By MONTE DUTTON

It’s Saturday morning, and somehow it’s nearly 11, and I’ve been up since 8:30 after getting as much as I could on last night’s one-point loss to Gardner-Webb by Presbyterian and inserting more details. I updated it this morning.

PC played ‘em tough, losing to Gardner-Webb at the Big South gathering in High Point, N.C., on two free throws with three seconds left. What else is new?

The Blue Hose, who haven’t had a winning season (20-16) since Dustin Kerns’ latter season as head coach, finished 14-18, the best season since. That was 2018-19.

It reminds me of how good, comparatively, Furman’s got it.

Timmons Arena is about to be refurbished into a palace that will make it gloriously unrecognizable. Recently, Templeton Center at PC has had its seats and scoreboards replaced. Next year, like last year, they say they’re going to put in lights, but shooting photos now is similar to capturing Carlsbad Caverns, only with the need for a higher shutter speed. My photos from Templeton require more surgery than NFL quarterbacks. I have used an inordinate number of file photos from the Blue Hose game at well-lit Timmons.

As the kids say, Furman is lit. A typical crowd is about 2,500. The largest crowd I’ve seen at PC was 444, perhaps even paid. A “big” football game at Bailey Memorial Stadium last season drew 1,202, a day after Clinton High put about 5,000 in Wilder Stadium. When it rains at a NASCAR race and they suspend the track drying, the term is “we’ve lost the track.” Presbyterian College lost the town. It might as well build a stone wall around the campus.

The secret to the Paladins’ success in football and men’s basketball – not to mention every other sport – is having athletes who want to be there.

It’s tough being a high-school star in an age when colleges are recruiting each other more than developing prep recruits. Most high-school athletes sign with anyone who will take them. Then, if they leave, they go somewhere else about which they know little.

I’m a travelin’ man / Made a lot of stops all over the world / And in every port I own the heart / Of at least one lovely girl — Jerry Fuller (for Ricky Nelson)

As Bob Richey said a season ago, “This industry (strange noun for a sports assembly line) has become nothing more than stacking talent on a scale, but a real team will beat that bunch every time.”

Clay Hendrix knows that. Most of the players who have left did so because they have run out of ways Furman could educate them. They graduate first, then go somewhere that can educate them even more. No one can fault that.

Also, have there ever been better fits than Conley Garrison two seasons ago in basketball and Tyler Huff and Mason Pline in the football autumn (it certainly wasn’t a fall)? Not many.

As I have said for 40 years, it’s hard to be competitive athletically with high academic standards, but if that bar is crossed, it becomes an advantage. I’d rather interview Furman athletes than Taylor Swift or Willie Nelson and only in part because I’d never get a chance. Win or lose, I love the beat. It’s just hard to make a living at it.

This basketball team – readers know how much I love to quote or paraphrase song lyrics – can be “hotter than the 31^st of August, then colder than a February morn (Curly Putnam/Dave Kirby).”

It’s rebuilding, and how could it avoid it with the loss of major talents Mike Bothwell and Jalen Slawson – I mention them alphabetically – because they were even greater leaders?

My pride in the Paladins is great. Furman’s exposure is minuscule when compared to Clemson, but no high school gets more attention in Greenville. In Clinton, the Red Devils dwarf the Blue Hose. It could well be the difference in the Devils and the deep, blue sea. Presbyterian is the Sargasso Sea, mired in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Yet the Blue Hose represent my hometown, and I can’t help but root for them except when they’re playing my actual school. They’re a pain in the ass, but I always bring liniment.

I’m watching a halftime interview on TV: “We just play ‘em one at a time.”

There’s no other way, whether it’s repairing a dryer or selling used cars.

When a Paladin replies to my question by saying “I was thinking about that the other day,” or, “it’s funny you should mention that,” I’m panning for journalistic gold.

I yearn for a day when once again the Blue Hose Spirit starts fighting.

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