The CheckerBoard

A friend of mine came to visit me this week and shared a great story he had heard about the one and only Al Wilson.

My buddy had no connection to the team, but he is good friends with a wealth manager in the area that has a number of former Vols as clients. One of those clients is apparently a former offensive lineman who played at the same time as Al. The former player shared this story with his broker, who passed it onto my buddy, from whom I heard it:

Basically, it was this player's first year in the program, and it was the first week in training camp, and one of the first days with pads on. He came out fired up, and ready to make a name for himself. In his mind, the best strategy was to find out whoever was seen as the biggest, baddest guy, and take him down. Of course, this led him to Al.

On a team drill, said offensive lineman decided to take as hard of a shot as he could muster on Al, and ended up hitting him after the play had ended. Wilson went down from the unexpected hit, and the OL player started heading back to his huddle.

He never made it.

Next thing he knew, he was waking up with everyone asking if he was alright. Wilson had popped off of the ground and put him in his place before the guy got 10 yards away. Worse yet, from the point forward, he said Al Wilson made a point to punish him on every single play for the rest of that week in camp. He could be lined up on the left side of the line, and Wilson could be opposite of him, dropping into coverage, and Wilson would still find a way to go take a shot. He said it was the most agonizing, physically and mentally exhausting week of his life. It got so bad that he started walking backwards to the bench so that Al couldn't sneak up on him. He literally went to bed in fear at night.

Finally, he went to Wilson to apologize and say that he was just trying to make a name for himself and that he had no clue what hornet's nest of pain he was unleashing upon himself. Evidently they became friends from that point forward, but I thought it was an awesome tale of how low of a tolerance Wilson had for BS.