My LUCKY day

 

 A first-grade vocabulary is not much to brag about, but for the sake of WORDLE, please indulge me. And please hold your applause. 

 For more than two years, I used the same two seed-words, ABIDE and LOUSY. Abide is my favorite Bible verb, and Lousy is essentially the opposite of abiding in Christ. When played together they tell me all the possible vowels.
 On March 19, 2024, the winning word was ABIDE. So my WORDLE became flesh. John 15:4, y'all. 
 Since then, I've led off with LOUSY, knowing that it would eventually be a first-guess winner.

 August 16 turned out to be my lucky day. That afternoon in Albemarle, we Hall and Amber revealed the gender of our grandson, Robert Ruskin Layton. That night, I logged on to WORDLE and entered LOUSY.
 Bingo!

 The day after LOUSY won, this granddaddy needed new seed-words. So I looked up IDEAL and YOURS, and found that neither has been used by WORDLE. 

 On Oct. 19, IDEAL won.
 So now I start with AROSE and JUICY. Eventually those will be winners. At the very least, they tell me all the vowels. If the U is not in the second place, I can safely rule out Q. And E and Y narrow down the possibilities for the final letter.
 WORDLE says IDEAL was the seventh time I've gotten the first guess right. Other than ABIDE, I don't remember any of the others. Seventeen times I've needed only one or two guesses.
 Mary points out that solving WORDLE in one guess is pure luck, and that two guesses is the height of discernment. AI says the odds against a one-word guess are 1/2,315.

 The ones I remember are the ones I missed, or when WORDLE missed  me.
 On July 31, riding a streak of 666 consecutive games, I solved DAUNT. But a couple of days later, I noticed that the streak had reset after 666. Evidently, WORDLE never recorded that answer. If you miss a day, it's as if you missed a word. (Or maybe WORDLE halts streaks at the mark of the beast.) 
 So I had to start over.
 A few days later, I had _I_TY, and for my last guess I tried NIFTY, when it should have been MINTY. When the streak was intact, I was always careful about cross-checking my final guess. If you're a serious player, you're familiar with lists of all the words WORDLE has previously used, as well as lists of the unused words. If I had checked those, I could have ruled out NIFTY, and MINTY would have been self-evident. But without the streak, I was lazy.
 Honestly, I think the streak would have ended a few days later with KEFIR, a word I've never encountered. I'm told it's some sort of yogurt. Not sure I could have ferreted out that one.
 The streak of 666 began after I had _ADDY and guessed PADDY rather than DADDY.

 A more recent streak died when I had to choose between HOLLY and HOTLY. (Should have played the T earlier in the game.)
 The trick of keeping the streak alive is to never miss a day. I was able to play every day when I traveled to Romania earlier this year.

 Bless its heart, WORDLE avoids obscure and archaic words. The trickiest ones I remember: PSALM, POLYP, SPASM, ABHOR, FUGUE, and GIZMO.

 Thank you for your applause. I want to thank my Mrs. MacLean and Mrs. Shanklin, my teachers in first and second grade at Concord Elementary School in Anderson.

Remembering Radio

A sweet portrait of Radio and Coach Harold Jones
Photo credit: Ken Ruinard, Independent-Mail

 I didn't fully appreciate it at the time, but my tenth-grade year at T.L. Hanna High School was a historic time. That was the year that the Anderson schools were integrated, and an amazing athlete that the world knows as Jim Rice (we called him Ed) was gerrymandered from Westside to Hanna. As the scorekeeper for the Hanna baseball team in the spring of 1971, I had the opportunity to behold our own version of Jackie Robinson, a future Hall of Famer breaking the local color line. 
 That same spring was when I met a 35-year-old fellow known as Radio who never missed Hanna baseball games at dinky old Nardin Field. There were no grandstands, so the fans and scouts sat on the field behind the chicken-wire backstop or milled around behind our bench. I didn't know Radio well, but over the years I came to appreciate him and his story.
 In fact, the greatest regrets of my sportswriting career were that I never wrote the stories of Jim Rice and Radio. An Anderson sportswriter named Josh Peter told their stories instead, and did them justice.  Josh's story about Radio inspired Gary Smith to write the story for Sports Illustrated, which prompted the 2003 movie, Radio.

