played football for the Dobyns-Bennett High School Indians of Kingsport, Tennessee. D-B, as it was known throughout the region, was, and continues to be, the most winning high school football team in Tennessee sports history. We had, and they have, the most wins and the most state football championships in the history of the state.
Legendary coach Bobby Dodd was an Indian, if that tells you anything about our heritage. If you don’t know who Bobby Dodd was (Bobby Dodd Stadium, Georgia Tech), you are not into Southern football lore.
Anyway, what this meant, in practical terms, is that everybody else hated us. Loathed us. Wished the school would fall in on us and sweep us off the planet.
Why? Because that’s what happens when you are the best and everyone knows you are the best and they are not. You become everybody’s target and, when once in a blue moon one of the lesser teams defeats you, it makes their whole season and they talk about it later at the AARP gatherings.
So, if you were a Dobyns-Bennett player who wore a maroon and gray letter jacket with the “K” on it (for “Kingsport”) you expected to get sneers from the athletes from other schools. And, if the football record wasn’t enough to raise hackles, D-B had and has legendary baseball, track, and basketball teams too.
So you learned to wear the loathing as a matter of pride. After all, if you lost all your games then everybody loved you and wanted to play you. But we didn’t lose. Not very often. So we were hated.
Well, there were some people who didn’t hate us. The girls from the rival high schools didn’t hate us. Which gave the guys even more reason to hate us. And we loved it.
Which is why so many nations of the world also hate the United States. After all, there aren’t 11 million people who broke all sorts of laws getting into Venezuela or a great number of other countries. Cuba doesn’t have an illegal immigrant problem. Neither does North Korea. Or China. Or Russia. Or … well, you get the idea.
Much of the world is envious of the United States, its productivity, its potential, its military power, its prosperity, and, not the least consideration, its freedom.
There are some who are deeply concerned about that. There are those who are running around all over the world, apologizing for this country with all their might, and hoping the other folks will like us. Well, they won’t. When you are on top of the heap, when you are the Big Dog, you get hated. It comes with the territory.
Personally, I liked being a D-B Indian. I liked being part of the best. Later, in the Marine Corps (also one of the world’s best), I played on a couple of losing football teams and I hated it. I hated losing and I hated not being the best in the league.
And, personally, I like being an American. It’s not something I chose and I have visited a lot of beautiful places and met beautiful people on several continents, but I loved coming home, seeing that American flag wave in the breeze , and smelling the fresh, clean air of liberty and opportunity.
If much of the world hates us that’s just the burden we bear for being who we are. And, if we keep being winners, that’s just fine by me.
[David Epps is the pastor of Christ the King Church (www.ctkcec.org.) which meets Sundays at 10 a.m. and is located on Ga. Highway 34 between Peachtree City and Newnan. He may be contacted at frepps@ctkcec.org.]
