My Gaffney classmate Charles Foster; And Shelby and Basketball great David Thompson Remember Flight
I got word from the West Coast a month ago that my Gaffney High School Classmate, 1976 Montreal High Hurdle Olympian Charles Foster died Sunday March 31.
I remember the night we were lined up for Gradudation in May of 71 on the tennis courts to march up the back stairs and into the gymnasium for Commencement. There was a seven minute or so delay, and Foster a few ahead of me in line looked Back and said, Fox, get this show on the road, I'm hurdling out of this town.
About two weeks earlier I was sitting beside Foster on the top row in the Gym for the Awards Assembly for the academic years 70-71
I was sitting beside Charles Foster on Awards day May of 71 when Track Coach Whiteford Smith came out with a big Trophy, I think Athlete of the Year. Before he started talking Foster Said, "That one's mine." A Few Awards later Ramona Ross came out with buttons for all the Chorus participants that year and I said to Foster, One of Those is mine. I was honored that Charles Came over to speak at my Mother's alma mater in October 95 in Collinsville, Alabama before the 96 Atlanta Olympics. He got a nice write up at UNC at their site. Everything said about his infectious personality rings true for those who knew him in Gaffney High
One summer I was home from college and trying to improve my footwork and stamina for tennis intramurals at Furman. I was running the Steps in the stadium at Gaffney High all 22 of them which was quite taxing running seat to seat instead of the walking steps. Foster was there running hills and I told him I was ready for the challenge on the steps; remember this is about two years before he's in the Olympics in 76.
I was on about the fourth step when I looked up and he was at the top laughing at me. I was running aware of gravity and he ran in another lightly weighted solar system closer to birds than humanity.
In conversations that followed Charles Death, Johnny Dawkins told me about a track meet in Shelby North Carolina his senior year, the spring of 1970. Dawkins on a team with Jimmy Baker, Foster and Lewis Huskey was later to set a school record in the 4 by 220 relays. And as I understood the story of that Shelby meet, Lewis Huskey set an individual 220 low hurdles record and Foster came along right behind him and broke it in a later heat.
But on that day, Dawkins who later got a degree in screen writing from USC, Southern California, and wrote early script for the likes of Denzel Washington; and his relay handoff the future Olympian Foster appear to have contested the track team of nearby Crest High School, the alma mater of the writer Ron Rash and the Basketball great DAvid Thompson about whom Michael Jordan once said, before Me, there Was David-- google Rash, Thompson Grantland.
I'll let Rash take it from there from his Grantland piece of 2011.
I have one more memory, my favorite, though it took place on cinders instead of hardwood. I was never good enough to play on a basketball team with David, but we did run track together, both members of a 4×4 relay team good enough to place in the state meet. This, too, was a humid evening, but two weeks before our high school graduation, and not in Boiling Springs but nearer to the state’s center. David ran the third leg and I ran the fourth. Here’s the way I will remember it: David is out of the last turn and coming toward me, the hollow metal baton in his right hand. As he nears, I start running and reach my hand behind me. The baton settles in my palm, and for a moment we both hold it — two small-town kids who cannot imagine what they will achieve and what they will lose, but headed into that future, for a moment, together. end rash quote
I'm going with the Legend even though Dawk tells me Gaffney Track Coach Whitey Smith held him out that day in Shelby for another event. But as another friend once told me, the Oscar nominated and award winning documentarian Brett Morgen once told me, between the facts and the Legend, Always go with the Legend.
On NPR a few years ago I heard the story of some Iranian dissidents, most of whom didn't make it out of their cells. But they did have a space to see Birds fly most days. Inscripted on their wall was: "Remember Flight for the Bird is Mortal"
The likes of David Thompson--44 inch vertical leap, my friend the Hurdler, Charles Foster, even Dawkins, Rash, Jimmy Baker and Lewis Huskey who had less problems with gravity than the rest of us...….. you get it, Remember Flight!
https://goheels.com/news/2019/3/31/legendary-track-field-coach-charles-foster-passes-away.aspx
I remember the night we were lined up for Gradudation in May of 71 on the tennis courts to march up the back stairs and into the gymnasium for Commencement. There was a seven minute or so delay, and Foster a few ahead of me in line looked Back and said, Fox, get this show on the road, I'm hurdling out of this town.