Radio's shoebox gift in Sudan

 I've kept up with Radio over the years, and in 2003 he and Coach Harold Jones packed shoebox gifts for Operation Christmas Child. In my travels with Samaritan's Purse, I had the opportunity to deliver one of Radio's gift boxes to a little girl in Sudan. Of course, his box included a minature yellow T.L. Hanna football (which unfortunately was turned the wrong way for the photograph).
 My years at Hanna were before Radio started attending class and became a perpetual 11th-grader. He was a fixture on the sidelines at hundreds of football games spanning more than 50 years. The last time I saw him was a rainy playoff game in 2018. This year, as his health declined, he was able to attend only one football game. This past weekend, he was admitted to the same hospice facility where my father died three years ago. On Dec. 15, 2019, a Sunday morning, Radio finally graduated from this life at age 73. (On June 5, 2020, he graduated posthumously from Hanna). Anderson won't be the same without him.
 I've collected some tributes from those who knew him well. Jacky Newton was a classmate of mine who is now a pastor in Kentucky. Last week, when Radio was gravely ill, Jacky wrote this devotional:

“WE CALL HIM RADIO“

 "His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!" (Matthew 25:23)
 If I asked you to pray for James Robert Kennedy, would you have any idea who I was referring too? Probably not. But if I called this man by his more common name, just about everybody in America would know who I was talking about. Yes, Mr. Kennedy is none other than RADIO!
 I first met, or shall I say noticed, Radio when I was sitting in my 9th grade English class. You couldn’t mistake that laugh and the sound of his transistor radio as he would push and then ride his grocery cart down the hill beside McCants Junior High. He was there again after school chasing down the foul balls during batting practice; running and hiding from the baseball team. When football practice began on those hot July days, here was this shy, young black man watching us practice at Narden Field. If a football would find its way off the practice field, Radio would run like lightening to retrieve it and hesitantly pitch it back to one of the players.
 It wasn’t long before Coaches Harold Jones and Dennis Patterson were able to gain Radio’s friendship and he became part of the Yellow Jacket “B Team” back in 1970. He drank from the same Gatorade bucket as we did, and pretended to do calisthenics. I’ll never forget the day down in that old field-house in the end zone of McCants Stadium when the coaches yelled down at a few of us in the shower, “Y’all put Radio in there with you and give him a bath!” LOL
 Talk about trying to corral a wildcat! Radio wasn’t sure about us big boys, soap and water. But after a few minutes he liked standing under that hot water. My Senior year I couldn’t play football because of knee surgery so I helped tape ankles, make Gatorade, etc. But my main job during practice and on Friday nights was to watch after Radio. It was then I got to know him best. I could tell you a million Radio stories; like when he would stir the 5-gallon Gatorade bucket with his dirty hands and arm. Then there was the time that before the team could board the bus for the ride back home after an away game, Radio had already been on the bus and taken a bite out of each of their sandwiches.
 I could go on and on but I’ll stop because everyone who has ever met Radio has a “Radio Story.” Even my mom called last month, she had met Radio and Coach Jones in rehab and of course she had a “Radio Story.” It’s amazing that a man with everything in the world against him has become a household name all across America and one of the most beloved persons to ever live.
 This man who has never shot, thrown or caught a ball, or never competed in one single athletic event in high school, is in the TL Hanna High Athletic Hall of Fame. Yes, and he deserves to be there and will be remembered when most others are forgotten. A young black man who grew up in poverty, who could neither read, write or barely talk became a Hollywood Star. He roamed the halls of TL Hanna for 50 years but refused to be “promoted “ from the 11th grade. Why? Because if he ever became a Senior it would mean graduating and having to leave Hanna! lol
 Yes, for almost 50 years, James Robert Kennedy, has led the Yellow Jackets onto the football field. He was present for every sporting event possible, men’s & women’s, as long as his health would allow.
 I got a call a few days ago to let me know that it seems that Radio could be approaching that final end zone. My heart is heavy, tears flow from my eyes. My ol’ buddy, an institution, may soon cross over that goal line of life. I also cry tears of joy because I know Radio is going to a far better place. A place where he can have a new body, a new mind; where he can run, dance and be like everyone else. Where he can be with his mother again. I’m sure Jesus is waiting to say, “Welcome home Radio!” And I’m sure one day, no doubt about it, I’ll hear Radio say, “Glad to see you Jacky. Wait til you taste the Gatorade up here!”

