My future wife and I were sitting in the stands at a University of Georgia basketball game at Stegman Coliseum when they began calling out the draft numbers on the radio. I had a transitor pressed to my ear as did many, many others. By the end of the game, they still hadn’t called my number. My girlfriend and I made it back to the car and turned on the radio for additional announcements. When my number 269 was finally called, it was a great sigh of relief for both of us.
I graduated the next year, married my girfriend and landed my first job working as a sports writer for the Fort Myers News Press. I felt very blessed to have avoided that dreadful draft.
