As a young man I wanted desperately to be a great baseball player. I could throw the ball faster than anyone else on the team but, alas, I had absolutely no control of the ball. From behind home plate I could throw the ball with some accuracy to second base and with a great deal of power. If you don't believe me just ask Sammy Woods who had to catch the ball at second base and shortstop when I would try to pick someone off. I remember Coach Bacon betting me (really) that I could not throw three straight strikes from home plate to second base. I proceeded to do just that, three straight strikes, in front of everyone on the team, including myself, amazed and Sammy Woods would take his glove off and rub his hand after each throw I made to second base. Coach Bacon did his best to help me recreate that speed and accuracy from the pitcher's mound. As good a coach as Coach Bacon really was and as much as I desired the ability to gain control and be a pitcher, I didn't have the talent. I went home and threw the baseball at a plywood target and all I accomplished was tearing up about 20 good baseballs.

I never could achieve the talent needed to become a great baseball player. I also could hit the ball further than anyone else on the team. I remember our summer league with all the Airways players on it. I hit at least six home runs further than I had seen anyone our age hit a baseball. Even my brother who was our coach during that summer league, because Coach Bacon could not have anything to do with us in the summer league according to school rules, was absolutely amazed at how far I could hit a baseball. But I could not do it with any consistency. I know a lot of you know who Steve Trusty is. I used to love for him to come to bat when we were playing against Sheffield where he went to school, because I would think of some of the most oddball things to say to him to break his concentration when I was catching. I actually was scared to death being the catcher on our team, but I loved that position more than any other I had ever played. To be honest with everyone, I was scared to death of being hit with the bat. I must tell you, it never happened that I was hit with the bat. A couple of times I was hit by the ball but that never hurt because of all the padding in the facemask. No one ever knew how much I really truthfully wanted to be a super baseball player. I must admit, however, I never had the talent to be good enough, to be any kind of a baseball player.  Even the love of the game that I had in those days could not make me into even a mediocre baseball player because I never figured out how to master the ability to be consistent with accuracy throwing a baseball at short distances nor did I master the accuracy of being a power hitter even though I could hit the ball further and stronger than anyone I knew of my age.

As I have said before, I was extremely jealous of all of the magnificent baseball players that I grew up with and went to school with at Airways especially Richard Mills, Ricky Mills and Mike Mills. I could go on and mention Keith Strong, Ricky Hogue, Sammy Woods and many, many others. I personally believe that any of these young men that I went to junior high school with had the ability if they had applied themselves as much as I tried to, to go to any major league team.

I also had the most fun of any sport playing basketball. I won't go into how terrible I really was at playing basketball because I was a disaster on the basketball court, but it was so much fun.

I always kind of thought that I was decent at playing football and I did enjoy playing, but it wasn't a sport that I was deeply in love with but that's not to say that I didn't love playing at Airways Junior High School. One of the greatest honors I ever had was being the captain of the defensive team my last year at Airways. I know that most people probably would have thought that it was no big deal, but it was my heaven on earth. I never tried to take advantage of being captain because I wanted to be a proper captain for my teammates. It was my goal in those days to make sure that we won our division championship outright with no dispute whatsoever and with the help of every single person that was associated with the Airways Junior High School football team. We did just that and we not only won it, we owned it that year. No team, and I absolutely mean no team, in the city of Memphis could have beaten us that year.

I want to take you back to an earlier game that we played where “Junebug”, and I'm sure you all know who I'm talking about, Elbert Crawford, had his leg broken in a play right before we made a touchdown. We were leading this particular team by a pretty fair margin. I don't remember the exact score but it was good enough that we didn't have to worry about it. I, in my ultimate wisdom, decided at kickoff because all our emotions were keyed up because we were worried about our teammate being transported to hospital in an ambulance, I was determined to take advantage of the adrenaline that was building inside all of us and take our minds off of what had just happened. I called a huddle and told everybody that I was calling an onside kick. I told Donnie Doswell it was coming to his side and everyone was to clear room for him to make a touchdown.  If I had not been two foot short of the legal distance for an onside kick we would've had that touchdown because Donnie absolutely got the ball and everyone else cleared a path for him. To my shock I was pulled from the game and chastised for taking advantage and running up the score on a weaker team. To say the least, I was confused and hurt.

I had called the right play at the right time but I just did not execute it as well as it should have been. This was the only time I had ever seen my father speak to Coach Winters about any decision he had made in the three years I played for him. He wanted to know why I was taken out of the game when I did what my coaches had taught me to do and that was to take advantage of a situation that could go our way. Both Coach Winters and Coach Ramsey agreed with my father. I was put back in the game with no explanation. After the game however, Coach Winters took me aside and he in his way apologized to me and explained that this was the school that he had been an assistant coach at when he was training to be a coach and it would have looked bad for us to have taken too much advantage of a school that he had taught at and I understood why the coaches reacted the way they did.

In telling you this, I want to emphasize the fact that I loved, and yes I want to say that again because I have gone toe to toe and been at odds with all three of our coaches at various times for various reasons and I was wrong most of the time but not always, I truly loved and respected Coach Winters, Coach Ramsey and Coach Bacon. They were only human beings and looking back on it now they were extremely young to have had the success that they had as our coaches. I hope that all of our coaches and teachers loved this time in their lives as we did. Don't get me wrong, I have had and am still having a most incredibly wonderful life, much greater than I ever thought possible. I have traveled the world, I have loved one of the greatest women I have ever met, I have learned to love who I am and enjoy my shortcomings as well as the things that I truly excel in.

Reconnecting with my friends at Airways has been an amazing blessing in my life. I have a very large loving family that I am extremely proud to be a member of and I have three of the most wonderful grandkids anyone could ask for, even though they are kids just like any other kids and can be a holy terror at times, they are the greatest grandkids I could've asked for. Being a parent was one of the hardest things I ever tried to do, and in a lot of ways I was a complete failure but in others I was a success because my daughter has turned out to be a pretty decent human being if I do say so myself. So what can any man want or need when God has given him some of the greatest blessings anyone could want? Thank you Lord for everything because I am so undeserving of the greatest gift given, the life that I've lived.