In 1969, I was the starting quarterback for the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. We were playing a televised night game. At the time, there was only one televised game on Saturday night: Georgia Tech vs. Notre Dame’s Fighting Irish, who were competing that year for a national championship. They had a quarterback named Joe Theismann, who later was a finalist for the Heisman Trophy award given to the best college football player in the U.S. So, it’s a finalist for the best player in the nation against a quarterback who was just glad he was starting.

In my mind, the ...