Both of my sons are avid runners. For them, every week involves something — a fun run, a few hours on the local streets and trails, occasionally a marathon or half-marathon.
Me, I never got into running. I consider walking and hiking to be more genteel ways to exercise. I especially like the serenity of being on the trail, alone, with plenty of time to ponder any topic my brain selects.
Running undoubtedly has great benefits, but I’ll never know. If I switched to running at my age, my knees would not take kindly to it.
There was a time, however, when I was quite capable of sustained running — as well as capable of a mighty burst of speed when necessary.
In fact, I can remember two times in my life when I ran so fast that my legs began to outrun the rest of my body, and I was in danger of falling over backwards.
One of those times, I was in college. I had just caught a pass from the University of Georgia’s star quarterback and was racing for the end zone. No, I didn’t play for the Bulldogs. It happened one Sunday in a game of touch football on a frat house lawn.
The other time, two decades later, I was running for my life to get out from under a falling tree. Which I had just cut down with a chainsaw. I did not escape by much.
I remember both events as if they happened yesterday.
The Pick-up Game
Up through high school, practically any inept kid can participate in sports. From elementary school on, anyone can wear a uniform. To compensate, sports teams have two rosters: the starters and the benchwarmers. All kids know the difference.
Did I just use the word inept? That certainly describes my athletic ability as a kid.
Growing up, I was a blah outfielder in Little League baseball. In high school, I warmed the bench for one season of football. (I was an “offensive tackle” in both position and performance.)
The next year, I played junior varsity basketball; I had a hot hand in exactly one game. It was a sublime moment of glory.
By the time you reach college, however, all that equal opportunity stuff comes to an end. College sports are for the elites. It might as well be the pros. Come to think of it, it pretty much is the pros.
With so many used-to-be athletes around, it isn’t surprising that flag football and touch football are popular campus pastimes. That was the case at UGA when I was a student.
In the spring, if you drove down Milledge Avenue — which was, and still is, Greek Row — you would pass four or five such games in progress. As you might expect, the rules and the quality of play varied considerably.
One fine spring Sunday in 1963, my junior year, I went to see my friend Al at his fraternity house on South Milledge.
Al and I were best buds throughout our college years. (In 2009, I wrote about Al and his friendship with a group of Thai students.) Sadly, he and I went our separate ways after graduation, me into the Air Force, Al into matrimony.
Anyway, when I arrived at the frat house, Al and a few others were sitting on the front porch watching a touch football game on the lawn.
To my surprise, playing on one of the teams was Larry Rakestraw, UGA’s starting quarterback.
Rakestraw was a genuine campus superstar — a superb quarterback with an outstanding record. He was Georgia’s starting quarterback for three years straight.
To refresh my memory, I looked up Larry’s record. He passed for over 3,000 yards, was an All-SEC player twice, and was Senior Bowl MVP. Against Miami in the Orange Bowl, he had over 400 yards passing. He broke three SEC records and one NCAA record. He went on to play three seasons as QB of the Chicago Bears.
On top of that, Larry was a nice, friendly, modest guy — the kind who would roll up his sleeves and play touch football with the little people on a warm spring afternoon.
Being one of the little people myself, I did not travel in the same lofty circles as the football players, but I knew some of them from various classes.
I wrote about one, Richard Brooks, in a post in 2012. Another was Larry Rakestraw. For a while, we were fellow cadets in Air Force ROTC, and we both graduated from UGA in 1964.
So, there I was, sitting on the front porch of a frat house with my friend Al, watching a casual game of touch football being played on the lawn, four to a team, and the quarterback of one of the teams was the famous Larry Rakestraw.
Before long, one of Larry’s teammates got tired, or had to be somewhere, or whatever, and left the game. Larry surveyed the spectators in the porch and pointed at me.
“Rocky, you’re up!” he yelled. “Get in here!”
A wave of dread washed over me, but I got to my feet and trotted with a grin toward the scrum of players.
I got over the dread soon enough. I wasn’t exactly a great addition to the team, but I ran and grunted and sweated and did my pedestrian best.
And then, my moment arrived.
Our team had the ball. In the huddle, Larry told me to go downfield, then cut left and stop. When I looked back, the ball would be waiting for me.
And it was. When I turned, Larry’s perfect spiral was whistling toward me, mere feet away. Somehow, I reacted quickly enough to grab it and hang on.
That was the first miracle. The second miracle came when I took off down the left sideline, running as if my life depended on it.
As I ran, all four members of the other team were in pursuit, as hell-bent to intercept me as I was to score.
One by one, they failed. With a few yards to go, I only had to elude one last man.
Mentally and physically, I was in overdrive. Until that moment, I had never run so fast. It was exhilarating.
At the same time, I had the unsettling sensation that if I did not slow down, my feet and legs would literally outrun my head and torso, and I would crash with disastrous results.
But by then, I was over the goal line. The last player missed touching me by inches. It was a magnificent personal victory.
Of course, in the overall scheme of things, my astounding feat of athleticism meant nothing. It was just one touchdown of many that day. The game continued, and my epic run promptly was forgotten.
But, oh, how sweet it was.
In my next post, I will describe an incident in which I ran as if demon-possessed to avoid being sent to Glory by a falling tree.

A pick-up game at UGA, 1962.

Ace Georgia QB Larry Rakestraw in 1963.