Texas Schoolbook Depository as seen from Dealey Plaza
November 22, 1963
The day U.S. president John F. Kennedy was assassinated in downtown Dallas, Texas. I was six months old. As a child of the 1960s, this major event that shook the nation to its core and has always held a special interest to me.
As such, I’ve always had a desire to make a pilgrimage Dealey Plaza to experience first hand what it must have been like to be there that dreaded day in 1963.
Today, that dream was realized. Together with Linfield athletic director Scott Carnahan, broadcaster David Hansen and team physician Dr. Peter Van Patton, I walked the Grassy Knoll, viewed the trajectory angles of the supposed line of fire from the Texas Schoolbook Depository and stood in the exact spot where the infamous Abraham Zapruder film was taken.
Talk about history. The place hasn’t changed much since that sad day. Things look nearly exactly as they appeared in 1963.
Shortly after we toured the area, the Linfield football team, spurred by my suggestion that they make the same visit, rolled up in their two buses, unloaded and strolled the Plaza and its related memorials.
Dave, Peter and Scott, who were school age at the time of the assassination, were completely taken by the whole experience. Me, too. As dozens of people milled around the area, looking, talking and contemplating, we listened atop the Grassy Knoll to a local expert explain all that happened that day and since. In all, he spent about 40 minutes talking and finally gave us his conspiracy theory of who was responsible: The Mob.
This was a day when competing in athletics at Linfield was more than simply wins and losses. Athletics can serve the educational mission in so many different ways.
