I’ll wake up this morning, and like most people, I’ll go to work, like it was any other day of the year. Brad Gaines’ day will be a little bit different though. Brad won’t be going in to work today. No, he’ll still be up with the sun though, packing his pickup truck with cleaning supplies and starting off on a trip that’s he’s made so often before. It’s not something that he has to do, but rather something that he does out of desire. The trip is a long and lonely one, but he knows that he has a kindred spirit waiting at the end of the line.

Fourteen years ago today, Chucky Mullins passed away in a hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. He died of complications from the paralysis that occured on October 28, 1989, in a game against Vanderbilt University. On the fateful play that would end his college football career, and eventually his life, he fell to the ground after making a crushing hit on Gaines. Mullins became a rallying point for his Rebel teammates and the Ole Miss fans for the remainder of the season, inspiring the battle cry ‘It’s Time’, and visiting an emotional Rebel locker room before the team’s Liberty Bowl victory over Air Force to end the 1989 season.

The trip to Russelville, Alabama takes Brad Gaines about three hours. When he gets to the small cemetary, he walks to the back, along the brush line, looking ahead until he’s standing in front of the granite stone that he’s visited three times a year, every year, for fourteen years. On the anniversary of the Ole Miss - Vanderbilt game, on Christmas, and on this day, the anniversary of Chucky’s death, Brad visits and cleans Chucky’s stone, in order to continue a connection and a friendship borne out of tragedy.

I’ve had to pause three times while writing this; once while watching the SportsCenter piece that inspired it, and twice while doing research; to compose myself. I don’t think that any Ole Miss fan can truly express what it means to remember Chucky, but I’ll try. To see someone come from so little and to make so much of their life and the opportunities that they were given, as well as to show such strength and inner peace in the face of such a life altering tragedy inspires me, and I’m sure many others, to strive for the same traits in our own lives. And to see the Ole Miss family rally around one of their own in their time of ultimate need makes me proud to be associated with The University of Mississippi, and all of the history, good and bad, that comes with it.

I’m not an overly religious person, but if you’re reading this, and if you think about Brad Gaines today, say a little prayer for him, as he goes to rekindle a special relationship with an old friend. And if you want, say a little prayer for Chucky, too. A prayer for his life, a prayer for his peace in death, and a prayer for the inspiration that he still brings to so many people, so many years later.