Georgia Running Back Knowshon Moreno: Thicker than Blood

Blood is valuable.

Behind Gaines Elementary School in Athens, Georgia, one can see where the rain went mining for blood, carving veins in the hillside that runs down from the earth shelter to a swing set that sits by a parking lot that's never used.

And the rain for all its efforts would puddle in between the hill and the swing set, right where we played football during recess. We tackled each other in the tears of a miner who could not understand the value of the treasure he found. Our clothes soaked up his sadness as we ran through it.

Blood is valuable.

In the south, if a person can trace their lineage, then they can trace their worth, their goodness in the eyes of the community. Rain falls from the sky, and perhaps, the sky is the closest we can come to seeing a physical God. Evolution tells us we crawled out of the oceans. What are oceans but collection plates filled with rain? Our blood crawled out of the rain, and rain is heaven sent.

Blood is valuable.

At swim meets in Cedar Creek, lanterns hung around the pool and reflected off the water like large lightning bugs, or were they small moons? The sides of the pool felt crowded like azalea bushes around the front porch. Fingers were smeared with pizza and popcorn grease and everyone drew a collective breath, held it in, and then released it in the trigger pull of a starter's pistol. Buckets of flesh splashed into the pool and churned it like butter, like ice cream, like sugar inside a womb.

"What's the name of that boy out in front?"
"The boy in lane four? That's Tommy's boy. His dad runs the sporting goods store off of Gaines School Road."

Blood matters.

On the soccer field, a parent asks, "who's the fast kid?"
"That's Bob Cooper's boy."

It's important there too.

In seventh grade, I played basketball with a kid named Quentin Moses, and he stood out amongst all of us as if he were a prophet. I even wondered if his mom told him stories about how a member of his family authored the Ten Commandments, that every time he blocked one of our shots he thought to himself, "Try and keep my family out of the Promised Land. God, I dare you just to try and do that."

Blood is important. Blood is the present, the gift of history, to be given, to be received, and to be lived.

When we ran for touchdowns behind Gaines Elementary, we were living the past of Georgia Bulldog football, hoping to be its future. Covered in rainwater, we felt possessed by the highlights of Fran Tarkenton and Eric Zeir, and we remembered years and dates that happened before we were born like they were the present, like 1980, the year Georgia won the national title, with a 12-0 record.

(Really, there is more)
Around here, we treat bulldogs like royalty, like pharaohs, like verses out of Dteronomy. Uga III begat Uga IV, who begat Uga VI and so it goes, and I'm sure shoulder pads feel as heavy as stone tablets, as heavy as blood.

Herschel Walker, in his playing days, stood 6'1" and weighed 225 pounds, plus the weight of the three Super Bowl trophies Minnesota traded to Dallas for him.

Rodney Hampton's name sounds a lot like Fred Hampton's, making him as intimidating as a Black Panther.

Garrison Hearst sued Benjamin Franklin for plagiarism and discovered lightning.

Terrell Davis always seemed to be held back like a marionette by his hamstrings, until he went to Denver and proved to be more than just a real boy, but a man standing a mile high.

Robert Edwards' transition from defensive back to running back was akin to Odysseus casting off the face of a beggar's and laying claim to his kingdom in between the hedges. I was there that day and remember seeing him shoot an arrow through the eyes of a hundred Gamecocks.

Knowshon, know that blood is thicker than water, but red and black is thicker than blood. It soaks into the clay, and all the sons and daughters of Georgia carry it, inside their houses, on their socks, in their shoes, on their shirts, on their shorts, and on their skin, staining their mothers' floors, sinks, bath tubs, and counters with it, so it can never be forgotten.

Adam came from clay, and we don't forget the dirt and the rain, or how they come together, to make blood; and we're hoping that you, too, give us something we won't forget.

Bring the reign, Knowshon, we've been waiting for it since 1980.