I'll take a small town any day.
And a small “college town" can't be beat. Thanks, Mom, for giving me the gift of happy memories.
I’ve always felt blessed I was able to grow up in Troy, Alabama.
When I was growing up in the 1970s and ‘80s, Troy had a population of 13,000. It was a small town, but not too small.
The best thing about growing up in Troy was that it was a college town, the home of Troy State University (now Troy University). Upon reflection, the fact Troy State was a small college (enrollment of about 3,000 back then) made my hometown even more idyllic, especially for a kid who loved sports.
As I’ll share at the end of this detour around Pandemic discussions, a contemporary snapshot involving my 8-year-old son Jack made me remember one random event from my childhood that’s always stayed with me.
***
When I was about 11, one Summer morning my mother dropped me off at the pro shop of the college golf course so I could meet my friends and partake in a few of the recreational activities myself and my buddies enjoyed.
A couple of hours later, I went into the little pro shop, probably to use the rest room.
The college golf coach ran the pro shop and immediately said with a laugh:
“Well, it looks like you’ve got everything covered.”
I looked down at myself and noticed that I had a football in one hand, a basketball in the other and had also managed to balance a tennis racket in my hands. Outside, leaning against the wall, were my set of golf clubs.
At the time, I didn’t think much about the statement, but in my later years I came to view this lingering vignette as the snapshot that best captures my youth.
It was later when I realized few kids in America could experience a summer day as perfect as that one, circa 1978.
The lay of the land …
Mom dropped me off at the pro shop because it was right in the middle of everything a sports-loving kid could possibly want.
I’ve probably played a thousand rounds of golf on that 9-hole course. I think greens fees were $6 and I didn’t need a cart because, back then, I could walk a golf course. (When I wasn’t playing, I often waded into the creeks and small ponds, and scavenged through the woods on doglegs to retrieve lost Top Flites, which I then sold or used as shag balls.)
Next to the pro shop was six tennis courts. Tennis was definitely not my sport, but I did play every now and then. (This is when America had several well-known tennis pros like John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors, and, on that day, I must have tried to emulate Connors, who was briefly married to Chris Everett, who I enjoyed watching because she was so poised, not to mention, quite fetching).
If you walked down the hill beyond the tennis courts you ran into Memorial Stadium, which was the football stadium shared by Troy State and Charles Henderson High School.
Back then Troy was a Division II program (a good one) and the stadium had a capacity of about 9,000. Today, Troy University is Division I in sports and the stadium, one of the prettiest in America, seats 31,000 people!
Growing up I must have played in 100 pick-up games on that field. Even if you didn’t have enough kids for a game, you could find a receiver buddy who’d let you work on your down-and-outs.
The football field had an asphalt track, which many locals used to walk or jog a few laps after work.
(My track memories are not as warm and fuzzy. I remember this track, which was right across the street from my high school, as the place Coach Jefcoat punished football team members in off-season workouts that - my opinion - involved far too many laps and sprints.)
Just beyond the tennis courts was Troy States’s baseball field, which you really couldn’t call a baseball stadium back then. It was a field with some wooden bleachers.
Local kids didn’t play many pick-up baseball games at this field, but we all used our town’s one batting cage. (See Reader Comments for a “bonus memory” involving said batting cage).
They couldn’t keep us out …
If you walked across the street from the baseball field, you ran into Sartain Hall, the college basketball arena (or, really, just a big gym).
Sartain Hall had a capacity of about 3,000 and Troy State - just like it did in all sports - boasted some excellent Division II teams when I was growing up.
In the summer, someone would lock Sartain Hall, but this didn’t matter because all the local boys had figured out how to break into the arena.
Some of my greatest basketball memories are 3-on-3 games played in Sartain Hall. I never remember any physical plant employee chasing us out of Sartain Hall, although someone must have known we’d circumvented the security system - and turned on the lights and ran up Troy State’s electric bill).
If you wanted to work on your game on an outdoor court, you walked 50 yards down the road opposite the football stadium. There, you had two handball courts (where you could also hit tennis balls) and a full-court basketball court.
The handball/basketball court was right next store to the Adams Center, which was the college’s “student center.”
The second floor of the Adams Center featured dozens of couches where students could chill out or study. But the college kids didn’t seem to mind sharing their relaxation space with a bunch of 11-year-old local kids.
The first floor of the Adams Center had a game room, where we could play ping pong or pool - for free, of course. (Except for the greens’ fees, everything was free. Even at the golf course, we often just used the putting green or chipping areas - for free).
The Adams Center, which has three floors, was the only building in Troy with an elevator. That elevator is still there, and smells exactly the same today as it did in the late 1970s.
Next store to The Adams Center was Wright Hall, which had an indoor swimming pool (with a real high dive!) and yet another indoor basketball court.
