sorry if it was posted before but if you haven't read it, I think you'll like it

Coach Graves and

the Outhouse

My

name is John Thompson. I’m 73 years old now. Once I was known as Johnny, back

when I was a young man and an athlete. That’s when I met Ray Graves, coach of

the University of Florida Fighting Gators football team. He came to my home in

Great Bridge, Virginia, in the early spring of 1961to recruit me for the

Gators. It caused quite a stir and some anxiety for my parents. We were poor.

Our home was a one-room cinderblock house 12 ft. wide by 24 ft. long. Six of us

lived there. No toilet. No running water. A backyard hand-pump provided our

water. We burned firewood for cooking, heating and an occasional warm bath in a

big galvanized tub.

My

parents were ashamed of our poverty. Their biggest fear was “one of these

coaches would come to the house and have to go to the bathroom.” Ours was an

outhouse, built on the back-side of our dirt-road lot next to the woods. Dad

put a big sheet of glass on the forest-side of the structure. So one could

enjoy the natural view while occupying the privy. For further ambiance, he

planted two peach-trees, one on each side of the outhouse entrance. I was 10

years old then. Eight years later, coach Graves came.

Bumpkins

College

coaches started calling on me and my parents midway through my Junior year in

high school. I was awed. My parents were awed. Until the 9th grade, none of us

knew anything about football or sports in general. My father was born without a

hand and crushed his hip in a fall from a tree at age nine. He never played

sports, never threw me a ball of any kind. Neither did his three brothers, my

uncles. I played in the woods. Sports were not part of our experience, not

until I “went out for football.”

A

few years later, famous people, representing unimaginable universities, asked

to come visit and take us to dinner. (Dining at the Holiday Inn on Military

Highways was as magical as an evening on L’Avenue des Champs Elysees). And they

offered scholarships that would pay for everything, including $15 a month for

laundry money!

It

was staggering. I was a marginal student, and had thought little about my

future and not at all about college. I hadn’t a clue which university was best

for me. My parents were overwhelmed and quickly told me, “Johnny, we’re sorry.

We don’t know how to advise you. These colleges are all great to us. We love

every one of these coaches. You’re on your own with this.”

Decision

Making

I

signed a letter-of-intent to go to the University of North Carolina, just 200

miles from home. My high school coach had played there with Charlie “Choo Choo”

Justice back in the 1950s. Later, I signed a letter-of-intent to play for VPI,

now Virginia Tech. They really seemed to want me there. It was another

conference, so the second letter-of-intent was OK. Still, I struggled with the

whole college question.

In

February or March of my senior year, I got a call from a recruiter from the

University of Florida. ‘Can’t remember his name. The coaching staff had heard

about me, he said. Might I be interested in taking a look at the University of

Florida?

I

was bowled over. “Florida” to me and my family and neighbors was a mythical

place where real oranges grew on trees, beaches were everywhere and it never

got cold.

“Coach,”

I replied, “I would love that, but I’ve already signed to go to the University

of North Caroline (I had made up my mind by then). And I’ve told them I’m

coming.”

“I

understand, Johnny. But we’re in another conference, so you wouldn’t be

breaking any rules—if you think you might be interested?”

He

had to know that I was.

“Let

me get back to you,” he said. “Give it some thought.”

A

few days later, he called and asked if Coach Ray Graves might come and visit,

to tell me and my family about the University of Florida?

The Patrician

My

father and youngest brother drove to the Norfolk-Virginia Beach airport, 35

mile away, to pick up Coach Graves. When our worn old Studebaker turned into

the dirt drive, I and the rest of the family walked out to greet our

distinguished visitor. He stepped out of the car looking like a million

dollars. (Indeed, I later learned that Coach Graves was named one of the 10

best-dressed sports figures in America by GQ Magazine). He was so gracious and

took time to recognize explicitly everyone in the family. Then, he looked at me

and said, “Johnny, I believe I’m going to have to go to the bathroom.” Before

he noticed the apoplexy gripping my parents, my kid brother spoke up, “Follow

me coach.”

The

two walked through the rough backyard to the outhouse. “It’s right there,

coach, just past the peach trees.”

In

our home, Mom and Dad were silently wringing their hands. “Lordy, I’m sorry

Johnny,” Dad muttered. Our lack of money didn’t bother me that much, but it

bothered me that it bothered them so. In unison, my siblings and I made light

of our parent’s worries, then exchanged impressions of our guest.

Shortly,

the screen door screeched, and Coach Graves came in. With that great crooked

smile and easy way, he sat down among us and all our worldly possessions. Then

he began to regale me and my parents on outhouses. If you don’t know outhouses,

you can’t fake it. Clearly, Ray Graves, this patrician in our midst, knew

outhouses. He and his family had also relied on an outhouse, he told us. And

it, too, had some nice amenities, like our window facing the woods…. He wasn’t

just talking, he was relating. His life as a young man seemed to have reflected

my own.

Clarity

Before

he left, Coach Graves had said to me and to my family, without ever uttering

the words, that there’s no shame in poverty.

Afterwards,

when Mom and Dad sat down with me to talk, they had this to say: “Johnny,

that’s where you need to go to college, that University of Florida.” Thus did I

become a member of Coach Ray Graves’s first class of recruits at the University

of Florida in the fall of1961.

Many

things brought that group of promising young athletes together on Florida

Field, but I’m given to think that no one else was won over by a good man’s

knowledge of outhouses—and the kind of people who rely on them □