Welcome back to One Old Dawg’s Tailgate. This week we’re interviewing another senior on the 1964 University of Georgia football team as we celebrate their sixtieth anniversary. Get comfortable as we chat with Mack Faircloth.
Tell us how you got started in football
and your high school career?
I started playing football in Moultrie,
Georgia when I was a junior. When I was in the tenth grade P.E., the football coach was the teacher. As the
quarterback in a game we were playing, I threw the ball about forty yards on a
play. The coach came over and said, “I didn’t know you could do that.” I said,
“Not a big deal. I can kick it further than that.” He asked me to come out for
football. I told him I’d give it a try. I went out for spring practice and made
first team defense. I didn’t know the plays, but I knew how to make a tackle.
(Mack laughs here). I was blessed to get a college scholarship to Georgia, and
when I got there, I was fifth team. But after the second freshman game, I moved
to the second team. As a freshman I crushed bones in my left hand and wrist, which
hampered me from playing defense. Then I cracked my shoulder blade. I never
regained my strength in that shoulder, so my last two years, I was a first-string punter.
What is your most memorable play from the
1964 season?
In the game with Georgia Tech, I was able
to break away and tackle a guy that really helped save the game. Also, in the
game against Florida, we were ahead 7-0. With three or four minutes left, a
ball I punted died inside the five. They didn’t have time to win the game. I
was MVP in a couple of games as a punter. One of my most memorable punts is my
last kick of my career in the game against Georgia Tech. Usually I try to kick
the ball forty yards and give the guys a chance to cover it. As a punter the
drop is everything. Instead of kicking it high I sent a line drive right over
their heads sixty something yards which didn’t help Tech at all.
What is one important lesson you learned
from your time as a college athlete?
Don’t ever give up. The game is not over until
the last second when the whistle blows. You just have to find a way to make it.
In business, you have to do the same thing in a smart way.
Who were your inspirations or role models
in your college career?
A guy from Moultrie, Jimmy Vickers was a senior
at Georgia when I was being recruited. He was not a big guy, but he was a tough
guy playing defensive end. He played his heart out. I used to watch another guy
from Moultrie who played at Georgia, Gene Littleton, when I was a kid— a really
big inspiration. Ray Mercer, who wound up going to Auburn, was my next-door
neighbor and also inspired me.
What advice would you give to someone just
beginning their college football career?
When you go away from home, you don’t have
your mom and dad for advice. So, I guess, just don’t get involved in drinking
and partying. Study. Don’t be led astray from the way your family raised you. I
was twenty or twenty-one years old before I drank a beer because I didn’t want
to embarrass my parents.
What are your thoughts on the Dawgs this
season?
There’s a lot of guys out there with big
hearts.
I was talking to Leroy Dukes one day. I
said, “Leroy, can you imagine playing against these three hundred pounders?”
Leroy said, “Mack, you can only play during your time.”
I’ve watched these guys. They are not
quicker than we were, but the game moves a lot faster. It’s interesting to
watch.
We didn’t just
beat Texas in the score, we beat them physically. And the score was
not an indicator of how well the defense played. The defense won the game.
Do you think they can go all the way?
I don’t see who can beat them.
Thanks so much Mack, for sharing your
insights and memories with us today. Here at One Old Dawg, we don’t see who can
beat them either. And now, One Old Dawg weighs in:
I can’t move on to the game this week
without looking back over the last few weeks. We find these words in the book
of James 1:2-4: “Consider it pure joy, my
brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the
testing of your faith develops perseverance.
Perseverance must finish its work so
that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” Mack said in
the interview above: “We didn’t just beat Texas in the score, we beat them
physically.” I think that loss to Alabama shook our faith in ourselves, but
rather than wallowing in despair we chose to persevere, to stay at it, to work
harder, to get better. Perseverance paid off in Austin, and I think we are now a
more mature and complete team than we were in Tuscaloosa. That is a valuable lesson
and an inspiration to all of us in whatever difficulties we are facing as we
attempt to navigate the treacherous waters of a fallen world. Persevere, stay
the course, give opportunity to God to work for our good regardless of the circumstances.
Now about those swamp lizards we tangle
with this Saturday. We’ve owned the Gators for the last three years, winning
each game by at least twenty points. While that is something to be proud of, it
should also make us nervous. Let’s not think too highly of ourselves. They’ve
lost three games but to top ten teams, and they have some good wins. We need to
be at the top of our game, and I believe we will be. When it is all said and
done Saturday, the Gators will again have to take the long, sad trek from Jacksonville
to Gainesville with another L on their schedule.
Thanks, One Old Dawg. We’ll be counting on
it.
Join us again next week for more “mostly
true Bulldog lore.”
Who is One Old Dawg?
Jerry Varnado played defensive end at the University of Georgia on Vince Dooley’s first three teams, which included an SEC championship in 1966, placing Georgia fourth in the nation. He helped coach the UGA football team while in law school, and practiced law for over a decade. Later, after a series of tragedies, he gave his life to Jesus Christ. After much soul searching, he left his law practice and has preached the gospel for forty years. He’s still at it every Sunday.
Inducted into the Valdosta/Lowndes County Sports Hall of Fame, he is also the recipient of the Athens Athletic Hall of Fame Fosky Henderson Award for community service. He is a past president of The Athens Touchdown Club and is now the chaplain. He has been an FCA chaplain for the Athens Academy Football Team for ten years.
He is the proud father of four children, and one sweet girl now with Jesus, as well as Bapa to two of the best grandkids ever.
No comments:
Post a Comment