A Father, a Son, and Football
By
Ron
Cherubini
©2002 Bonesville.net
When he gets a chance to return to East
Carolina University and take in a football game, it is sometimes
overwhelming for the former defensive lineman.
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Don and son, Josh Tyson |
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In his day, the 1960s,
East Carolina was East Carolina College and the football games were in a
humble venue called Overton Stadium.
My, how things have changed.
“Every time, I think about what (playing
at ECU) was…,” Don Tyson recalls, “when I go to the games and when I watch
the team on television, I am amazed at what I see. When I’m there, live,
and the players come into the stadium, my hair stands up. I remember
what it was like, to run out onto the field. I remember kicking balls
through the uprights and into the street. I can still feel it. Hell, I’m
55 years old and it still feels the same way. If they played ‘Dixie’ –
our fight song then – I’d probably pass out.”
Tyson, who saw his career abruptly ended
after his junior season due to injury, is passionate about football and,
particularly, about East Carolina’s version of it. But it was, perhaps,
his youngest son, Josh, who put things into a new perspective for Tyson
on a recent visit to ECU.
“We went to Greenville for the weekend for
the Memphis game this year,” Tyson explained. “Josh is a junior at
Western Georgia and he hadn’t been (at ECU) since he was 12-years old.
We were going to golf in the Letterman’s Golf tournament that weekend.
Josh says, ‘Dad, can you take me by the stadium?’ So we drive by and he
asks if we can stop and take a look. So we got out and walked into the
stadium to about the 15-yard line. Josh looks at me and says, ‘Dad, this
place is awesome.’
“Now, this kid regularly goes to Georgia
and Alabama games and he says to me, ‘(My schoolmates) think we are just
a little school.’ Look, he even says ‘we.’ And then he says, ‘This is
big time!’ Then he goes on to ask me what it was like to be a player (at
ECU).”
And Tyson shares with his son stories of
past greatness, like being named an Honorable Mention All-American as a
junior. Telling his boy how he wanted to run right home to the local
drug store so that he could sit there and watch all the guys come by and
congratulate him.
“Josh asked for a picture of the stadium
and I got him that picture from the State game, the aerial shot,” Tyson
said. “He was saying how his friends assumed that since ‘WCU is Western
Carolina, then ECU must be Eastern Carolina.’ But Josh said, ‘I kept
telling them all that ECU was big time.’”
As a successful builder, Tyson finds extra
beauty in what he sees today on and around the grounds he once lived and
played on.
“I don’t know what (ECU) has invested in
(the upgrades),” he said. “But what they are doing is phenomenal. It is
just beautiful. When I went here, a good crowd was 25,000 and our
stadium started about where the 50-yard line is now. To see the
facilities and the crowd support is overwhelming.”
You get the sense that he does not envy
today’s Pirates, but rather, he enjoys the sheer pleasure of the game he
played.
“You know, my son (Josh) was always a
basketball player and he was a good one, too, at the 4-A level,” he
said. “But he decided to play football one year, played at South Forsyth
(Ga.) with (current ECU player) Brian Fox. Josh went out and started at
tight end, and after the fourth or fifth game, he comes to me and says,
‘Dad, why didn’t you tell me about football?’
“And I said, ‘Son, it can’t be explained.’
There was no way to explain to him the emotions that football stirs up,
and he said, ‘Dad, you’re right!’ And that tickled me to death.”
Tyson is glad to have made that connection
with his son and hopes to continue to connect with the sport that stirs
so much passion within him.
“All my children are grown, I have two
grandchildren and I don’t have to do anything,” he said. “But,
there is something I always wanted to do. I really wanted to graduate
and when I gave up on football, I gave up on school. The other thing is,
I always wanted to coach and make a difference like Coach (Henry) Van Sant did for me. I’m going to retire here soon and I’m going to do
that… I’m going to teach kids to fight and to never give up.”
And mostly, he will try to teach that
unexplainable thing about football that he and his son shared, to the
next generation.
Tyson’s formula is simple:
“Football to me was always about fun,” he
said. “I wasn’t very good at it, but I didn’t know it.”
Well, maybe he was kind of good at it.
READ THE PIRATE TIME MACHINE FEATURE
ON DON TYSON...
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