a little bit older ...

First impressions stick with me. And I’m sure the first impression most folks get from me sticks most of the time as well. How do I know this? Because there are very few people who I couldn’t stand initially that I can stand now, and there are even fewer folks that couldn’t stand me at first who do now.

I saw him standing against the brick wall entrance of the football practice field at South Carolina’s athletic facility. He was wearing a just a little too tight black shirt and jeans. His muscly arms protruded out of the shirt, I’m sure with the desired effect. In his hands was a bible. This was Kelvin Smith.

Many of my newspaper colleagues had warned me of this certain buffoon. That I’d certainly not enjoy being around him. Now, I don’t mind the person that tosses about bible verses and believes that God is going to come one day and judge us all. That’s their prerogative. I do, however, hate folks that preach it but don’t even come close to living it.

“Hey there,” he said to me as I walked up with the sports information intern. “I’m Kelvin.”

“Randy,” I said, putting out my hand to shake. It was not returned.

“What paper do you work for?” he asked.

“The Urinal,” I replied.

“Ha! That’s what we all call it,” Kelvin smirked. “Who are you here to talk with?”

Now, I’d heard he likes to mooch off of other’s story ideas, so I wasn’t about to give mine away. I actually had a little tidbit of information about a certain player’s off field habit of collecting moths that I didn’t really want to give away, seemed weird enough to make a good story. So I lied.

“Just the normal suspects,” I said. “Coach, running back, quarterback. Think I may just do a scouting report story. Maybe a notebook today.”

“Cool, cool,” Kelvin said. “I was going to talk to the quarterback too. He threw for almost 250 yards last week. Pretty impressive.”

“Yeah, in a 33-7 loss. How impressive is that?” I thought to myself. God damn jock-sniffer.

I had on a shirt from my old Arizona State University days because it was laundry night for me. Kelvin looked at it and asked “Did you know Pat Tillman? I’m good buddies with Lawrence Cooper here on the team!”

“Yeah, I covered ASU when Pat was there,” I replied. “Certainly wasn’t a buddy with him. But we respected each other. Had a couple of good conversations with him.”

“Me and L-Coop, that’s what I call him, had lunch yesterday at Logan’s. He let me pay for it.”

“I’m sure he did,” I sighed.

I looked at the intern and waved him over to the side.

“You going to be able to hold Johnson to the side until after he’s gone?” I asked.

“What? You don’t want Kelvin swooping in?”

We laughed before Kelvin walked over.

“What’s so funny?” he asked bemusedly.

“Oh, nothing.” I said.

“We were reading your column,” intern said coyly. “And talking about how coach really didn’t like it.”

He was setting him up. And I was enjoying it.

“Really? He didn’t like it? I was all very positive. Especially about Josh’s QB stats. I’m going to have to talk to him about it. Man, that sucks. I was trying to be positive and have them respect it.”

“Guess it didn’t work,” I said.

My story on the game was a blast to write. The coach went on a seven-minute tirade about how badly the team executed on second downs the entire game. Second down. Who the fuck ever notices such a thing? So, I wrote a 31-inch story on second downs. Had a nice graphic of their second downs as well. Seems they actually were more productive on that down than any other. Had been that way all season.

Coach called me the next day and thanked me for noticing he was joking. Unlike Kelvin. Who wrote about how poorly the second down offense was the entire game. Based simply on three quotes from the coach’s tirade and a QB’s quote on the coach’s quote.

Everyone had a good laugh on that one. Everyone, I guess but Kelvin.

But today, over a decade after that first encounter, I still get chills when he walks in the room. Or when I hear his voice on the other end of the phone. Somehow, all these years later, I ended up working with him. Strangeness all around.

That voice. Ugh.

That walk.

Those awful tight shirts.

And one police report that I got to read.

Seems he was investigated, never charged mind you, for “creepy behavior with minors.” As the police said.

Now, when I see him, all I hear is The Outfield’s lead singer Tony Lewis belting out the band’s greatest hit. More specifically, one line “You know I like my girl’s a little bit older.” Damn that guy creeps me out.