Leonard Pope's experience at HMA

I've been reading about tight end Leonard Pope from the University of Georgia. Pope was picked in the 3rd round (72nd overall) in the NFL draft by the Arizona Cardinals. Turns out he attended Hargrave in 2002. But from the sound of the following article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Pope's experience at HMA wasn't so pleasant. The culture of the school definitely has to grow on you, and for some it never quite does.

To balance off Pope's comments in the Milwaukee paper, though, note his thoughts in an article by Larry Mayer on the Chicago Bears website...

"I kind of took the hard way to get to (Georgia), but it was a blessing in disguise," Pope said last season. " [Hargrave] helped me appreciate what I've got, to not take things for granted. It taught me to work hard and made me grow up."

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From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Possibly the tallest receiver in college football, Pope has that perfect blend of size, strength and speed needed to consistently stretch the defense and break tackles to gain extra yardage. Anyone looking for a validation of his hard-driving running skills after the catch need only to talk to Tennessee cornerback Jason Allen, who suffered a dislocated hip trying to tackle Pope in 2005.

At Americus High School, Pope earned Atlanta Journal-Constitution Super Southern 100, Top 50 in Georgia, Class AA All-State, Georgia Sportswriters Association All-State honors and was invited to play in the Georgia-Florida All-Star game. He led his team to two consecutive Class AA state titles during his junior and senior seasons.

Pope registered seven touchdowns as a tight end, catching eight passes with a pair of touchdowns in the playoffs as a senior. He also returned an interception for a score while lining up at safety that year. As a junior, Pope caught 25 passes for 491 yards and six touchdowns. "We always saw an unlimited potential for Pope," said Erik Soliday, who coached Pope at Americus his final three years. "To get where he is as quick as he has, I don't know if anyone saw that coming. He's just an extremely talented kid."

Heavily recruited out of high school, academic problems forced Pope to attend Hargrave Military Academy in 2002, where he was a roommate of Virginia linebacker Ahmad Brooks. Pope describes the Hargrave experience as a "tough and crazy year," where time stood still and the only way home was a Greyhound bus. "Minutes were like hours," Pope said. "I hated it with a passion. I was like 13 hours from my house."

Pope wasn't fond of the regimented lifestyle of military school, and found himself a long way from the comforts of home, including his kitchen.

"He used to come to my room to try and get snacks," said Brooks, a Butkus Award finalist last year who became close friends with Pope. "Hargrave was a learning experience. We had to get our SAT scores. We were like a family, picking each other up and encouraging each other to do good, on and off the field."

Brooks earned his qualifying score fall semester and left Hargrave. Pope remained behind, still trying to land his one-way ticket out. He dreaded having to return. "When he left, I cried because I was the first one back on the Greyhound," Pope said. "I always thought in my mind, 'If I had a chance, what would I do with it?' "

With his academics now in order, Pope enrolled at Georgia in 2003. He appeared in every game as reserve tight end, but only had one catch for 21 yards. He started ten contests in 2004, grabbing 25 passes for 482 yards (19.3 avg) and six touchdowns.

Pope was a unanimous All-Southeastern Conference selection in 2005. He started eleven games, missing the Louisiana-Monroe contest when head coach Mark Richt suspended him for a dorm room incident. He ranked second on the team with 33 receptions for 491 yards (14.9 avg) and three touchdowns. In 35 games with the Bulldogs, Pope started 21 times. He gained 994 yards with nine touchdowns on 59 catches (16.8 avg).

The Fires

Former Hargrave president, Col. Joseph Hathaway Cosby, wrote a book called From Ashes to Excellence: 1950-1970. The book tells the story of the recovery of Hargrave from the "devastating" fire of February 20, 1950, to the retirement of Col. Cosby on June 20, 1970. The book was published in 1984 by McCain Printing Co. of Danville, VA.

There have been at least three major fires at Hargrave. The one in 1950 was apparently the worst. According to the Chatham Volunteer Fire Department, which lists that fire as having occurred in in 1951, "Many of the original buildings were destroyed and the school was forced to house students in town and cancel part of the school year due to this massive fire."

