Day 35 – College was perfect for me…
I say college was perfect for me to emphasize the “ME”. I promote going to college. I encourage kids to go to college. I support anyone’s desire to go to college, but it’s not the only way.
A few years ago, I was substitute teaching in the Auto Shop class of a local high school. That day they had a representative from a luxury auto and truck mechanic school. It was a one-year or two-year program, I forget, but once you did graduate your starting salary was $80k+ a year to START with…what??? I was shocked, but that’s the case. College isn’t always the right choice for everyone.
When I was growing up in Greenville, it was understood, at least with most that I knew, that the path after high school, was…college, military or move out and go find a job. No one that I knew “hung around” after high school.
As I have shared before, both my grandparents on both sides of the families had degrees, and this was back in the early 1900’s and that was HARD for women, but they did it.
When I graduated from high school, it was very important to get into a college for two reasons. First, I wanted to play football and the unknown factors of the Vietnam war. School gave you a deferment for four years, at least in the beginning. But then they instituted a lottery based on your date of birth in 1970 and I believe college deferments no longer counted.
I had some friends that were #1 in the lottery and some that were at the end of the lottery. I was in the very middle. That first year, they didn’t reach my number, so I was fairly safe until I graduated. After graduating, I was 1A for about 6 months and then the Peace Talks came, and I never had to go. I had a knee injury that may have classified me as 4F but it never came to that.
If I had been called, I would have gone, and I greatly respect everyone that served then and now. The only thing that makes sense to me as to why I didn’t go, is that it wasn’t my path at that time. I didn’t avoid anything, but I also didn’t volunteer. I chose instead to study for the Christian ministry, and I was ordained in 1974 and I have been true to that ordination for 48 years now, serving in one fashion or another. I’ll explain more of that journey later.
One of the things I have enjoyed the most over my lifetime, is helping football players get into colleges so that they play the game they love and get their school paid for. In our little 2A high school in Williamsburg, we sent kids to the next level every year…1A, 1AA, Division 2, Division 3, and NAIA (smaller schools who still had football).
Now that was easy back East in Virginia, as they say, you couldn’t throw a rock and not hit a school somewhere. Within in a short drive of Williamsburg we had, Old Dominion, University of Richmond, William and Mary (right in town), James Madison University, University of Virginia, Virginia Tech, University of Maryland, University of Delaware, Villanova, East Carolina, NC State University, University of North Carolina as well as smaller schools all over the Carolina’s, Virginia and Maryland. If a student WANTED to play, we could find a place for him.
Here in Colorado, our kids are not so fortunate. Schools big and small are limited, but we still send kids up almost every year. We’ve sent kids to Wisconsin, Nebraska, University of Northern Colorado, Colorado Mines, CSU Pueblo, Air Force Academy, and schools in Kansas, North and South Dakota and a few others, but it’s not as easy out here.
I am so thankful when they go on to play at the next level, because they will get an education, hopefully paid for or at least most of it, they will play a game they love and (this is a big “and”) they have an instant family when they show up of players and coaches who will look after them and become friends for a lifetime.
Well, that’s it for today, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.
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