50-Year-Reunion

Running down the life story of the Gamecock ’ s football coach to publish Spurrier: How the Ball Coach Taught the South to Play Football led to Wednesday Night Bible Study at Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church on Calhoun Street in Charleston -- where I felt called to tell the story of Dr. Clementa Pinckney. His Doubting Thomas speech at the State House affixed body cameras to police officers across the land a week before he and his fellow Bible scholars lost their life in that room below the sanctuary where lives can change in a heartbeat. Why are we still here when so many good souls are gone from our sight? May atonement be ours in this fiftieth year of graduating together and following our dreams, finding love and remembering the history Mr. Brooks taught us and holding friends and family close as the calendar ticks and the road goes ever on and on and we keep ascending the Stairway … We Believe.

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