The Department lists the second fire to have taken place in 1981... "Much of the upper floors of both the Camden and Sanford buildings were heavily destroyed. Hydrants were at a minimum in those days, so the Hargrave pool was used as a source of water."

The third fire occurred in 2000... "The fire destroyed a brand new roof and heavily damaged the two upper floors of the Sanford Building, which was being renovated at the time of the incident."

The Enfields & Hargrave's political incorrectness

Hargrave's famed Camden Rifles (photo courtesy of HMA)

I began my Hargrave career in summer school, 1961, between my sophomore and junior years. Prior to that, I attended a public high school (Thomas Jefferson; "TJ") with a voluntary JROTC program. Hargrave's military aspect was a cakewalk compared to TJ's. We had to memorize FM 22-5 (Drill & Ceremonies), our boots had to have a high gloss spit shine every day, we marched every day and the entire corp learned precision marching. In fact, during the 1st 6 months of our freshman year, we were all "rats", and treated accordingly.

One of the things all the cadets at TJ learned (in addition to regular marching and the normal rifle commands) was special drill/silent drill; there was an annual competition between companies. We used Enfields. While a drill team can open the bolt of an M-1 with a snappy looking Karate chop, it doesn't have the flare of grabbing the bolt of an Enfield, and flipping it around.

Several years prior to my arrival at H, the Camden Rifles precision team had been disbanded due to lack of interest and lack of someone who could teach the moves. I reinstituted the CR's with little initial enthusiasm/support from the school. (My mother made our guidon, as the school wouldn't spring for it!)

Leon Rue "diplomatically" states, "there was a period when the government took back the Enfields after the school dropped out of the Junior ROTC program," which makes it sound as though this was some sort of decision based on H's military program. It wasn't; here's what happened:

Hargrave was (is) a Southern Baptist school. Many African Americans are Southern Baptist, so H wanted to appear to be willing to accept Black students while not actually accepting them. My senior year I was appointed to the newly-created Battalion Staff position of Assistant to the Commandant (Col. Todd). One of my duties was to show prospective cadets and their parents around the campus. The tours always started with my being called to Col. Cosby's office.

On those rare occassions when the prospects were African American, Col. Cosby would always throw into the conversation that I was Jewish. This was obviously a poor attempt on his part to try to say, "See, we're willing to accept anyone." The tour would always end up in his office, and he would say, "Your son will be living on a barracks with 40 White boys, mostly Southerners. We won't be able to guarantee your son's safety, and if he enrolls at Hargrave, you and he will have to sign a waiver of liability."

Apparently the tactic always worked; when I graduated in 1963, there were, and never had been, Black students at HMA.

The Feds had already decreed that public schools must integrate, but they could not mandate that to private schools. So they came out with a policy which stated that if a school did not integrate, it would lose all Federal funding--which included those Enfields. H refused to integrate, so the Feds took back the Enfields. As Leon states, a "benefactor" paid for rifles for the school.

I also went to the University of Richmond, which also refused to integrate, and lost Federal funding. U of R also had a benefactor. E. Claiborne Robbins, Sr. donated $50 million to the school when the Feds split.

What finally caused schools like H and Richmond to integrate?

It was not that they finally got a sense of social justice; it was because of athletics. The integrated public school teams were whipping the heck out of private school teams in football, basketball, track, etc., so integration became a necessity in order to be competitive.

I wonder: What percentage of the varsity athletes at H are Black? What percentage of the cadet corp not engaged in varsity atheletics is Black?

Marc Axel
marc.axel@verizon.net
Class of '63

My journey from Colombian to American

Ken Taber and Fernando Manrique (photo courtesy of Tripp Smith)

"I'm an American soldier too!" Those simple, powerful words were spoken by Army Pvt. Jessica Lynch upon being freed by her rescuers in a hospital in Iraq. Those words resonated with truth for me. "I am an American soldier too," I thought.

