Memorial Day moment

I had another blog topic ready; it will keep for a day.

Have you seen the monument outside the NSU athletic fieldhouse, a plaque atop a four-foot tall block of concrete, erected by the Graduate N Club?

While playing in the Buddy Bonnette Memorial golf scramble today, one of my teammates asked what the Graduate N Club was. I explained it's the alumni association for athletes and coaches and staff members, those who were involved in NSU athletics.

Coming by the office afterward to check e-mail, my thoughts turned to Memorial Day and its meaning and the Graduate N Club entered my mind.

I remember when coach Johnnie Emmons came by my office explaining what he wanted to do, that as secretary-treasurer of the Graduate N Club, he and the officers agreed they wanted to put up a monument to the athletes and coaches who had passed on, a tribute to their lives and memories.

He specifically mentioned that when he was just getting out of school in the early 1950s, the Korean Conflict was ongoing. He told me there were boys who were supposed to be playing for the Demons who gave their lives fighting for the United States of America in Korea.

Last night, I had a visit with Dr. Ron McBride, one of our outstanding education professors and an avid NSU athletics supporter. He just returned from a visit to Korea, where NSU has a sister university and is working with that institution to co-mingle programs (pardon to the academic folks if I've stated that poorly). But NSU has a presence now in Korea.

Just as it did, in the most personal of sacrifices, more than a half-century ago.

I'll walk past that moment tomorrow. I'll stop and pause and think about young, promising lives given up so we, and others around the world, could embrace freedom and democracy.

Doug Ireland, SID