Play or Pray, Here we go again!

My column published in a recent issue of The Madison County Journal

“Play not pray.” Here we go again. It’s amazing how a small organization can have such an impact with threatening demands and in no time, it goes nationally. A couple of weeks ago, a northern group anti-Christian based organization sent a letter to Clemson University with their intentions of filing complaints against the University’s athletic program for their involvement of mixing religion with football. The organization stated that they have constitutional concerns about how the public university’s football program is entangled with religion. The group further stated that they will take actions towards Clemson if university chooses not to comply with their demands to halt mixing religion with football consisting of Bible studies and prayer. The organization has accused head coach Dabo Swinney and his staff of requiring his football players to participate in religious activities, something the organization finds unacceptable.   

I’m a die-hard Clemson fan, but this nonsense goes well beyond football and my loyalty to the university that I grew up cheering for. It’s unnerving anytime an organization as such wants to raise issues when someone wants to mention God or the Bible. This organization, based miles and miles away, demands Clemson to cease the athletics department’s emphasis on prayer, Bible studies and other voluntary religious activities among athletes. My question is, what about violating the student/athlete’s constitutional rights and their freedom of religion? In this country we have a freedom of choice and that includes a freedom of religious beliefs. No one forces to anyone to believe in God and/or prayer. I would think that if Clemson University, or any other university, was “forcing” their players to take part in Bible studies and prayer, or else be dismissed from the program, there would be some kind of investigation and punishment from the NCAA. I admire the fact that Clemson coach Dabo Swinney doesn't hide his faith and that his staff gives players every opportunity of attending religious activities without forcing the issue. Players are given a choice to attend religious activities made available through the athletic program. It’s a choice not a demand. I’ve never seen it written in any university manual that you must pray as a team, in a huddle and carry a Bible or you’re not guaranteed playing time. Again, it’s a choice. Swinney said it best, “It’s not who the best Christian is, it’s who the best player is.”

So what if Clemson hired a former player as their Chaplin? What if he speaks to the team before games and makes himself available to the players and what if he even has an office in the same building as the coaches? Good for him and the university! I admire that! What makes all that wrong but yet these anti-Christian organizations don’t bother to fight against those options that can get players arrested and kicked out of school such as underage alcohol consumption and DUI’s, use of drugs, theft etc. We hear and read about school violations and athletes getting suspended all the time but yet there’s no organization threatening to sue local bars or those involved.

What’s wrong with giving players the option to attend Bible studies, to pray, or go to church while playing for a public university? This goes not just for university athletes but ones on the high school levels as well. This world gives plenty of options for people to do wrong so why not have an option for public school athletes to be involved with region on the fields and in the locker rooms without some anti-Christian organization issuing threats? Prayer in public schools was eliminated and we wonder why there is so much violence on and off the athletic fields and in hallways of schools.

Allow players to mention God while being interviewed on television if they want to without cutting them off with a commercial or quickly changing the subject. It’s a free country isn't it? What happened to the freedom of speech and freedom of religion? Mention God, have prayer in locker rooms or have a Bible study for athletes, voluntarily, and you offend people. I don’t get it; if this kind of organization doesn't believe in praying or that there’s a God, then why do they burn so much energy trying to fight against something they think doesn't exist?

Happy Mother's Day Mom...RIP

May 19, 1936-November 22, 2012

Hall of Fame Day

Column published in a January issue of The Madison County Journal

A photo I took of Maddux and Leo in the Braves
 dugout in 1997

By Dallas Bordon

Despite my temper tantrums and negative talk during times of frustrations from season to season, I love Braves Baseball! I admit I haven’t been on the bandwagon for a long time and matter of fact; it’s been so long that I can’t even remember where it’s parked.  I admit that I have been a fair-weather fan for the past few years and really haven’t been excited about the Braves due to the fact that I’m spoiled. I’m a spoiled fan who is use to them winning year after year and I enter every season with high expectations of the Braves. I won’t settle for just making it to the playoffs but instead I expect at least an appearance in the World Series. I am a spoiled tom-a-hawking fan. With all that said, I can now get excited about the induction of Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux into the Hall Of Fame; two of my favorite Braves.

