The Christiansburg of my youth was full of good people and interesting characters who left me with great memories, a good perspective on life, and great subjects to write about. I challenge anyone out there who could have outdone my hometown for nice folks who helped their kids grow up right. 

One of Christiansburg’s true jewels of my era was Mutt Byrd. Mutt always comes to mind this time of year, in August – August 10th specifically. For 2 decades he took a couple of weeks of his hard-earned vacation as a lineman for the power company to serve as volunteer athletic trainer and general confidante to the Christiansburg High Blue Demon football team. To play football for the Blue Demons in the 1960’s and 1970’s was to love Mutt, to want his approval, to be glad just to be in his presence. August 10 was the first day of practice and Mutt came into your life then, as much as whistles and wind sprints and scrimmages, and was there through the fall. 

There was a wonderful article about Mutt in the Roanoke Times a number of years ago, about his dedication to CHS football (and later to Auburn High when a grandson played there and Mutt wanted to be part of that). He was properly recognized for his dedication to the youth of our little town. This column is written on a more personal level, some of my remembrances of Mutt and those times.

My passion for this subject is fueled in part by the fact that my Dad was principal of CHS for many years (interrupted for a few years by a poorly paid vacation from Uncle Sam to allow him to be shot at in airplanes by the Germans) and then Superintendent of Montgomery County Schools for many years thereafter. So I grew up with CHS as home base and the faculty as my extended family. The activities at the school – sports, parades, plays, etc. – were a large part of my family’s social life. For many years, the doors of CHS were never open without my father nearby. CHS football and Friday nightlights were shining moments. Few things in my life have given me the thrill of walking along the little ledge around the outside of the CHS gym to the field with my teammates before kickoff when I made varsity, yelling and exhorting each other to “hit someone”.

I can’t say exactly when or how Mutt began his career as the heart and soul of CHS football. I know he had 2 sons – Dickie and Mike – who were extremely good linemen for the Blue Demons in the early 1960’s. I remember watching them play when I was in elementary school. I also remember that Mutt and his family lived in an apartment above Pharis Cleaners, down the hill from our beautiful old high school on College Street. I am guessing these 2 factors fueled his involvement with Blue Demon football. 

So, with the start of “two-a-days” on August 10 (I don’t know for sure but my guess is that they don’t have two practices a day anymore – no further comment on that), Mutt became your caregiver, your friend, your counselor. He taped your ankles, he checked you when you were injured, he made sure you knew how to wear your equipment the right way. He encouraged you and he kept you humble. He lived those dog days of August with the players and the coaches, from 6 in the morning till 6 in the evening. After his vacation ended he still attended every practice he could make and was a mainstay on Friday nights of course.

I can still picture Mutt and the coaches congregating in the coaches’ office in our old locker room. We knew that the younger and less experienced coaches were getting Mutt’s opinion as to who was better at what position, who was giving more effort, who was more likely not to quit on Friday night. We knew that if Mutt didn’t think you were tough enough. your chances of getting on the field were nil. He was the continuity to the program, from player to player and team to team and coach to coach, and from year to year.

Mutt was sage – and a sage. He listened and he observed. As players we would tell Mutt things we would never tell the coaches. He could learn things from the players the coaches couldn’t. When he spoke in his gravelly voice, you listened. He didn’t like to waste his advice on the stubborn or the ignorant.

During this period, CHS was blessed with good men who were solid football coaches – Buddy Earp, Omar Ross, Curtis Campbell, Joe Rusek as head coaches, and many good assistants like Carlis Altizer, Mike Griffith, J.C. Callahan, Milton Gross – I apologize for some I have left out. Old school guys who wanted to take callow boys and make them into men. Or at least move us in the right direction. One thing they all had in common was that when Mutt spoke they listened. He knew kids, he knew football, he was a competitor and he knew how to have fun too. He was an icon before we knew what that meant.

One of my favorite “Mutt memories” was a game in Pearisburg when I got hit on the jaw and somehow lacerated my gum – in an odd and undesirable turn of events my chinstrap ended up in my mouth, the metal part cutting me. I went to the sideline with my mouth filling with blood and sought out Mutt for help. We all felt “big time” that we had someone like him to tend to us. I showed him my mouth, which was filling with blood at an alarming rate. He reached in his pocket, pulled out something and told me to stick it in my mouth. I did so of course and immediately said, “Mutt, that tastes like a cantaloupe life saver. [I hated the taste of cantaloupe] What the heck is it?” Mutt growled ‘it’s a cantaloupe life saver, tastes better than blood doesn’t it?” That was Mutt.

Mutt was also a good teacher and helped 2 of my classmates and best friends – the late, great and unforgettable Bo Simmons and his sidekick Bobby Silvers – to become team managers/trainers. They became Mutt’s shadows, along with Bryant Rudolph, during my playing years. It’s fair to say that everyone involved with CHS football in those years have nothing but warm memories of Mutt, of his help, of his presence on the sidelines during 90 degree August practices and cold, rainy October Friday nights. He was there for you, whether you were a coach, a player or a student trainer.

I have to conclude by noting that it was a less “enlightened era” in football. Mutt was a co-conspirator, as were most other trainers and coaches of that time, in the then time-honored traditions of denying you water (“it will slow you down”) while dispensing salt tablets after hot practices (it replenished something? salt?), and often telling you after an injury to “suck it up, you’re fine”, and giving you something called “atomic bomb” to rub on your aching muscles, a medication which in retrospect probably increased our chances of becoming sterile if it ended up in the wrong place. But none of us died or suffered lasting deleterious effects (that we know of) and we knew Mutt cared deeply for us and he made us feel special during that wonderful time in our lives. 

Mutt also dispensed the “good stuff”- tasty Vitamin C pills after cold November practices to “ward off colds” and Hershey bars and oranges at half time of games. And he put miles and miles of tape on our ankles and wrists and tons and tons of encouragement in our hearts.

When I am back in Christiansburg I will occasionally drive up Sheltman Street, by the side of the old high school, and look at the ancient metal door which looks like it did in my day. It still has the same little sign saying “Boys Locker Room”. That was the door we would walk out of to go down the hill to practice and around the gym to the Friday Night Lights. Suffice it to say that Mutt was a big part of the high school lives of a generation or two of Christiansburg boys who were lucky enough to have his attention and advice. We adored him.