Large colleges are over-rated …
There were (and still are) many neighboring towns about the size of Troy, but none offered these priceless amenities, all within easy dribbling distance.
Our country has thousands of “college towns,” but - at least as far as my taste goes - many of those colleges are actually too big.
For example, if I’d grown up in Tuscaloosa, I certainly couldn’t play pick-up football in Bryant-Denny Stadium or sneak into Memorial Coliseum to play basketball where the Crimson Tide plays.
I later attended the University of Alabama and I don’t remember gangs of local kids taking over the UA Student Center.
Even kids who didn’t play sports enjoyed perks from living in a small college town. For example, the campus had a nice auditorium so all of our local beauty pageants and talent shows were held at Smith Hall/Crosby Theater.
We also got to enjoy Troy State music and theater productions and the theater often showed movies, which I think cost about $2.
***
When I was growing up, everyone would just say, “Meet you at the college.”
Our mothers would drop us off in the morning at the pro shop or maybe at the Adams Center and pick us up at 5 p.m.
My Mother’s Day Memories …
I’m sure when my mother picked me up she asked, “Did you have fun?”
And I’m sure I replied, in as few words as possible: “Yes.”
But it wasn’t until I was grown that I realized how much fun I’d actually had … and how lucky I was to grow up in such a town. … And how lucky I was to have a mother to play taxi cab driver and buy me that football, basketball, tennis racket, baseball glove, golf clubs and balls.
Skip forward many decades …
Last night my 8-year-old son Jack went to a high school spring football jamboree at Memorial Stadium. Before the game started, he and a bunch of his friends went out on the field and played pick-up football in that now much-larger stadium.
This got me thinking about how I’d done the same thing on the same field (which was grass then but is now artificial turf) - hundreds of times. It also got me thinking that my wife and I probably did a good thing when we decided to move back to Troy seven years ago.
And that my mother and father gave me a precious gift when our family moved back to Troy when I was in 7th grade.
The town and our college are both a little bigger today, but my two kids can still enjoy the same activities Dad did decades ago.
Smaller towns like Troy might not have as many malls or boutiques as our country’s larger cities, but, for this Small Town Boy, they can’t be beat when it comes to tallying happy memories.
(To my readers in towns small and large, I hope everyone has a Happy Mother’s Day Weekend.)
Writer tips via Ko-Fi …
Over the years, I also got to know plenty of Troy State athletes, who I pulled for at their games, and discovered they were much more approachable and not the prima-donna types you might find at the “blue blood” SEC type colleges.
Generally speaking, I suspect small-college athletes are a little nicer. And some of those athletes were really good - just as good as the big-college athletes.
Every year, Troy football, basketball and baseball player go to Jack and Maggie's school ... and help kids get out of the car and ask them to come to games that year ... I don't think they do that at Alabama, Auburn, Georgia or Florida.
Before Troy University's recent Spring Game, Jack participated in a youth football clinic - put on by the players who were getting ready to play the game!
Bonus Nostalgia ...
Between the ages of 8 and 13, baseball was the biggest sport in town. In that age period (back before pitchers knew how to throw curve balls), I could hit for a respectable average … but I never once hit a home run. To this day, this bothers me.
One day, however, I almost hit a home run in a Dixie Youth game (Astros vs. Mets). In Troy, we had two Dixie Youth fields and this one was played on the bigger field. The fences were 199 feet from home plate. (It’s funny the details you remember).
That morning the father of one of my teammates, Mr. Barron, took me and his son, Levon, to the town’s one batting cage at Troy State’s baseball field.
So I got some extra batting practice. I think Mr. Barron perhaps knew a little more about hitting than my youth coach and passed along some good tips.
My first at bat against the Mets, I hit the ball right in the sweet spot and it kept going and going and going into right center field.
“Ah, finally, my first home run,” I thought as I started my maiden home-run trot.
Alas, the baseball gods weren’t smiling on me as the ball hit the very top of the fence - I think it hit one of those little fence pegs - and bounced back into play.
I ended up with a double and I never hit a home run in a real game the rest of my life.
I take my kids to school and every day we drive past that very field, which is no longer used as a baseball field. Still, the exact same outfield fence is still there.
Maggie and Jack must be tired of me telling the story “that’s where I almost hit a home run. That dang fence right there. If I had just hit that ball two inches farther.”
If any subscriber passes through Troy on the way to the beach, give me a call and I’ll give you a quick “ride-around” of Troy. The college is far prettier than it was when I was a kid. That college baseball field with a few wooden bleachers is now a bona fide stadium - with four batting cages.
The baseball field where I almost hit a home run is not the prettiest section of town, but I’ll take you by and show you that dadgum fence. I’ve ridden by it a thousand times - and a thousand times I’ve thought about this story.
(But this is the first time I’ve written about it).