Posted on 05/10/2006 4:03:03 PM PDT by WestTexasWend
Reggie Mathis wishes he could go back. Wishes he hadn’t squandered that last spring he was on the OU campus. Wishes he had been as partial to the library as he is now.
Mathis has gone back. Back to the state he left in 1979. Back to the people who helped before and are willing to do it again. Back to school.
Reggie Mathis awoke today with a new title. A new way to describe a man who in March turned 50 years old.
College graduate.
Twenty-eight years after Mathis finished his Sooner football career, he graduated from the University of Central Oklahoma. Better late than never.
“Whooo, it’s been a long haul,” Mathis said. “I thank God I’ve been able to come back and finish.”
Mathis, an all-Big Eight defensive end in 1978, was brought back by the desire to coach. He’s been in football most of the years since he was a Sooner, but sans degree, his coaching was relegated to part-time or semi-pro or indoor ball.
Colleges want a degree, high schools want a teaching certificate.
Mathis now qualifies.
“I’m tickled to death that he’s graduating,” said former OU assistant Bobby Proctor, who helped get Mathis re-established in Oklahoma.
That list also includes Barry Switzer and Charley Newton, who heads the OU letterman’s association, and Gerald Gurney, OU’s associate athletic director for academic affairs.
Many a college athlete returns to get his degree. Alvan Adams came back to OU and received a Classics degree after his NBA career. Darrius Johnson is in school this summer, 11 years after his OU playing career.
But few are gone as long as Mathis.
Mathis played three years in the NFL with the New Orleans Saints, then signed with Chuck Fairbanks’ New Jersey Generals and eventually played Arena football and got into semi-pro and indoor coaching.
“I was bouncing around, there was no security,” Mathis said. “I found out I needed to finish my degree. I don’t want this wall to hit me again. I don’t want this to ever hinder me from getting (a) job again.”
So Mathis called Proctor last year and said he was coming back to Oklahoma.
He had called Proctor before. Proctor had recruited Mathis out of Chattanooga, Tenn., more than 30 years ago. Mathis did not qualify academically, so Proctor placed him at Navarro (Texas) Junior College.
Mathis called Proctor one day and said he had taken care of business at Navarro and wanted to come to OU. Proctor told him come on, and two days later, Proctor got another phone call. Mathis was at the Norman bus station, just off the bus.
Mathis became a solid defender. Former OU defensive coordinator Larry Lacewell “thought he was a great player,” Proctor said. “Super kid, humble all the time.”
Mathis had 114 college hours after the 1979 Orange Bowl. But he had tired of school. “I was kind of feeling I needed a break,” Mathis said.
Mathis thought of the three to four hours a day he has spent at the UCO library the last year. “I wish I had those habits then,” Mathis said. “It was about football. I have regrets about that. I’m not going to try to beat myself up with it.”
Mathis is divorced with three sons who live elsewhere. He did not have the money to start over or go back to school. Newton helped Mathis relocate in Edmond, and Switzer and Proctor called on Gurney to help.
The Port Robertson Foundation, which honors the long-time OU wrestling coach and academic overseer, funds former Sooner athletes who want to return to school for degree completion or to pursue a post-graduate degree.
But that money goes through the OU Foundation, which requires that students use the funds at OU. Turns out Mathis needed to attend UCO, because he could get through a year sooner.
So Gurney turned to the NCAA’s Student Athlete Opportunity Fund, which gets its money from CBS’ billion-dollar contract for the NCAA basketball tournament.
“We’ve provided financial assistance for our former student-athletes in pursuing their dreams,” Gurney said.
Each conference administers the fund, and the Big 12 initially turned down Mathis, saying he had been out of school too long. But Gurney appealed to the league’s Student Athlete Advisory Council, and eventually Mathis received the scholarship help.
“I got to play Santa Claus and was pleased to do so, even though I’m Jewish,” Gurney said with a laugh.
UCO graduation was Friday night, but Mathis didn’t attend the ceremony. That’s for the young, he figures. Fifty-year-olds need to go about the business of getting on with their life.
“Right now, I just want to get the paper and just move on,” said Mathis, who spent 2005 as a volunteer coach for Chuck Langston at UCO. “I would like to coach at a university. If that doesn’t happen, I’d like to coach in high school.”
This is the story of a man who wished he could go back and decided that he couldn’t do anything about the past but certainly could about the future.
“It’s worth it,” Mathis said, “all the time I’ve put in it. It’s all worth it.”
So now he can teach history, math, or biology.
I played against him, butted heads with him many times--he was a fine player.
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