One for the Road
Clemson is a great place to spend a Saturday afternoon during football season. A rural town of 10,000 during the week swells to 80,000 on game day, pretty much all of them wearing orange and yelling for their Tigers in Memorial Stadium. It’s some spectacle.
The pain is getting there.
One of my least favorite stretches of highway is I-85 south of Charlotte where herds of semi trucks roam. Generally I have nothing against semis. I even wrote a song about the hard-working men and women who drive them called Tailgating Trucker. The problem down along the North Carolina-South Carolina border is that there are these long inclines where once the big trucks get in the left lane they’re liable to be there for miles and miles and miles. That leaves me fuming for miles and miles.
And miles.
Before I shove off to these fun and games, I thought I’d lay out some material I picked up this week on Orville Reynolds. I was going to write a piece late in the week on the freshman running back who had his redshirt burned against Notre Dame last Saturday, but as it turned out I wrote about him for Monday morning, and again for Wednesday. I thought three stories might be a bit excessive for the Journal, in that it would be one for every time he’s touched the ball in college.
We did ask about him at Tuesday’s gathering to eat chicken and talk football, and here’s what coach Jim Grobe had to say.
“He is just the all-around kid,’’ Grobe said. “He’s a good football player, but not a good student. He’s a great student. He’s a really smart kid. If you mold one as a kid – character, academics, football, all that stuff – it’s just as good as it gets. That’s why it’s been really tough on me because I want to do what’s best for Orville but I also want to do what’s best for our football team.
“I think probably my decision would have been a little different the other night had I not felt that he was really excited about the opportunity. If he wasn’t so pumped up about it, I probably wouldn’t have thought to put him out there. But he didn’t hesitate. He really wanted to go.
“I felt bad before the game because (running backs coach Billy Mitchell) felt like Josh was healthy enough to give him a shot and just see if we could keep Orville on the shelf. So at pregame meal I was talking to Orville and just told him `Look I’m going to still try my best to keep you on the backburner and not play you tonight, but you’ve just got ot be ready anytime because as soon as Josh can’t go, you’re going. As soon as Josh told Mitch his leg was bothering him. I didn’t want his first snaps to be this Saturday. Plus we thought he had the speed to give us a chance.’‘
For his part Reynolds said he just wanted to do whatever he could to help the team. He did say his folks, Seymour and Olivinne Reynolds, got a real thrill back home in Coral Springs, Fla., when he entered the game in the fourth quarter against Notre Dame.
“They were all just excited to see me on TV. It didn’t matter what I did,’’ Reynolds said.
“They’re just glad I’m getting an opportunity. It’s a lot earlier than we expected. So they’re pretty happy about that.’‘