I remember the worst to first 1991 team that kicked off a long streak of division titles and a World Series win in 1995. I remember the excitement that everyone fan experienced from the bank tellers wearing Braves shirts in business hours during the 1991 post season. I remember watching cars travel down the Atlanta Highway in Athens with people’s arms hanging out doing the Braves’ chop. I remember frenzy everyone was in and how people were reliving each post season game the next day at work and analyzing each at bat and pitch. Most of all, I remember the young guns of the Braves pitching staff. John Smoltz, Steve Avery, Tom Glavine and the addition of Greg Maddux during that outstanding run of the early 90’s. Those new kids on the block provided a breath of fresh air to us fans who watched night after night during those years when the Braves were happy if they avoided a last place finish.  I cherished those years when the chop was better known as the flop. Years that I would sit with my mom and granddad watching players like Bob Horner, Bruce Benedict, and of course my all-time favorite Dale Murphy. Success for the Braves during the down years came in 1982 when Atlanta opened the season winning 13 straight and facing the Cardinals in the play-offs at season’s end. The Braves lost in the first round that year but still celebrated with parade in Atlanta. We were ecstatic simply because the Braves were finally winners regardless if they lost to St. Louis in the opening round of the playoffs; it didn’t matter that much back then. The simple things that Murphy, Horner, Glenn Hubbard, and Benedict did excited us to no end. I can only imagine my granddad, who would take heart pills like candy while watching the old Braves, and his excitement if he lived to see the team of the 90’s! You see prior to the 90’s, a Claudell Washington triple, a Murphy homerun, or a complete game pitched by Phil Niekro would send our family into hysterics.   

I can now look back on the years of the “flop” and see how spoiled I became due to the success of the Braves of the 90’s. Losing in the playoffs from year to year and not making it the World Series had me looking at the Chop as being a revised new flop. And now as I look back at the Braves and those seasons of cellar dwellers, I realize those losing years were just as special as the Braves of the 90’s because I considered Horner, Murphy, Hubbard, and others as heroes.  It was all extra special back in those days because my expectations were never high; I just enjoyed watching them play day in and day out. Most of all, I enjoyed watching with my granddad and mom and how we treated most games like a playoff.

The Glavine and Maddux era and those teams of the 90’s made their mark on Braves history. I can appreciate how they made us all feel going from worst to first and carrying us through a decade of post seasons. There’s a new set of heroes now standing in the shadows of Murphy, Horner, and Hubbard. On July 27^th, Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux will join Bobby Cox in the Hall Of Fame in Cooperstown. It only seems like yesterday when they appeared on the scene as the Braves’ new young guns. Now, 23 years later, stand two former baseball players at the threshold of the Hall; an honor well deserved. Glavine enters the Hall as a 10 time All-Star, two-time Cy Young winner, and an overall record of 305-203 in 22 seasons. Standing alongside is Maddux with four straight Cy Young Awards from 1992-95, 18 Gold Glove Awards with the Braves, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Diego, an eight time All-Star, and a pitcher who won at least 13 games in 20 straight seasons.  The Braves of the 90’s, players like Glavine, Smoltz, Maddux, Avery and many more will always be special, but to me they will never erase my memories of those players that have gone before and the excitement my granddad and I shared as fans who were not spoiled. They're Hall Of Famers in my book.

Clint Haggard, a Georgia boy turned Gamecock

Article published in The Madison County Journal December 27th issue.

Clint Haggard (middle) pictured with other members of
the South Carolina Gamecock athletic training staff

Feature on former Raider Athletes- Where are they now?

