My Dad was quite a guy!

YAY! It’s college football season again!

And the start of every season also brings my dad to mind – a tall, tough, strong – 6’3″ 230 lbs. – factory worker with thick fingers, thin hair and an eccentricity for wearing “walking shorts” and short-sleeve polos with a pocket.

He loved ’em! Wore them eight months out of twelve. (And we lived in northern climes too!) Totally famous throughout the neighborhood (and town) for those shorts and shirts he was.

Yeah, he was quite a guy.

Like most kids, I’ve got a million stories, but the one that I want to share with you is a special one. And it ironically involves college football.

I say ‘ironically’ because he wasn’t a coach. He never played football. He didn’t even like football. I played football in both high school and college. To my recollection, he and my mom only saw one game. It was one of my first college games as a starter. That was it. In fact, they weren’t even there for senior day at either level.

Before anyone gets the wrong impression, however, let me say that I was hearing impaired at the time. (I’m deaf now.) They were against me playing because of the fear they both shared that I might be severely injured or worse. While I didn’t like their absence, I never was told that I could NOT play, and I accepted their absence as a compromise.

Nevertheless, one of my fondest memories of Dad involves the sport.

It was the Christmas after I graduated from college. I was living at home and working as a substitute teacher and a volunteer football coach at a nearby high school. I had no clue this Christmas was going to be so special.

That last comment was sort of a double entendre. My Dad LOVED to put clues on his gifts for me to decipher. (I’ve tried over the years to emulate them, but I can’t come close.) Talk about CREATIVE and DIFFICULT! To my embarrassment, I never deciphered a single one of those clues.

Here’s the one he put on that package. (Good luck!)

Trees, plastic, and a pharoah’s favorite color. The past for the present is the intent.

(To give you some indication of how deep and involved his clues were: One of my majors in college was history – hence, the pharoah and the past for the present references. And the present meant both the gift and the here and now. But how did that all play into this gift?)

I guessed it was a book. My Dad just shook his head no. NOW, I was intrigued. As I opened it, my Mom was clinging to my Dad’s arm and tears were rolling down her cheeks. Dad’s grin was HUGE.

It was a football trophy Dad designed and made for me!

He’d taken the wood from the stump of a dead elm tree he’d helped my grandfather pull out and burn. From the wood he fashioned a split level base, mounted a golden plastic football player and a guy in a cap and gown he’d purchased from a trophy shop. He also had plates printed with the years and the university for which I played and from which I graduated..

My Dad wanted me to know that he and Mom were proud of what I had accomplished – both in the sport and in the classroom – in spite of my disability.

Yeah, my Dad was quite a guy! Thanks, Pop, and I love you too!

Food for thought.

Mac