This book has been a labor of love that, in retrospect, came easy to me. I drew from sixteen years of daily contact with Coach Carpenter. I also garnered the thoughts of his friends, players, and opponents. We laughed long and hard almost every day. We passed along inside jokes that only he and I understood, most of which I cannot repeat in the interest of decorum.We traveled the world. We won
and lost and suffered the outrageous slings and arrows of disgruntled fans. We tasted the sweet wine of victory and we left an indelible mark in the annals of small college football that is remarkable. He was, in the vernacular of my south Georgia upbringing, "much of a man!"