 By Dallas Bordon

Most people wish for a dream job. While growing up, most kids dream of what they will be when they grow up. Clint Haggard, a 1998 graduate of Madison County High School, might have dreamed of being a professional ball player one day; dreams that most kids in sports have. For Clint, a former Raider soccer player all four years at MCHS and football player for the Raiders in 1994 and 1996, he is living a different kind of dream. Not a dream of playing any type of sport, but a dream of being around the sport of football. Haggard is the youngest Division 1 head athletic trainer in the history of the modern NCAA and also the youngest head athletic trainer in the history of the Southeastern Conference. He is currently the Head Athletic Trainer for the South Carolina Gamecocks. “I’m very thankful to be one of fourteen head athletic trainers in the SEC. This year was my 13^th season of college football and I hope that I have at least 30 or more left in me,” Haggard said.

It was a knee injury suffered in high school that grabbed Clint’s interest in sports medicine. “I hurt my knee my junior year playing football and did not play my senior year. I reinjured my knee the spring of my senior year which sparked my interest in sports medicine,” said Haggard.

Haggard originally entered the University of Georgia as a pre-veterinary medicine major but quickly became interested in athletic training and sports medicine. After changing his major, Clint worked behind the scenes for many different UGA athletic events including football, baseball, soccer, and swimming & diving programs. “In the summer of 2001, I was also fortunate enough to work with the Indianapolis Colts during training camp where I got to meet many people with whom I still talk to today,” said Haggard.

Haggard’s road to South Carolina had many stops along the way. After graduating with a BSEd in Exercise Science from Georgia in 2002, Clint immediately went to the University of Alabama as a graduate assistant athletic trainer for the football team. “One of my mentors at UGA, Ron Courson, was an assistant athletic trainer at Alabama and helped me get my foot in the door over there,” Haggard said. Clint was at Alabama from 2002-2006, first as a graduate assistant athletic trainer, and then was hired as an assistant athletic trainer. Haggard served at Alabama during the Franchione, Price, and Shula era.

Clint recalls a fond memory during his first two years with Alabama when the Tide faced the Georgia Bulldogs. “In 2002, we played Georgia in Tuscaloosa being one of the hottest games I have ever been part of. That was the year Billy Bennett kicked a last minute field goal to beat us,” Haggard said. “In 2003 in Athens, Thomas Davis blitzed off the end on consecutive plays and knocked two of our quarterbacks, Spencer Pennington and Brodie Croyle, out of the game.”

Clint with his family. Wife Erin and children
Brewer  and Reagan

Haggard graduated from Alabama in 2003 with a MA in Health Sciences and was promoted to assistant athletic trainer in 2004. Rice University in Texas would be where Haggard would land his first head athletic training position in 2006. “It was a great opportunity for my family and though it was much different being at a small highly academic institution, I cherish the time and the experience we had there,” said Haggard.

But for Haggard, a Georgia boy at heart, he longed to be close to home and back in the SEC. In 2009, that opportunity came for Haggard. “My mother had just passed away a couple of weeks earlier and I did not tell my father that I was coming to Columbia to interview. I had some other opportunities to go other places that didn’t work out and I didn’t want to get my dad’s hopes up that this would so I decided that if the interview went well and they offered me the job, I would go to Athens and see him and if not I would just go home to Houston and not say anything,” said Haggard. South Carolina didn’t offer the job to Haggard right at that time, but despite his plans to return to Houston, he surprised his dad with a visit anyway.

As most Georgia fans’ feelings aren’t pleasant ones of the head ball coach Steve Spurrier, Clint’s dislike towards the Gamecock coach were no different during Clint’s younger years. But then one day in 2009, that all changed. “Imagine my surprise when he (Spurrier) called me a few days after my interview to offer me the job!” Haggard said. “He opened the conversation by saying he heard I was a Georgia graduate and I told him not to hold it against me.” Haggard and Spurrier’s conversation continued and a relationship grew almost instantly. “I’ll have to say that he is one of the nicest people that I have ever met,” said Haggard. “He and his wife Jerri do so much for me and for the rest of the staff that many other football coaches and their wives do not do. He is a big family man and our families are around the complex often.”