 Don Miller is a retired coach in Greenville. His story references a couple of other local characters. (Read Gary Smith's SI story if you are wondering who they are.) Here is Don's tribute:

THE BELL RINGER

 A local icon has passed. I think everyone is familiar with the Radio story, at least if you are from the South. A book and movie chronicled the story of a mentally challenged young man who was befriended by a coach, school and community. Radio went on to be what I call the “Bell Ringer” for his school.
 If you haven’t seen the movie, it’s worth the rental with Cuba Gooding playing James “Radio” Kennedy and Ed Harris playing Coach Harold Jones. I was lucky enough to have met both Radio and Coach Jones as we squared off against each other on many fields of athletic endeavor. It was always a joy, win or lose, to meet up with Radio.
 Many small towns, even some larger ones, have bell ringers like Radio. I call them bell ringers because of one special man who rang the victory bell at a local high school’s football field. Some were flag bearers as they led their football team onto the field, through the goal post and hopefully on to victory. One, after growing old in age but not spirit, was buried in the local Legion baseball uniform. Undying loyalty even in death.
 Young men who grew old but never quite grew up. For some reason, God chose them to be both challenged and special. They were folks who in addition to being challenged, were special to their schools and were their school’s number one fan and “Bell Ringer.” They all possessed the wide-eyed wonderment and innocence associated with the young every time their teams took the field.
 Radio passed last night at seventy-three. He had been in bad health, in and out of the hospital will complications due to diabetes and kidney function. His hugs and smiles will be missed by the school and community.
 Last year the CBN network and 700 Club aired an interview and article on Radio’s and Coach Jones’s fifty-year friendship. I cannot improve upon it so I will simply share it. You should take the time to watch the interview or read the article. It not Coach Jones’s final quote is “People with special needs, you know, they give us more love than we can actually return.”
 Radio certainly provided a lot of love.

 Longtime Hanna principal Sheila Hilton shared her memories:

