Randy Dickson: Looking back on 50 years of sports memories

It seems like only yesterday I was waiting five days to get my drivers license.

Gulf Breeze had spring football practice the day I turned 16, and my parents wouldn't let me cut classes.

That day was 34 years ago. Today I turn 50.

If you hear a deafening thud from the south end of the county sometime today, don't be alarmed. It's only my world coming to an end.

Actually, according to a document I have from the Mississippi Department of Records, I turned 50 at 3:45 this morning. So the thud might be my old bag of bones getting out of bed.

I really am trying to embrace this 50 thing. It just takes a little getting used to having AARP membership cards come in the mail, or the thought that I'm closer to 70 than 17.

The TV Land network recently started a series celebrating people who turn 40 called, "The Big 4-0."

Looking at my waistline, a series about me would be, "The Bigger 5-0."

Seriously though, I have a lot to be thankful for as I look back on a half-century of life and the sports I've enjoyed.

I am old enough to remember the first Super Bowl as well as Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris at the end of their careers.

I have seen Hank Aaron play for the Atlanta Braves and Paul "Bear" Bryant coach at Alabama. I have watched Archie, Peyton and Eli Manning in college and in the NFL.

When I was 9 years old, Maris was my favorite baseball player. I bought a bat that had his name on it. Forget the fact that at 34 ounces it was too heavy for Little League. It was my stick. Forty-one years later I still have that weathered club that has been battered by so many games.

I never was much a hitter, but I do credit the heavy bat with helping me develop the powerful forearms I have today.

My baseball dream came to an end when I couldn't make the high school team.

Football became my sport, but only because Gulf Breeze didn't cut football players.

The two years I spent on the Dolphin football team were my best years in high school. I learned about myself and life while learning the game. I really wasn't any better at football than baseball, but being on the team was something more than I could have hoped for.

I never was a very good player, but I did gain a reputation for knowing more about sports than any kid at GBHS. If only there had been a sports section on the ACT test. No telling how high my score might have been.

It has been said that those who can't play sports coach. I'm one of those who couldn't play, but I was blessed to have a little talent as a writer.

In the ninth grade, I once promised myself I’d never do anything grammar related. Instead, I’ve spent a large part of my life at a keyboard trying to make words fit as I tell the story of those more athletically gifted than myself.

I once felt cheated that I didn't have great athletic talent, but I know I've been blessed with the greater gift of writing.

How do I squeeze a half-century of living and sports into a few paragraphs? I don't. I just keep on living and enjoying the blessings that come my way every day by having a job I love.

I am among men most richly blessed.