As happens every so often, we received an email from a forgotten player in a bygone era. The impetus was our 100 Days series, highlighting ordinary lives that are marked by the extraordinary. In this case, Judge John Enslen was looking for one of his cousins who had played on those dominant mid-60s Bryant squads.
After reading the piece, he was prompted to write down his own thoughts, as a now 78-year-old retired man, and he generously shared them with me. Just as all our lives are marked by the unexpected, what made Judge Enslen’s piece so striking is that he wasn’t a ‘Bama player at all. In 1966, John was playing for the opponent: Though from the Wetumpka area, Enslen was a quarterback on the other sideline that day the Clemson Tigers fell 26-0 to the Crimson Tide in Bryant Denny Stadium.
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And his is a love letter to the unheralded backup, to the scout-teamer that never earned a varsity letter, to the walk-on who makes everyone else better. It is about the importance of the thousands of anonymous young men across the country who make football programs run. The pathos of failure. The countless plays that aren’t made, not just the highlights. I asked for permission to publish those private thoughts, and he graciously agreed,
We share it now in full and thank him profusely for allowing us to do so.
Special to RBR from Hon. (Retired) John Enslen:
Most stories about sports, including college football, center on superstars, record holders, and flamboyant personalities who are etched into our collective memories. The highly recognized are a very small minority of all the players who make up the game. As the NCAA often reminds us, student-athletes go pro in other things. Football is only a temporary stage of the player’s life, not the entirety of it. If playing football is your full identity at any stage, you are in serious trouble.
We only remember the guy who breaks the tackle and scores, not the guy who failed to make the goal line tackle. For every successful play, there is an equal number of failing plays from the standpoint of quiet contributors who came close to glory and were yet so far from it. Those involved in the apparent failings are quickly forgotten, even if ever known, and they make up the vast majority of the team. This is especially true regarding the days when scholarships were not limited and there were more than 100 players on the team, including non-scholarship walk-ons. The college sport of football exists because of regular guys who are not listed in the stat sheets, seldom dress out, do not travel with the team, and who are lucky if their name is on a gameday roster.
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The unsung and unheralded contribute mightily to the success of a team. In my case, our team’s success at Clemson included the ACC championship for both years that I served as scout team quarterback, 1965 and 1966. I want to say something here about the countless scout team quarterbacks of college football, especially those of my era when there were no protective rules in place for vulnerable quarterbacks. The vulnerability increased during five weekdays of practice where spearing, hitting the neck and above, elbow throwing, and pounding the quarterback into the ground after the ball had been thrown were all normal and customary. To intensify the situation, we were often wearing a mimic jersey to match that upcoming Saturday’s opposing quarterback. For me, I played against the number one defense in the ACC every week, but it was the same defense, and all of my playing occurred invisibly on Monday through Friday of each week during the entire season.
Every scout team quarterback has his own life story, and all of the stories are fascinatingly special. The chapter on being the scout team quarterback plays an important role in the big picture, but it is still only one chapter of many. These scout team quarterbacks go on to become men, raise families, have careers, and make their marks on the world in other ways large and small. This little literary piece is for all of the former scout team quarterbacks. I have felt your pain. We only needed the right break, or a fair coach, or an equal opportunity to display our skills with first team receivers and first team offensive linemen instead of that which we had. Every college football season, some scout team quarterback becomes the starting quarterback and does a commendable job. But for the two or three ahead of him that became injured or terribly underperformed, he would have remained the unknown scout team quarterback.
I salute you scout team quarterbacks who never saw playing time on game day and whose valuable contributions were never fully recognized.
Hon. (Retired) John Enslen was a backup quarterback for the Clemson Tigers in 1965 and 1966, as the Tigers claimed the ACC titles. After college, he graduated from the University of Alabama School of Law (‘72, earning his JD and becoming an attorney in the state. Judge Enslen would go on to have a long and distinguished career as an accomplished trial attorney, one that eventually saw him elevated to the Bench in Elmore County as its Probate Judge. Though he retired in 2019, he’s not resting on his laurels — or resting much at all, for that matter: John is a two-state Gold Medalist (tennis) in the Senior Olympics, among his many other interests and passions.
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Thanks for dropping by and sharing with us, Judge.
Roll Tide.
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