A Personal Memory

I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours:

My story would be embarrassing if it wasn’t so funny. At the time, I wasn't so sure about that.

That's where the story starts:

Good friends and fraternity brothers, Johnny Bailey and I were in Coach Mac's study hall. In the week before the Blind Benefit Game, Coach caught us talking and, he "asked” us to stop by after the period which we did. He said that he had a job for us – that we were going to ride on a float in the Blind Game parade – in uniform (and he didn't mean ROTC). Our protests were to no avail. Now anyone that can remember back that far might recall that both of us were what I'd call slight of stature (and I was downright small).

He took us to the locker room where we checked out uniforms (we didn't even get all the pads). On Parade Day, when we showed up in downtown Memphis and climbed onto the float, our stares were met by those of two legendary All-Memphis performers decked out in their game day attire (with all the pads). I don't know who was the most embarrassed, Robert Hyde or Billy Young of Treadwell or Johnny and me. We looked like a couple of scarecrows compared to two “real good” players. Needless to say, that ride down Main Street couldn't go fast enough for all of us.

In the long run, we had the last laugh, though. Central beat Treadwell 10-6 in the last seconds of the game before over 20,000 fans at Crump Stadium. Of course, Johnny and I secretly felt like we had a part in undermining the confidence of their key performers.

Frank Land