RIP Allen Mitchell (Blast from the past: Another wasted opportunity)

Allen Mitchell in 2009 with one of his sons at a reunion for the 1984 and the 1969 Gamecocks.

According to media reports, Mitchell is dead, having committed suicide. I don't know what his pain was, but looking at that young child's face, it is almost unbearably sad news.

I wrote the below column at the time of the reunion, having met many of the players for both teams.

USC: Another wasted opportunity

I keep putting 1984 first in my discussions of this event Saturday because it was not only my first year at USC, but also, honestly, my first year as a college football fan. My expectations for USC were set that year. So I've had a mostly disappointing quarter of a century (did I really write that?) as a college football fan.

We all want this program to succeed, some of us desperately.

We've had such heartbreak the past few years that we forget, while we've stumbled often, more often than not, this program has had a slightly better than winning record.

We were reminded on Saturday that living breathing young men once won a conference title for this school. There was an article that indicated we won another title, but it was vacated.

We've had conference football success. Not a lot. Just a tiny bit.

But not nothing.

In 1984, we went 10-2. We rose to the No. 2 ranking in the nation. We set the college football world on fire for most of the regular season.

So do you think the hundred or so guys who took the field in the pregame might have actually had a little wisdom to impart to our current team? Maybe just a touch?

I spent more time talking to the guys in black from the Black Magic year.

They were selfless, they said. They had no real superstars, not even any stars. They just worked. Together.

They had senior leadership that had been there. Some of those linemen had blocked for a guy who won a Heisman trophy.

I'm not talking about exchanging schemes, not Xs and Os.

They played with desire. With heart. They cared almost more for the excitement of the game than for the win. As a result, they got the W all but two times.

They did their jobs and they stuck together.

So I asked. And asked. And asked, and kept getting the same disappointing answer.

Did they let you speak to the team at any point?

No. Not once.

These guys were treated like boosters or recruits in the access they got to practice and pregame and sideline. But a few of them said they were owed something different. Better treatment over the years, perhaps. I happen to agree.

See, these guys had to pay for their own tickets to the game, past the two they were allotted. They had to pay $25 bucks a pop to go to the barbecue dinner on Friday night in the zone.

Our Athletics Department never, ever learns.

There is a perception that there's no tradition, no history at USC in football, Because of it, we continue to distance ourselves and alienate the living breathing tradition that we actually have.

In basketball, it is acknowledged that we had a pretty good run under an Irishman named Frank McGuire, but we have distanced ourselves from that program as well, with a couple of irreparable tears.

I say this because I love my alma mater. College was a precious experience. I made friends while we watched and tailgated before game after game under Joe Morrison. Some friends I've kept for a lifetime. I also got an education on the side, though it came as much at The Gamecock newspaper, as in the classroom.

For the whole time I've been associated with this program, the Athletics Department has done OK raising money to build facilities. It has been up and down in hiring coaches.

But it's been dismal and almost destructive in preserving the integrity of the history that this program has to offer. It raises money, but it razes spirit.

There's nobody up at the Sports Information Office, now that Tom Price has died, who knows the history well enough to respect the history. Nobody. I don't know who could do the job. But we need someone there who, if they can’t master Gamecock sports history, can at least protect the legacy of what we have really done.

Some might laugh and think, "Is he serious? Isn't the Athletics Department USC sports?"

No. They've gotten too big for their britches down there in the Rex Enright Building. So big I wonder if they know anything about the guy for whom the building is named.

This program can be big. It has been big. The 100 or so guys in garnet and black, though aged, a few of them stumbling slowly on crutches to the Block C at midfield are the biggest thing to ever happen to USC.

Yeah, we fed them Friday, let them see a practice. Showed them around. Put them out at midfield before the game when "no one would see them," more than one former player said to me.

It's amazing how USC can ostensibly honor, yet shush them aside at the same time.

And I'm not talking a metaphorical shushing. Once the ceremony at midfield was over, more than one guy tried to “direct” them to the seats provided for them.

The 1984 guys, as shown by Kevin "The Chief" Hendrix, still have the fire. They deserved to hear 200I from the field one more time.

The 1969 guys had never heard it before, and they wanted to.

"Awesome," said USC record holding return man Dickie Harris after it was over. "Unbelievable. If that doesn't get you fired up, nothing can."

It's awesome because it's loud, but it's awesome because it's a quarter of a century of a tradition. To the outside world, that entrance and the rocking, bopping upper decks are the biggest things about USC football.

But not to me.

Those guys in garnet and black, they're as big as it gets in USC. They are awesome. They are unbelievable. If you walking among them and talking to them doesn’t get you fired up, nothing can.

They had something to tell our current players. They could teach teamwork, leadership, perseverance and drive. A million tiny things.

Unfortunately, no one bothered to ask them.

Another wasted opportunity.

Reunion Slideshow.