Was It All Just for Kicks?

By Don Osborne

An Unexpected Honor

It happened on May 1, 2011 on Sunday afternoon with about seventy-five
friends, former kickers and families of former kickers, coaches, my
family, and other friends from the church and community. The Thomasville
Athletic Boosters Club, the Thomasville Athletic Department and others
from the community had made the arrangements. They had raised enough
money to replace the old original post and add one at the other end of
the field. This field is not only used for football practice and track
and field, but soccer is also played there. It is probably one of the
best facilities of its kind around. This facility was named "The Allen
Brown Athletic Complex" in honor of retired football coach Allen Brown.
So having the goal posts dedicated to me on that Sunday afternoon was a
great honor.
There were several speakers who said some very complimentary things,
pointing out the two beautiful new goal posts that were being dedicated
to me. Then my attention was called to a plaque that was placed on the
wall of the Allen Brown athletic Complex.
I was overwhelmed by all the wonderful things said and the honor I
received. I was also amazed at the number of friends who were there to
share this moment with me. I really didn't think I deserved this much
adulation. As I told them, I have enjoyed it so much because of all the
rewards received in seeing these young men progress and become
successful in their journey through life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: May 7, 2019
• ISBN: 9781644714065

Don Osborne

Biography Hi, I'm Don Osborne. I founded INQUARTA in 1994 and for the past 18 years I have helped more than than 10,000 students apply to medical school, dental school, MBA school, law school, and other graduate programs. I'm a professional admissions coach, a former MCAT instructor, a speaker, and author, a tennis lover, and a tech geek. Back in the 1990′s I created a course for The Princeton Review called "Verbal Accelerator." I taught MCAT prep for nearly 10 years, and I trained dozens of other instructors during my time at The Princeton Review.

Book preview

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Was It All Just for Kicks?

Don Osborne

ISBN 978-1-64471-405-8 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64471-406-5 (Digital)

Copyright © 2019 Don Osborne

All rights reserved

First Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Covenant Books, Inc.

11661 Hwy 707

Murrells Inlet, SC 29576

www.covenantbooks.com

Vivemus trajectere

We live to kick

To all those who aspire to be the best they can be and the coaches and others who encourage and inspire them along the way.

Introduction

This book is about a journey about where I started from and some of the things that happened along the way. There were so many things that happened along the way that guided me to where I am today and to so many people I owe so much. It has been an exciting journey and is still ongoing.

At some point, I began to wonder about something. Was this all meant to be? The more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that there was a reason—a purpose. As I wander through this journey, I will try to recap as much as I can remember about the things that are relevant to it and emphasize the football aspect.

Football has been a major part of my life from about 1959 on. So for the last fifty-eight years, I have been working with young football players of every age from eleven years old to eighteen or twenty, including a young lady or two. During that time, I worked with many kids on the high school and the college level. During those years, I met a lot of their parents and high school coaches and developed lasting relationships with most of them and still kept in touch with a lot of them.

In spite of all this involvement in football, I don’t think I neglected my family life. Jane and I joined First Presbyterian Church in the first couple of years after we arrived in Thomasville, North Carolina (NC) where we began to meet people from the community and made life-long friends there. Both of us have been very active in the church. Serving on committees, being youth advisors, singing in the choir, being on the Board of Deacons and Session, and participating in other church-related things too.

We have also been active in the community. I belong to a major civic club, the Civitan Club, and have been president three times, attended numerous conventions, and have been a member of over fifty years. I also served on the City Recreation Commission for several terms. Jane had served the community very well also. Besides the church involvement she belonged to the Bent Twig Garden Club, she is a member of the Thomasville Woman’s Club, served on the City Beautification Committee, and she was also the Thomasville High School secretary for thirty-one years.

During those years, we never missed a senior prom. She knew all of the teachers, and we meet with some of them once a year on the first week of June. Our two daughters were always involved too. They didn’t play sports but were always cheerleaders and participated in other ways. They were both in the band by the time they were in high school while I was working with the football team coaching the kickers, so we were always at the games.

I was also the Booster club president during some of those years. This was a great time in the life of Thomasville football. This was all to say that I don’t think I neglected my family. But this book is really about my involvement in football, mostly kickers. And as I look back, it is hard for me not to wonder sometimes if I did it all just for my own personal satisfaction—just for kicks!

—Don Osborne

Acknowledgments

There are so many I could thank, but it would be impossible to get them all on this page. From the days in Fort Mill, South Carolina, to the present, there have been so many who helped shape my life and continue to be there for me. Just a few are listed below.

First, Jane, my wife of sixty plus years. I still wonder sometimes why she was willing to give up her job in Camden, South Carolina, and a great family there to come with me to Thomasville, North Carolina. Although it was a struggle at first, we survived, and she has been a faithful companion making our life what it is today. I love you, Jane.

Second, the three coaches I mentioned in the book: Coach Allen Brown, Coach Henry Trevathan Sr., and Coach Sam Story. I learned so much from each of them, and it is still ongoing. It was such a great experience being part of their coaching times. I was allowed to be there on the sidelines at state championship games and share in many other ways such as the North Carolina State Kicking Camp. I thank all of them for allowing me to be part of all those times with them.

Third, Rob Fritts, my long-time friend from the days when I began working with his sons. We spent many days, especially Sunday afternoons working with them. Not only did we spend time with his sons, we also worked with some others on Sunday afternoons and in many kicking camps held at Thomasville High School practice field. Those camps would not have been possible without Rob. They were all very successful, mostly thanks to him.