 Life is full of ironies. One would think that most high schools have at least one famous student who has brought great recognition to the institution. Maybe it is a student who graduated from Harvard, maybe one who won the Pulitzer Prize for journalism, maybe a famous professional football player. T. L. Hanna has had all of these, but none can come close to their most famous “student.” James “Radio” Kennedy, a 73-year-old, mentally challenged man, showed up on football field in the mid-1960s and has been an integral part of the school ever since. At that time, he was a teenager, with a transistor radio seemingly attached to his ear, who could barely speak and had never learned to read or write. He was nicknamed “Radio” by the coaches and players. He became a fixture at football practices, standing passively and watching, until one day when he began to mimic the coaches’ signals and tried his hand at yelling out commands. At that point, he could have been labeled a distraction and sent away. But he was not. The coaches embraced him, and as coaches came and went, someone would always take over in caring for him. Eventually, Harold Jones took the job and has been his “daddy” ever since.
 Generations of Hanna students and faculty had an opportunity to know Radio. Everyone has a story to tell, some of them priceless — his eating a cooler full of sandwiches that had been made for the team and stored safely on the bus; his pass-kick-and-throw half-time shows; his permanent status as a junior, with no threat of graduation; and his astounding ability to name the mascot of any team in the state. The stories could fill the pages of a lengthy book, each showing the child-like innocence and loving heart that existed within him.
 It would be easy to talk about all the school did for Radio, but the miraculous thing about this story is what Radio did for the school. It is perhaps a lesson of which all of us need to be reminded. Because he was embraced by caring people, he was stimulated to learn. Because he was loved, he found his place in the world. Because people looked past his disabilities and imperfections, he found a way to make his own unique contribution to the world. What a lesson there is to be learned here. How many lost souls could be saved with a little care and attention? The thousands of students who have made their way through the halls of T. L. Hanna over the years have seen the results of the love and caring given to Radio. He had a permanent smile on his face. He was never without his ability to shake hands and hug necks. He returned exponentially whatever love was given to him. And here the irony rests. He gave back much more than he received.
 In our small town of Anderson, SC, Sports Illustrated, Readers’ Digest, ESPN, CBS News, and even Hollywood have told his story, one about a disabled child in a grocery cart riding the hills behind the old McCants, arguably the most famous person to come out of Anderson.
 It was destiny that he arrived on that football field some fifty years ago. He was without a Harvard degree or Pulitzer Prize or professional football contract, but his fame surpassed all of these accolades. And the story is simple: love and compassion can change lives. It has changed his, and, in return, he has changed ours, and we are better people for having known him.

 Mark Hamrick is a former Furman University athlete who was a high school basketball referee when he met Radio.  

 I was saddened to learn of the death of James "Radio" Kennedy. He was a kind and pleasant man who shared happiness with many during his lifetime. I first met "Radio" back in the late 1980's while officiating basketball at T.L.Hanna High School in Anderson,S.C. That was a few years before Hollywood discovered him.

 During my first assignment there, "Radio" met me with a big smile and the key to the dressing room. He asked me what else I would need and he seemed disappointed when I answered, nothing. So I told him that some water would be great. During my years as a basketball official I never asked for anything extra at a high school or small college assignment because I appreciated that most of them had tight budgets that certainly did not include funds for basketball official extras.

 However, on that night I soon realized that we were operating by "Radio" rules, so after a brief discussion we decided, or more accurately "Radio" decided, that I would get a Snickers candy bar with my water. After that night I never again spoke of a candy bar to "Radio".

 Over the next few basketball seasons I worked several T.L. Hanna games. On many of those nights "Radio" met me with a big smile, the key to the dressing room and a promise to return with MY water and MY Snickers. As the years passed and I moved on from high school officiating I left probably owing T.L.Hanna for more than a dozen candy bars thanks to the persistent generosity of "Radio". I should write them a reimbursement check in memory of "Radio" but instead this one last time I will play by "Radio" rules and just remember the times that I shared with those candy bars and "Radio".

 His laugh, his kindness and his happy approach to life serve as a memory of one of the good guys. James "Radio" Kennedy will be missed.

Anderson honored Radio with a statue in 2006

If my life was an airline, this would be my route map

     I recently came across a neat website called Great Circle Mapper that makes it easy to display customized airline routes. I decided to enter all the flights I've ever taken (anyone surprised that I keep track of such things?) so I could visualize all the places I've been privileged to go.
     This globe shows the result. It's my version of the Bible maps of Paul's missionary journeys—only without any shipwrecks.
     The green routes span my newspaper career, mostly in Greenville. I wore a leisure suit on my first flight, at age 20, when my benevolent editor/great uncle Slim Hembree sent me to Omaha to cover the College World Series for the Anderson Independent. I have to thank Woodruff's Tony Rice for getting me to Phoenix, and Clemson's Rick Barnes for the junket to Puerto Rico.
     The yellow routes are flights I've made since joining Samaritan's Purse in 1999. Back in 2005, I departed on a 22,664-mile round-the-world trip to report on our tsunami relief work in Sri Lanka and Indonesia. We flew east via London and the Maldives to Sri Lanka, and after we continued over to Indonesia, the most direct way home was to keep flying east via Taipei and Los Angeles. (On a 40-minute backwards hop from Kuala Lumpur to Medan, we crossed a time zone and landed earlier than we took off.)
     The flight over the North Pole was from New York to Beijing to report on the 2008 earthquake in China. That yellow dot in the Sahara Desert is Timbuktu, where I had the privilege of helping to hand out Operation Christmas Child shoebox gifts. Most recently was a five-leg 17,330-mile round trip to Burundi to report on the ministry of one of our surgical teams.
     Here is the flat-earth view:

