When I arrived at the University
of Georgia, I learned “rush” in Jesup and “rush” in Athens were two different
things. If my dad said, “You are moving
like dead lice are falling off,” that meant I needed to rush through my
chores. In 1966, I was educated on
fraternity rush. That’s how campus Greek
organizations pick new members.
Two
hometown men “rushed” me before I ever got to college. I just didn’t know that’s what you called it.
In the early 1930s, Joe Thomas and Earl
Colvin joined UGA’s Pi Kappa Phi. They
encouraged me to pledge their fraternity, too.
In 1968, I was rush chairman. And there I was, enjoying Sunday lunch at 930
S. Milledge Ave., when I put down a piece of fried chicken. Fraternity brother Spunky Good could tell
something was wrong, and he asked, “What’s the matter?”
“Uh,”
I said, “I don’t have a date for tonight’s new-pledge party.” In the “rush” of handling fraternity details,
I hadn’t remembered to ask someone to go with me.
“Oh,
I know the perfect person,” he said.
“She’s a freshman from my hometown, Camilla. You want me to call her for you?”
“Thanks,
but I’ll call,” I said. I phoned Brumby
Hall and asked for Pam Shirah. The blind
date led to a second. That night, we were
joined by 10,000 screaming fans in the UGA basketball coliseum. The Bulldogs were hosting the LSU Tigers and
their lanky, circus-shooting wizard, Pistol Pete Maravich.
Other than the Harlem
Globetrotters, I had never seen anything like Pete. Just to prove he could, swoosh, he stripped the net with a half-court hook shot.
When
I mentioned that game to my friend Mark Maxwell, he said, “I’ll send you
something.” A few days later, the UGA
athletic archivist emailed the basketball-program cover of that historic
match-up—the Bulldogs against Pistol Pete.
As a bonus, Mark sent a grainy, black-and-white video of the game, minus
the half-court shot. He apologized. The UGA coach had clipped that play from the
film, vowing, “I never want to see that
again.”
Georgia
did get humiliated, but I won another date and another with the Mitchell County
freshman. On Aug. 23, Pam and I will
celebrate our 49th anniversary.
Staring
at the Jan. 8, 1968, program cover, featuring Georgia’s Bob Lienhard and LSU’s
Pete Maravich, my mind rewound to 1970.
Bob, a New Yorker, was the first 7-foot Bulldog. He was a rebounding machine—pulling down a
record 32 in one game.
I sat next to him our
final quarter in school. He was as
clumsy in Mrs. Phyllis Barrow’s Contemporary Georgia class as I would have been
on the basketball court.
When
Mrs. Barrow rattled off Ludowici, Alapaha, Altamaha, Okefenokee, Willacoochee
and Chattahoochee, Bob was as helpless as he was defending The Pistol. When I’d answer a question, he’d look at me,
as if to say: “How’d you know that?” Growing up in Georgia and just knowing the
state was my ticket to an A+. Years
later, Mrs. Barrow said the Yankee big man barely passed, still wondering, “Where’s
Hiawassee?”
From
time to time, I think about Bob Lienhard. I’ve lost track of him. I know about Pistol Pete. He dropped dead, playing in a pickup
basketball game in Pasadena. I remember
the day. We were both 40 in 1988.
Nowadays, I
spend more time thinking about the past, wondering: “What’s the rush?”
dnesmith@cninewspapers.com