An unlikely set of events have transpired to make those words come true for me. As the sixth child of a Colombian cattle rancher, I should have grown up and continued the family ranching tradition in the ancestral lands of the State of Huila, Colombia, where the Manrique de Lara family settled in the early 1600s. They had been looking for a new life in the new world, and settled in the Magdalena River Valley, the area reminded them of their home in southern Spain.

But 374 years later, I embarked on a different journey to another new world, leaving a troubled land for one that promised a life free of fear and uncertainty. My new life began appropriately at a southern military boarding school called Hargrave Military Academy in Chatham, Virginia. I was 15 years old and proudly wearing the uniform of first sergeant in the Marching Band Company. My journey had begun.

After two years of marching to breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I graduated near the top of the class and was accepted into the College of William and Mary in Virginia. No more uniforms for me, I thought at the time. I wasn't quite sure what to study, but had always enjoyed learning about relations among nations, so I majored in Government and International Politics. As an undergraduate at William and Mary, I met the two most important people in my life. One was Kathy, my college sweetheart and now my wife. The other was Jeff, my aviation-obsessed roommate, and the person who would spark my interest in flying.

Kathy began my transformation from Colombian to American. It was through her family that I learned the traditions of Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter - and more importantly - Dallas Cowboys football. Jeff, on the other hand, shared with me his passion for flying, and I spent countless hours in his Cessna 172, 59 model, flying between Virginia and the Bahamas and Daytona Beach during our spring break jaunts. He was the pilot and I was the trusted copilot.

After college, Jeff joined the Air Force to begin his flying career. Kathy and I were married one day after graduation, and departed for Colombia for a long honeymoon at "Balmoral," my family's cattle ranch. A few months later, Jeff called me from pilot training at Laughlin Air Force Base, Texas, and insisted that I was destined for an Air Force flying career. Never mind that I was neither a U.S. citizen - as required by law to be an officer - nor had any formal flying training, except for our spring break trips in the Cessna.

The citizenship issue was fixed with a visit to the office of Senator Lloyd Bentsen of Texas, where his helpful staff promptly submitted my application for naturalization. Within six months, I was a United States citizen. Not able to afford formal flying training, I bought a basic flight manual aptly called "Stick and Rudder," memorized it, and went for my first visit to an Air Force recruiter. It must have paid off, because my Air Force Officer Qualifications Test scores were high enough to qualify for a pilot slot after completion of Officer Training School.

After a grueling year of Undergraduate Pilot Training in sunny Del Rio, Texas, Kathy and I were off to see the world with our first operational assignment to Kadena Air Base, Japan. While at Kadena, I really began to appreciate the special nature of wearing the Air Force uniform. I found that every time I landed my KC-135 in a foreign country I was always met and treated as the representative of the United States Air Force.

After five years and countless typhoon evacuations, alerts, and numerous flying exercises throughout Asia, it was time to return to the states and start our family. Our first daughter, was born a few months before we left Japan, and our second daughter, was born during our following assignment to Castle AFB, Calif., at the time, the only KC-135 schoolhouse in the Air Force. Though the excitement and adventure of international flying was temporarily over, the challenging job of training others to follow in our footsteps was just beginning.

I was called by a staffer at the U.S. Air Force Academy to inquire about my interest in coming to Colorado Springs to teach Spanish to cadets. Since Castle was scheduled for closure as the result of the drawdown of the early '90s, I thought coming to the Academy would fit our timing perfectly.

At the Academy, I was given the task of teaching cadets about Latin American culture. I also had numerous travel opportunities, exposing cadets to Spanish by immersing them in Spanish-speaking countries. It was on one of these trips that I fully realized I had completed the journey from Colombian to American. I was selected as the escort officer to lead a delegation from the USAFA to the Republic of Colombia. There I was, the sixth son of a Colombian cattle rancher, representing the U.S. Air Force and the Academy, briefing the Chief of Staff of the Colombian air force on educational and training programs.

My journey was complete. I, too, was an American soldier.