     Great Circle Mapper says I've flown 327,090 miles to 90 airports in 35 countries. If you figure 500 miles per hour, that's about two weeks of my life spent jammed into airplane seats.
     (On the other hand, I've probably driven close to a million miles. At 50mph, that would be over two years behind the wheels of the Mustangs, Spitfire, Bobcat, Hyundai, Lumina, Windstar, Saturn, Tribute, Accord, and CX-5.)
     These maps only show the places with airport codes like ATL, JFK, and 34NC (the helipad atop Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte). Some of the places I've flown don't have codes, including several dirt strips in Africa and a float-plane landing at Dick Proennecke's cabin in Alaska.

SILLY JET! What else can you do with Great Circle Mapper? Well, the navigators of a Boeing 787 used an 18-hour test flight to draw a self-portrait. Click here!

En route to Darfur, Africa, I had a photo-op in the cockpit of a DC-3 built for World War II.

Anderson's Dr. Anne welcomed 10,509 of us

     Dr. Anne Young of Anderson, S.C., delivered 10,509 babies in her 71-year medical career.
     In the pre-dawn hours 62 years ago today, I became one of them.
     Reminiscing with my mama about the blessed event, she reminded me that I arrived later than expected (setting a lifelong pattern), that Daddy delayed checking into the hospital until after midnight (to avoid an extra day's charges) and that Grandmama Essie was so overwhelmed that she told everyone I was 21 feet (rather than inches).
     When I was born, Dr. Anne was 62 years old—the same age I am today. When she retired in 1983, she was 91—the same age as my mom today.
     On the occasion of Dr. Anne's final delivery, my friend Deb Richardson-Moore did a wonderful job putting her life into perspective: "A girl who will graduate from high school in the 21st century delivered by a woman pioneer of the 19th century."
     If you can't read the clipping below, try this link.

There once was a Wobegon headline

 "There once was a man from Wisconsin"
 How does that headline sound to you?

 Like the start of a naughty limerick?

 Or the unedited demise of a once-trendy newspaper?

 Or don't you recognize Garrison Keillor, the unmistakable voice of ... Minnesota? 

 Not Wisconsin, for heaven's sake.

 That's the woe-begotten headline that USA TODAY published last week for a story on Keillor's retirement after 40 years as the host of the public-radio institution, A Prairie Home Companion.
 I wish I could give the newspaper credit for attempting a limerick, because Keillor would have appreciated that. In fact, he wrote several limericks specifically for Wisconsin when he performed in the beer town of Milwaukee.

There was a young man who loved Pabst
He drank it until he collapsed
He gave up beer
For Lent every year
And on Easter morning, relapsed.

 On his farewell broadcast this past Saturday night, Keillor recited or referenced several limericks, including bawdy verses about men from from Pocatello, Antietam, and Nantucket. This one even had an autobiographical first line:

There is an old man of St. Paul.
Put his desk in a toilet stall.
It was quiet, conducive,
And one had the use of
The plumbing with no wait at all.