About two weeks earlier I was sitting beside Foster on the top row in the Gym for the Awards Assembly for the academic years 70-71
I was sitting beside Charles Foster on Awards day May of 71 when Track Coach Whiteford Smith came out with a big Trophy, I think Athlete of the Year. Before he started talking Foster Said, "That one's mine." A Few Awards later Ramona Ross came out with buttons for all the Chorus participants that year and I said to Foster, One of Those is mine. I was honored that Charles Came over to speak at my Mother's alma mater in October 95 in Collinsville, Alabama before the 96 Atlanta Olympics. He got a nice write up at UNC at their site. Everything said about his infectious personality rings true for those who knew him in Gaffney High
One summer I was home from college and trying to improve my footwork and stamina for tennis intramurals at Furman. I was running the Steps in the stadium at Gaffney High all 22 of them which was quite taxing running seat to seat instead of the walking steps. Foster was there running hills and I told him I was ready for the challenge on the steps; remember this is about two years before he's in the Olympics in 76.
I was on about the fourth step when I looked up and he was at the top laughing at me. I was running aware of gravity and he ran in another lightly weighted solar system closer to birds than humanity.
In conversations that followed Charles Death, Johnny Dawkins told me about a track meet in Shelby North Carolina his senior year, the spring of 1970. Dawkins on a team with Jimmy Baker, Foster and Lewis Huskey was later to set a school record in the 4 by 220 relays. And as I understood the story of that Shelby meet, Lewis Huskey set an individual 220 low hurdles record and Foster came along right behind him and broke it in a later heat.
But on that day, Dawkins who later got a degree in screen writing from USC, Southern California, and wrote early script for the likes of Denzel Washington; and his relay handoff the future Olympian Foster appear to have contested the track team of nearby Crest High School, the alma mater of the writer Ron Rash and the Basketball great DAvid Thompson about whom Michael Jordan once said, before Me, there Was David-- google Rash, Thompson Grantland.
I'll let Rash take it from there from his Grantland piece of 2011.
I have one more memory, my favorite, though it took place on cinders instead of hardwood. I was never good enough to play on a basketball team with David, but we did run track together, both members of a 4×4 relay team good enough to place in the state meet. This, too, was a humid evening, but two weeks before our high school graduation, and not in Boiling Springs but nearer to the state’s center. David ran the third leg and I ran the fourth. Here’s the way I will remember it: David is out of the last turn and coming toward me, the hollow metal baton in his right hand. As he nears, I start running and reach my hand behind me. The baton settles in my palm, and for a moment we both hold it — two small-town kids who cannot imagine what they will achieve and what they will lose, but headed into that future, for a moment, together. end rash quote
I'm going with the Legend even though Dawk tells me Gaffney Track Coach Whitey Smith held him out that day in Shelby for another event. But as another friend once told me, the Oscar nominated and award winning documentarian Brett Morgen once told me, between the facts and the Legend, Always go with the Legend.
On NPR a few years ago I heard the story of some Iranian dissidents, most of whom didn't make it out of their cells. But they did have a space to see Birds fly most days. Inscripted on their wall was: "Remember Flight for the Bird is Mortal"
The likes of David Thompson--44 inch vertical leap, my friend the Hurdler, Charles Foster, even Dawkins, Rash, Jimmy Baker and Lewis Huskey who had less problems with gravity than the rest of us...….. you get it, Remember Flight!
https://goheels.com/news/2019/3/31/legendary-track-field-coach-charles-foster-passes-away.aspx
posted by foxofbama | 1:39 PM
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