Haggard’s duties at South Carolina as head athletic trainer include taking care of medical needs for the student-athletes and staff. He is the liaison between the physicians and the football program and coordinates the medical care for upwards of 200 people. Haggard interacts with Coach Spurrier on a daily basis and says that between the coach and the team’s physicians, he sometimes spends more time in conversation with them than he does with his wife.

Clint sees a different side of Coach Spurrier than most people see in the media. “I have been fortunate enough to spend a lot of time away from the office with him (Spurrier) and have gotten to know him very well,” Haggard said. “Times spent with coach gives me a different perspective of him from the one people see in the media.”

Haggard’s spends many hours as the Head Football Athletic Trainer. He is on call 24/7 and logs in anywhere from 70 to 100 hours a week depending on the time of the year.

Clint married his wife Erin in 2004 and they have two children Reagan; born in 2008 in Houston and Brewer; born in 2009 in Columbia. “My job requires many hours of work and my wife does a great job of keeping our house and me in order,” said Haggard. “I try as much as I can to have the kids around me at work and to leave as soon as I can to go home to see them, but there are many days that I leave before they get up and come home after they are asleep at night.”

As for Haggard’s loyalty to Madison County, he quickly stated in the Gamecock’s media guide that he is from Ila, Georgia and not Athens so that Madison County would get a bit of publicity. “I am very happy to be able to be close to home and do what I love doing on such a big stage,” said Haggard.

If you are a former Madison County athlete (five years ago or longer) and would like to be featured in The Madison County Journal, please contact Dallas Bordon at dallasb32@yahoo.com.

Senior Night and a realization that “it’s really over”

My column published in an October issue of The Madison County Journal

By Dallas Bordon

You can see it in their faces. Their eyes tell the stories; stories of years of determination, dedication, hard work, and most of all, fun and enjoyment of playing the sport. Senior night is time for the sport, fans and coaches to bid farewell to their student-athletes. A time for a final applause, one final pat on the back, one final tear and one final memory of times gone by are all of the emotions and thoughts of Senior Night. We begin to realize that it’s more than just an ending to four years of high school sports. It’s a final goodbye to a sport(s) that they have participated in since the early years back to a time when they could first grasp a ball by hand. Senior night brings it all together. It’s a time of reflection, a time to remember all of the years of memories made and a time to say goodbye to teammates and coaches. For those fortunate enough to move to the college level, nothing will compare to the years spent on the playing fields or courts on the recreation department, middle school, and high school levels. Senior night draws it all to a close. It’s time to say farewell to friendships made between the athletes who played sports together and against each other throughout different seasons of the year.

Entering the years of high school sports, Senior Night is embedded in the minds of parents and players knowing their own moment will come when it’s time to hang it up. They all live in the moment of that night at the end of each season when they see the recognition of teammates that have gone before them and then before we know it, their own night approaches. Even though it’s over a span of years that they play, our minds tend to echo thought of “what seems like yesterday” as we recall their years growing up from playing youth sports to the night it all comes to a close as seniors. Those years and this night come and go too quickly.

As for the athlete, these will always be days and experiences you’ll never forget and yet they are times you can never get back. You will look back one day as you’re dusting off that old letterman jacket or looking at old photos from your days on the fields or courts and you’ll come to realize that those days were the best of times. There will come a time when you’ll tell your own children the stories of your days as a student-athlete and your experiences playing the game and even how that game has changed.  

For the parents, it can be a brief gasp of relief that it’s finally over. All those years of living in fast-food restaurants, rolling those coolers around, carrying chairs to different places, and traveling; it’s over. But despite the hard work of the parents from season to season, for them the moment will begin to set in and they will realize how special those times were. Then the realization that “it’s really over” sets in and our student-athletes are no longer little leaguers, middle school, and high school athletes.

Whether it’s walking your student-athlete across the fifty yard line of a football field or across the basketball court or hearing the senior speeches read while the athlete stands on their jersey number painted in the grass behind home plate; it’s an emotional moment for everyone because those years and memories are all replayed in our mind on that one night. Senior night is a time we honor our student-athletes’ long careers and we share the memories; memories which will live long after this night is over.