 Even at age 73, Keillor still has a boyish love for limericks. "I intended to be a serious poet," he confessed in his final Lake Wobegon monologue. "Instead, I was fascinated by the limerick."
 I felt much the same way about my old medium—newspapers. And after I heard Keillor's farewell show and saw that headline, it got my my words pumping:

Back in the newspapers' heydey,
One called itself USA TODAY.
The going got tough,
Proofreaders laid off.
Wisconsin looks like Minnesotay.

 I feel entitled to pick on USA TODAY because I was associated with the McPaper from its revolutionary beginnings in 1982. They gave me one of most obscure jobs in journalism—contributing the daily sports item from South Carolina for the old Around the USA page. I earned $5 per item, and as I recall, those words were edited and cross-checked relentlessly. That's what newspapers did in the days of yore, when folks up and down the street were willing to pay for home delivery—twice a day, mind you—and newspapers found value in employing copy editors and proofreaders.

 Those were the good old days. In the 1980s (about the same time that Keillor made the cover of TIME magazine) The Greenville News was so ambitious we thought we could take over the state of South Carolina. If we could gain a few thousand readers and establish a semblance of a statewide audience, maybe we could pry the lucrative legal advertisements away from the Columbia paper.
 As part of this campaign, I was given a wonderful opportunity—not to mention a bottomless budget—to expand our high school football coverage statewide and cultivate a border-to-border audience. We catered barbecue for thousands of coaches every year and published special editions that were over a hundred pages. On the eighth Friday night of the 1984 season, we succeeded in getting every score of every game in the entire state in our first edition, which we felt certain had never been accomplished before. And for the next eight years, we never went to press without every score. We had radio ads bragging about it.
 If a coach didn't call in his game—and why wouldn't he, since we offered him $10 to dial us toll-free?—then we would make the midnight call to his house or the firehouse or the Waffle House to hunt down the score.

There once was a coach in St. Matthews.
Who'd rip out the phone if his boys lose.
So we'd call the town cop
Or the local truck stop
Where the quarterback gets his tattoos.

 In a different era and a different state, Keillor might have been the one calling in the game for us. One of the revelations I discovered in all the tributes published last week was that he, like me, began his career as a junior-high sportswriter. When a San Francisco reporter asked him about the happiest memory from his youth, he said: 

"The happiest was when I went out for football in the eighth grade and I took a physical, and the doctor told me I couldn’t play because I had a click in the valve of my heart. I was shocked, but I took this experience as a cue that I have to do something else that was brave, and I went to the local paper and asked if they needed someone to write up sports, knowing they didn’t have anybody. So they let me do it. So instead of sitting on the bench, I sat at the top of stands in the press box with men from the local radio station who were broadcasting the game. I sat with a tablet and a pencil and felt like royalty up there. I was a writer!"

Fuller, Fullest, and the Fantastic 4

Old football proverb: The name on the front of your jersey is more important than the name on the back. (New York Times photo)

    At the end of the Orange Bowl, Clemson needed to run a six-second play to exhaust the clock and keep from giving the football back to Oklahoma. So instead of taking a knee, Deshaun Watson took a shotgun snap, waited a couple of ticks, cocked his golden right arm, and launched a 60-yard pass into the Clemson fan section on the other end of the stadium.
     The way this perfect-ending season has gone, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Watson's game-ending pass was caught by none other than Steve Fuller.
     Almost everything Watson has done this season has brought honor to Fuller, who was—listen, children!— the quarterback who put Clemson football on the map.

WON NOT DONE (Miami Herald photo)

     By the time Watson reached the podium on New Year's Eve to accept the award as the most valuable offensive player in the Orange Bowl, he had shed his game jersey, the one with the patch on the right shoulder honoring Fuller. Instead, he was wearing a T-shirt saying WON NOT DONE, immediately changing the focus to the Jan. 11 national championship game against Alabama. 
     I know there are some who thought it cheapened Fuller's memory to unretire his number and use it to entice Watson to come to Clemson. Some of my friends say it would be better to keep Fuller's No. 4 under glass, like Howard's Rock.
     Why not have it both ways? The New York Times had the story this week of how Clemson has balanced its history against its future:

———

A Clemson Juggernaut Is Led by a Star Wearing No. 4. That Figures.

