October Days: 1954

I remember it as if it were yesterday. The smell of the grass, the sound of crunching leather, and autumn colors all come back without much effort. That football season I was a sixth former at Fay and the quarterback of the football team. We had a good team for one reason really. His name was Bobby Gray. A quiet unassuming person from a prominent North Carolina family, Bobby didn’t look like a football star, but he was in every way.

I remember with some pleasure the sequence of plays I liked to call. I first would send Bobby into the line to pick up a few yards. The other team was possibly beginning to feel some confidence at that point, since that play never worked too well.  Then I would call t-3 on three, Bobby’s bread and butter play. He didn’t look like he was running that fast as he swept right end, but no one ever seemed to catch him. When they did, he often knocked them to one side, as he continued running toward the goal line.

In the middle of the season Bobby hurt his back, but he kept playing. I knew he was in great pain often, but he would shrug it off and run around end time after time for long yardage. As the season wore on, I began to look at Bobby differently. He wasn’t just a great football player. He was a heroic person. I didn’t realize then that we all were brave in our own ways. You couldn’t get through the first thirteen years of life without overcoming fear and doing new, hard things.

The next year we went onto St. Mark’s and Bobby’s football days were pretty much over due to his back problem. He did kick extra points for the varsity in his third form year, an unusual accomplishment that spoke of his courage and poise. As the years wore on there were other Bobby Grays in my life both personally and publicly. John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Archibald Cox, and the boy I taught to dive at Brantwood Camp, all exemplified courage. Eventually I realized that heroism was a relative concept. A non-reading adult trying to learn to read was heroic. A shy boy going to a dance, a sensitive person giving a speech; the list was endless. Football could bring clarity to the subject, but it was only one playing field amongst many.

As I look back on those days, I think of Bobby and all he gave to our team. At times I can almost smell burning leaves and hear the sound of the crowd as Bobby Gray sweeps end one more time and heads for the goal line.