It’s football season!

Yes indeed. God’s chosen sport – college football – has finally begun its season; for Furman fans, it did so in spectacular fashion last Thursday night (9/1/05) in Jacksonville, Alabama.

In a rematch of one of last years quarterfinal playoff games, Furman traveled to Jacksonville State University to face the 20th-ranked JSU Gamecocks. Ranked #2 in the nation, Furman may have been a little overconfident, but after watching a 14-point lead disappear in 31 seconds, the Paladins must’ve known that they were in for a battle. Defensively, Furman had trouble with the fired-up JSU club, and our special teams were absolutely horrid, but Furman still managed to cling to 3-to-10-point leads until JSU scored with just under 90 seconds left to go up 4.

Furman responded by driving the length of the field and reaching the Gamecock 2-yard line with 6 seconds left. Third down. Ingle Martin’s pass was tipped at the line of scrimmage, fell incomplete, and the JSU bench emptied onto the field in celebration. Standing with Furman Sports Information Director Hunter Reid on the sidelines, I assumed that the ball had been intercepted, as the play had only taken 3 seconds.

I was wrong. So were the Gamecocks. The officials cleared the field and requested that 1 second be put back on the clock. So here’s the scenario. It’s 4th-and-Goal from the 2. 1 second left. Down by 4 to the 20th-ranked team in the country at their place.

Ingle Martin found Justin Stepp wide open in the endzone for the touchdown. Game over. Furman 37, JSU 35. Our benches emptied and I screamed myself silly. Possibly the best game I’ve ever seen, right behind the 1985 National Championship against Georgia Southern – when we came out on the short end of a similar late-game play. All most people will see in a few years when they look at the records will be a “W”, but that last drive showed me some guts that Furman hasn’t had in many years. This could be a very special team.

Or we could lose next week. If that’s the case, just forget that last paragraph.

After the game, I drove about 30 miles to Cheaha State Park, located at the highest point in Alabama (somewhere around 2,500 feet above sea level, I think). While not the greatest campground I’ve ever tried, Cheaha did have some very nice things about it. The weather was gorgeous. Low 70’s during the day, low 60’s with an ever-present breeze at night. Spectacular views, if one wanted to hike a bit. A nice camp store that had everything I’d possibly need. Running water in the facilities. Overall, I’d give it a B-.

I stayed there until Sunday morning, reading books, watching a couple of movies, generally doing nothing except receiving and answering the occassional page (amazingly, both my pager and cell phone had signal). Most of the pages had to do with the ongoing struggle of BellSouth to locate employees lost in New Orleans, particularly one of BellSouth Entertainment’s (BEI’s) two NO employees, a guy named Jerry Hill. The other BEI employee, Paul Tran, had been successfully relocated to Baton Rouge during the week, but Jerry was missing until sometime Saturday night. I got the following messages from my CIO at 11:00 Saturday night:

“Update about Jerry. End of my shift at the BellSouth employee response center. At the beginning of the shift, 3000 out of about 6500 employees in the affected areas were unaccounted for. Currently the number is about 900.

-Nancy

-Forwarded message from Mark T. Hopkins (Jerry’s boss)

We finally got him and his entire family to the BellSouth tent city in Baton Rouge. They are safe and now under the excellent care that CRES provides with hot food, showers, sleeping quarters, and most importantly, armed security. This was the delay from last night when we finally got them to a safe CO (central office) until tonight. Coordination with the armed security forces assigned to BellSouth too some time due to their efforts with transporting multi BellSouth employees to safety. Now we can begin to plan for restoration of our facilities.

At 11am this morning, the local NOLA news reported that the looters at Bundy Road (our “head end” in NOR – the equivalent of where I work in Atlanta) were firing on the firefighters that are using Bundy for their water rescues in the area. We will be off the air for some time to come.”

It was a stark reminder that not everybody was wrapped up in college football – and that there are some serious idiots in the world.

Jerry, Paul and I had been working out details two weeks ago to try to get my server shipped back to me from Bundy – I’d opted not to go to New Orleans earlier this year when I updated servers in Florida. I guess I don’t have to worry about that server now. Either it’s under water or some misguided soul with an AK-47 has decided that it’d look just SWELL in his flooded-out living room.

Looting for food and water? Sure.

Looting for shoes? Maybe.

Looting for televisions, stereos, and broadcasting equipment that you wouldn’t know how to use and won’t be able to sell? Are you an idiot?

Shooting rescuers for fun. I hope you die soon.

And on that happy note, I can now use the rest of today to get some stuff done around the house. Lawns need mowing (again), carpets need cleaning (again), bed needs changing (still)….and I’ve got to do some work at the office tonight (again). Happy Labor Day to all.