By Tim Rohan

   Inside the Clemson locker room at Memorial Stadium, about 10 feet from quarterback Deshaun Watson’s locker, is a shrine to the jersey number he wears. There, set up neatly in another locker, is a throwback helmet, a pair of uniform pants and a hanging No. 4 jersey. It is all encased in glass, like a museum exhibit recalling the glory days of Clemson football.

   In reality, it is a tribute to Steve Fuller, the quarterback of the famed 1978 Clemson team. His number, 4, was the first one retired by Clemson’s football program.

Fuller made an exception two years ago and allowed Watson to wear the number. That has created an awkward situation: In leading Clemson to a 13-0 record and finishing third in the Heisman Trophy voting. Watson has perhaps surpassed Fuller as the greatest player in Tigers history.

   When Watson was coming out of high school in Gainesville, Ga., Clemson’s ability to offer him No. 4 was another advantage in his recruitment as the university competed with the likes of Alabama and Florida State. When Watson was still a high school junior, Clemson Coach Dabo Swinney slyly mentioned to Fuller, while the two of them were paired at a golf tournament, that some universities honored their past by allowing current players to wear retired numbers.

   The next year, at the same tournament, Swinney got more specific, explaining to Fuller who Watson was — a five-star recruit ranked among the top players in the nation — and what it would mean if Fuller would consent to Watson’s wearing his No. 4.

   “I gave him my blessing with the understanding that this was an unusual kid, and it would be a nice thing for the program,” Fuller said in a phone interview this week as he prepared to travel to the Orange Bowl. “If Coach said it was a good idea, I was going to go along with it.”

   It would have been hard for Swinney to blame Fuller if he had said no. When Fuller arrived at Clemson in 1975, the Tigers had not made a bowl game in the previous 15 seasons. When he took his first snap in his first start as a freshman, his feet were in the end zone in Tuscaloosa, Ala. — a metaphor for the state of the program.

   Fuller never put up the flashy statistics Watson has produced, but his role was different. Even though the Tigers had Dwight Clark and Jerry Butler, a future first-round draft pick, they ran a gritty option offense, and Fuller was its maestro. At one point, he started 27 consecutive games. In his senior year, the Tigers went 11-1, averaged 31 points a game, and beat Ohio State in the Gator Bowl in Buckeyes Coach Woody Hayes' final game.

   At the time, Fuller was the most decorated player in Clemson history. He was twice named the Atlantic Coast Conference player of the year and finished sixth in the Heisman Trophy voting as a senior, becoming the first Tiger to finish in the top 10. Clemson retired his No. 4 before he left campus, during the 1979 spring game.

   “I just happened to be the guy that was the quarterback on a team that, as we look at it, the team that turned the program in the right direction, gave it a little bit of a renaissance,” Fuller said. “We got it to the point where it was not a big national power, but a program that people started recognizing and kids in high school started noticing. It was more that, than me as an individual. I was the guy taking the snaps.”

    Three years after Fuller graduated, Clemson won its only national championship. Now, with Watson, they have their best shot at a second title.

   When Watson first got to campus, Swinney frequently gave Fuller updates on Watson’s progress, on the field and in the classroom, as if Watson were Fuller’s son. But Fuller mostly watched Watson from afar, from the same seats that his father had sat in when he played.

    Injuries, most notably a torn anterior cruciate ligament, cut short Watson’s freshman season, but he impressed his coaches with his maturity, decision-making and athleticism. Fuller noticed his poise under duress.

    In early October, Fuller watched from the stands with his college teammate Jeff Bostic as Watson accounted for all three Clemson touchdowns in a close win over Notre Dame, in what was perhaps Clemson’s most important game of the regular season. Bostic leaned over and asked Fuller if Clemson could retire No. 4 twice. He chuckled to make clear that he was joking.