Fourth, David Millikan. This book would not have been written had it not been for David. If it is successful in any way, it is because of his computer expertise and his overall knowledge of sentence construction and other advice about this writing.

David and I have been close friends since meeting him at the YMCA and inviting him to sing in a chorus that I’m in. He has done so many things for me since my lung operation. He is one of those friends that you can call any time, day or night, and know he will be there. I will always treasure his friendship.

Fifth, Tommy Hodges who was the Goal Post Project chairman. He came up with the idea to purchase and dedicate the goal posts to me along with the help of the Thomasville Boosters Club, athletic department, and donor friends. Tommy was one of my Little League football players some years before.

Chapter 1

Where It All Began

Is it possible that your life is set on a certain course, and you don’t have much to say about it? Sometimes I believe it is. I was born on September 5, 1933, on a farm near Fort Mill, South Carolina. This was during the depression, and my father and his brother were leasing this farm. Three years later, my sister Iris was born. I don’t remember much about the rest of our time before we moved to a smaller farm not far away. Thank goodness, it was much smaller.

Because my uncle passed away shortly after we moved there, the work which we have to do on a farm was left all to my dad. That was a real burden. His responsibilities included feeding the animals, a cow, a mule, and hogs, and chopping wood for the fireplaces and cookstove. That was just the beginning! His other jobs were plowing the fields, planting the crops, cotton, corn, and a vegetable garden. Then when those crops came up, he had to keep the grass from growing around the plants. It was called cultivating or hoeing around the plants. That was a pretty big load, but he handled it without complaint. By this time, I was six years old. I was old enough to realize how hard my dad was working to keep our family safe and with food and shelter. I knew I was too small to help him though. It was during that time that I learned some very valuable lessons.

One of the first things learned was that I didn’t want to have to struggle like my dad. He had no education. He had fought in World War I (wounded in action); and when he came home, he did the only thing he could do—farm. Now he had a family consisting of my mother, myself, my sister Iris, and another sister about to be born. Also a little later, my grandmother, my dad’s mother who was in her late eighties, came to live with us.

When I was in the sixth grade, I discovered that the peach farm next to the school hired young boys in the spring and summer to carry boxes and water to the workers who were picking peaches. Suddenly, I had found a way to contribute. So when the school year ended, I went to my dad and asked if I could try to get a job on the peach farm. He said yes. He could have said, No, you are big enough now to help me. But he didn’t! So I immediately went to the peach farm and was given a job carrying boxes to the pickers and did that for the rest of the summer.

The second thing I learned was that you have to be dependable. You have to understand what your job is and do it right and how to interact with others. The next year, my job was carrying water to the workers picking peaches. This, of course, was in the days of strict segregation in the South, so I was given two jugs—one for white workers and one for black workers. Nobody objected to that. But I began to wonder what would happen if I got the jugs mixed up. So one day, I switched the jugs. Who would know! The jugs didn’t have names on them. I made a complete round without switching them back. Nobody died or even got sick.

Lesson learned: People are the same no matter what color their skin is. About this time in my life, I had a black playmate who was so black we called him Blue. He was a friend throughout my life until I finished high school and entered the Air Force. I never spent much time in Fort Mill after I came back from the Air Force and never saw Blue again; but when my sister Iris occasionally saw him, he would ask about me. I also became friends with some of the black workers on the peach farm.

Another group I met on the farm were some German prisoners of war who were brought there each day to work in the orchard. I carried water to them at least once, but none of them could speak English so that was the only time I did it. But one day, I rode my bicycle over to where they were at lunchtime. Some of them were very friendly, but most were not. One or two tried to talk to me to ask me if they could ride my bike, and I understood what they wanted. I did let them ride, and I admit that the thought entered my mind that they might try to escape. But somehow, I knew they wouldn’t; and they didn’t.

Lesson learned: Sometimes you just have to trust people even if you don’t know them. I think most of us have had that happen. Springs Farms was the name of the farm that owned the peach orchards, and I continued to work there until I entered the Air Force.

Some summers, I worked at other jobs like riding a grain combine, selling peaches at a roadside stand, and a few other things when I got older. Perhaps the best thing that happened during the first part of those years was that the manager of those farms asked me if I thought my dad might like to come to work for them. When I went home that day and asked him, I don’t remember what his reply was; but he did go for an interview and accepted the job.

I really don’t know what was his first job there, but a house with free rent came with it which was a real blessing. Not long after that, we moved into a larger house on the other side of Fort Mill. And my dad’s job now was raising hogs for the farm. We lived there until my dad had a heart attack. I think it became obvious that he would not be able to come back to work, and we had to move to a smaller house nearby where we lived until he had a second heart attack and passed away.

I had been fishing that day with my best friend, Billy Barron, and returned home just as the heart attack was happening. I went immediately to town to his doctor’s office and found that he was out of town. Then I went to the only other doctor I knew; and he refused to come, saying that my dad was not his patient. I had no alternative but to return home. When I got back home, my dad had already passed away.

I went back to the doctor who had refused to come and said to him, You can come now. He is dead.

His reply was, I didn’t know it was that serious.

I doubt that he could have saved him. But there were no cell phones in those days, and we didn’t even have a phone period. So we just did the best we could.