Thursday, September 3, 2015

Rick Cleveland: Remembering Ole Miss's Bob Priester

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.
-A.E. Housman, To an Athlete Dying Young


This was the last day of August, 1965, 50 years ago. The Ole Miss Rebels had gathered for their first official practice. Hopes were sky-high. The Rebels were a season removed from a Southeastern Conference championship and had begun the previous season ranked No.1 in the country.

They were talented and they were deep. This was at a time when John Vaught red-shirted most players between their freshman and sophomore seasons. Only the most special of talents played as true sophomores. Robert “Bob” Priester of Natchez was one of those special ones.

Robert Khayat, who needs no introduction here, had coached Priester the year before on the freshman team when Khayat was studying law and coaching on the side. “Bob Priester was everything you look for in an end and a student,” Khayat remembers. “He was tall, lanky, strong, fast. He had good hands. He was smart and he was determined. He was going to be a great player at Ole Miss and a great success in life.”

Priester had played both ways and kicked for the undefeated 1964 Ole Miss freshman team. Vaught had promoted him to the varsity. There would be no red-shirt for Priester.

Hugh Shelton from Baton Rouge had spurned LSU offers to attend Ole Miss as a fullback and linebacker. Like most Ole Miss sophomores he was going to get the red-shirt. He and Priester were roommates and close pals.

“We were the odd couple,” Shelton says, laughing. “Bob was neat and organized. I was a mess. He finally took a piece of chalk and drew a line across the dorm room, and said, 'That's your side. Keep your stuff over there.' “We were different in so many ways,” Shelton continues. “Bob was serious about everything. I wasn't. He made straight A's. I didn't. School came easy for Bob. Everything came easy for Bob.”


Still, nobody worked harder than Bob Priester, especially when it came to football.

“Back then, everybody had to run a 6-minute mile, even the linemen,” Shelton says. “It may sound easy, but it wasn't. Bob and I ran twice a day preparing for the fall. We'd run that mile and he'd always make it easy and he'd turn around and laugh at me the last 30 yards running backwards while I struggled. He was 6 foot 3 and weighed 215 and could run like a deer.”

The Ole Miss players got their flu shots on the morning of the first practice. Hugh Shelton always has wondered whether that contributed. . . .

Shelton was watching as Priester ran his required mile on the track around the practice field. When Priester made the last turn, Shelton knew something was wrong.

“Bob was struggling,” Shelton says. “This was something he could do so easily but you could tell he was really struggling.”

And then, just like that, Priester collapsed.

Trainers and coaches tried, without success, to revive him. He was rushed to the hospital.

Not long afterward, Priester's teammates got the news: “Bob didn't make it.”

The autopsy simply said: “Heart failure.” The doctor, who performed the autopsy reportedly said he had never examined such a fine physical specimen.

“Tragic, just tragic,” Robert Khayat says. “Bob Priester was going to be a great player, a great success in life.”

“Such a waste, such a terrible waste,” says Shelton, the roommate, who lost interest in football, left Ole Miss and never played the sport again.

Janice Priester, Bob's older sister, lives in Natchez where there is still an unopened trunk of Bob's things and all the cards and letters that arrived in the days and weeks afterward.

“It's been 50 years,” she says, “I still can't bring myself to go through that trunk.”Fast forward 50 years: Everybody is undefeated. Hopes are sky-high, as they should be. It is a time of such promise, such unbridled optimism, but also time to pause and remember Bob Priester and such promise never realized.

•••

Rick Cleveland (rcleveland@msfame.com) is executive director of the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and Museum.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I hate Ole Miss. (I am not a fan of ANY school of "higher education" in MS).

This however, was a great historical and sports read. A sad tale about a man that had a bright future. Very sad.

Thanks for posting.

Anonymous said...

Very well written as always. I worry about this country without newspapers. Newspapers today make so little money that they have to lay off their best talent. Like Rick Cleveland. Cannot afford them. I wonder how they afford not to have them.
The biggest thing to me is that in the past newspapers would investigate all sorts of things, especially political wrong doings. I think they are loosing the ability and the manpower to do that. As a democracy we need watchdogs. Not folks like me who bitch about what they read on the internet, but people who will do some real digging. Interview witnesses, dig up files, spread light in dark corners. This website does some of that, but as a nation we are weaker without good newspapers.

Kingfish said...

Thanks. Mr. Cleveland's column will be a weekly feature as JJ picked up his syndicated column.


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If you get tired come relax at the Fox News Tent. To gain admittance to the VIP section, bring either your Republican Party ID card or a Rebel Flag. Bringing both will entitle you to free drinks.Get your tickets now. Since this is an event for trolls, no ID is required, just bring the hate. Bring the family, Trollfest '07 is for EVERYONE!!!

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