Lt. Col. Fernando Manrique
Fernando.Manrique@pentagon.af.mil
Band Company '76

"Mr. Science"

(photo courtesy of Tripp Smith)

One of my favorite teachers was Prof. Carl Burke (see 2001 photo by Tripp Smith), under whom I took Chemistry 101. I recall he had a sharp sense of humor. It was good to see him at the 2006 alumni homecoming a couple of weeks ago... a lot greyer (... well, actually whiter) and with a beard, but still very much recognizable after 30 years. I played soccer with Prof. Burke's son, David.

Prof. Burke retired in 1999. The following excerpt is taken from a May 6, 2005 press release issued by Hargrave:

"Carl Burke, a former 33 year teacher at Hargrave, received the Outstanding Inactive Educator Award. He was renowned at Hargrave for his effective teaching ability in a subject such as Physics. His larger than life personality and devout Christian attitude touched many people during his time at Hargrave. In the community, he is still known as ‘Old St. Nick’ when embracing the Christmas spirit in costume. "

The Hargrave Century

J. Hunt Hargrave

During 2009-2010, Hargrave will celebrate the 100th year anniversary of its founding. The school, which had been preceded by the Warren Training School located at the Sims-Mitchell House, was founded in 1909 as the Chatham Training School by Rev. T. Ryland Sanford, Jesse H. Hargrave and his son, J. Hunt Hargrave (see photo). It opened with 35 students.

The school was renamed in 1925 in honor of J. Hunt Hargrave, a wealthy industrialist and philanthropist from Chatham, VA. By then, it was clear that the primary identity of the school would be that of a military academy, rather than a general training school for boys.

J. Hunt Hargrave died on April 2, 1935 following an automobile accident on February 26. His estate was valued at $260,000. His adopted daughter, Gladys Hargrave Nenon, was left as the chief beneficiary.

As Hargrave nears its century mark, it would be great if alumni could begin to coordinate plans for coming together at HMA for alumni weekend in three years. Please use the newly-created Hargrave Alumni Forum at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hargravealumni as a homebase online to start the process. To subscribe, just send a blank e-mail message to: hargravealumni-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

The Ageless Col. Todd

(photo courtesy of HMA)

I was happy to see Col. Todd at the 2006 homecoming. I must admit that I did not expect to find him around. At the breakfast, I was very surprised when I heard his named called out and he stood up. When I attended HMA during 1974-76, Col. Todd must have been at least in his late 60s, so I guess he's nearing 100 or has already reached it. In any case, he seemed very well indeed.

I am glad that some things haven't changed. I still recall seeing Col. Todd walking with his German shepherd (... anyone remember the dog's name?) as if it were yesterday. He was always very distinguished looking and always in a pleasant mood.

30th Reunion, Class of '76

(photo courtesy of Carl Burke)

There were nine of us at the 30th reunion of the Class of 1976 at Alumni Weekend on April 22, 2006, including John Banks, Glenn Beeson, Jeff Bowling, Marco Caceres, Chuck Dodson, Fernando Manrique, Bob Richards, Rick Riley, and Bob White.

I was also glad to see David Burke, with whom I played on the soccer team. David was a few years younger than us. Carl Burke, under whom I took chemistry, was also there. Great to see him again.

The reunion was cut short due to rain. The afternoon baseball game, and tennis and golf tournaments were cancelled. The parade at 11 am was moved indoors to the gymnasium, which was okay but it certainly lacked the splendor of having it on the soccer field and being able to march with one's class.

It was nice to see everyone at breakfast in the mess hall. We had lunch under a large tent set up in the middle of the track field.

I was saddened to learn of the death of Richie Huizenga, Hiram Saunders and Jimmy Wheeler. Jimmy died not too long ago... He attended the 25th reunion in 2001.

I spoke at length with Jeff Bowling and Bob White about trying to locate as many 76ers as possible in preparation for the 100th anniversary of Hargrave's founding in three years. It would be great to have a large contingent from our class there. I think we graduated just over 50, so I'd like to aim at mobilizing at 25-30.