The NFL Network features a popular biography series called "A Football Life." It typically contains documentary video of a Hall of Fame player or coach.
It's hard to imagine a person for whom football was more life-affirming than it was for 84-year-old Claude Climer of Bradley County. And Climer never played a down past high school.
Most people up in Cleveland, Tenn., know Climer for his 36-year career as Bradley County clerk. A few old-timers, though, might remember the autumn of 1949 when Climer became one of the most storied high school football players in America. A jackrabbit-quick, 168-pound running back for the Bradley County Bears, Climer literally gave his right leg for the game.
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Climber met me last week at the door of his ranch-style house in Cleveland in a dress shirt and necktie. We sat down with a stack of football scrapbooks in the foreground and several of his children and grandchildren gathered in the background to hear him reminisce.
His story begins, he explained, on a farm in rural Bradley County, where Climer and his six siblings grew up trapping rabbits for money and working in the tobacco fields. When his older brothers went away to fight in World War II, Claude and his younger brother, Lake, roamed the countryside looking for fun.
"We were tough little country boys," Climer says. "We'd catch a sack of opossums, and then turn them loose and catch them again."
Climer had never seen a football game until, as freshman in high school, he attended a game between Bradley County High School and Rossville.
"When I watched that game, I kinda got carried away with the idea of football," he said.
Back home on the farm, he cut a half-mile running track through the underbrush and roped an old tire to a tree to practice throwing the football.
Next, Climer joined the Bradley County football team and brought his varmint-chasing moves to the gridiron. He rose quickly through and secured a starting fullback job on the varsity team by the time he was a junior. He was also the team's punter and he played safety on defense.
In 1949, the Bradley Bears played a state-ranked
Chattanooga Central team led by legendary coach Red Etter. At one point, Climer dropped back to punt and drilled a spiral to the left side of the field. As the punt returner faked a hand-off and streaked up the left side of the field, Climer ran to cut him off.
Just as Climer was about to position himself for the tackle, a Central player dived and clipped him in the right leg. The pain was immediate and intense, Climer remembers. "It felt like a million needles sticking in the back of my leg," he says.
Later that night an X-ray at a Cleveland hospital showed no broken bones, but the damage was nonetheless grave. The family learned the tackle had severed ligaments and arteries in Climer's leg. A few days later, while he was recovering at Erlanger hospital, the leg turned black. Then, on Halloween night 1949, doctors delivered the grim news that amputation was required.
"I nearly fell through the bed," he recalls. "It was a very heavy feeling."
Soon, local newspapers were filled with headlines about Climer's injury and recovery. Later that fall, the Bears' homecoming game was dedicated to Climer, and hundreds of people gave money to help pay his medical bills.
"It became national news," explained Climer's granddaughter, Lindsay Arnold. "Not many people had been maimed before playing high school football."
Meanwhile, the Central High School player who had laid the hit on Climer was contrite.
"He apologized, and I accepted the fact that it was an accident," Climer says. "Football is football. It's rough."
Climer was named an honorary captain of the High School All-American game in Memphis later that year, and eventually became a football trainer at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.
He left UT after a time and enrolled in a watch repair school. Later, he took a job at a Cleveland jewelry store, married his high school sweetheart, Delores, and settled into family life.
Then in 1960, when he was just 30 years old, Climer ran for court clerk in Bradley County. He got a boost from some of his former Bradley High School teammates who bought a campaign ad in the local newspaper recalling his football glory.
Climer retired from the clerk's post 36 years later, having served honorably and winning re-election across four decades.
Now, at 86, time is precious for the former watch repairman. But sitting at the center of a family he adores, he has the glow of a life well lived.
"And I still love football," he notes.
A "football life," indeed.
Contact Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6645. Follow him on Twitter @TFPCOLUMNIST. Subscribe to his Facebook updates at www. facebook.com/mkennedy columnist.