   But perhaps Bostic had a point. “He would certainly be deserving of it when he’s done,” Fuller said of Watson. “Knock on wood. Hopefully we’ve got a lot of good things left to come.”

———

     Schools differ in how they honor the numbers of their football heroes. Alabama has never retired a number. Florida State retires jerseys but allows the numbers to be reused. 

     Of the schools who recruited Watson, only Clemson had retired No. 4, so once Fuller gave his blessings, it essentially leveled the playing field. Wherever he went, Watson could keep the number he wore for the Gainesville High Red Elephants.
     I don't know if No. 4 was even a factor in Watson's college decision, but it was a nice trump card for Clemson to be able to play. And of all the inducements a hotshot recruit may be offered, a special jersey number is pretty honorable.
     But the question remains: By bringing No. 4 out of retirement, has Clemson taken anything away from Fuller? Not as long as kids see the patch on Watson's shoulder and ask Granddaddy, "Who's Fuller?"

Steve Fuller against Notre Dame in 1977

     Oh, little Tiger, let me tell you about Steve Fuller. His team was the first from Clemson to beat Georgia "between the hedges," which were planted way back in 1929. Beat uppitty Georgia Tech in Atlanta back when they almost never came up to Clemson. Nearly beat Joe Montana and Notre Dame's 1977 national championship team. Beat Woody Hayes in the Gator Bowl. Fuller didn't do it by himself, of course, but he was the face of the program when Clemson decided to double-deck Death Valley and recruited many of the players who won the 1981 national championship.
     Little Tiger, don't you ever forget Steve Fuller.

     Retired numbers can be quickly forgotten. To prove my point, here's a pop quiz: See how many of these players you can name by their retired numbers:

Clemson: 4, 28, 66 (Hint: 66 is not William Perry).
Auburn: 7, 34, 88.
Florida State: 2, 16, 17, 25, 28, 34, 50 (Hint: 28 also had a profound impact on Watson's life).
Georgia: 21, 34, 40, 62.
South Carolina: 2, 37, 38, 56.

     Can you even pick out the seven Heisman Trophy winners on that list? (Answers below)

An Orange Bowl reminder of Fuller's first juggernaut

Before he was No. 4, Steve Fuller wore 11 at Spartanburg High

      I was away at Missouri or busy at the office during Fuller's career at Clemson, and the only time I remember seeing him play in person was in 1974, when he was quarterback of the Spartanburg High School team that regularly put 70 on the scoreboard and set a state record for points in a season. 
     And when I saw Watson and defensive MVP Ben Boulware on the podium after the Orange Bowl, it brought back a special memory. Boulware is a graduate of my high school, T.L. Hanna—the team that stopped Fuller's Spartanburg juggernaut.
     Thanks for the memories, Ben and Deshaun.
     Congratulations, Steve. This one's for you.

T.L. Hanna graduate Ben Boulware (Miami Herald photo)

RETIRED NUMBERS

Clemson: 4-Steve Fuller, 28-C.J. Spiller, 66-Banks McFadden.
Auburn: 7-Pat Sullivan, 34-Bo Jackson, 88-Terry Beasley.
Florida State: 2-Deion Sanders, 16-Chris Weinke, 17-Charlie Ward, 25-Fred Biletnikoff, 28-Warrick Dunn, 34-Ron Sellers, 50-Ron Simmons.
Georgia: 21-Frank Sinkwich, 34-Herschel Walker, 40-Theron Sapp, 62-Charlie Trippi.
South Carolina: 2-Sterling Sharpe, 37-Steve Wadiak, 38-George Rogers, 50-Mike Johnson.

Heisman Trophy winners are underlined. Conspicuously absent from that list are the 2010 and 2014 Heisman winners, Auburn's Cam Newton and FSU's Jameis Winston.