 31 other guys that made up the 1972 state champion Clinton Red Devils will forever be indebted to him.

To the young men making up this year’s Raiders, Red Devils, Crusaders, Hornets football teams, I urge you, listen to your coaches. Now they might seem a little to hard, or mean, or ever wrong, but I promise you the lessons that they are teaching you will serve you the rest of your life.

In closing, thank you Coach Richardson for the lessons of life you taught to all the players that were lucky enough to play for you. You meant more to us than you will ever know, and for that we will forever be indebted to you.

‘Til next time, I’m the Big’Un, God Bless all!!!