When Madison McCalmon was in the sixth grade at Fairyland Elementary, he would walk his younger sister, Brennan, to her kindergarten class every morning, never neglecting to give her a good-bye hug at her classroom door.
While a student at Ringgold High School, he took mission trips to Jamaica, where he would paint buildings and help the poor.
“Madison’s just always had a tenderness about him,” said his mother Camie.
At least partly due to that tenderness, McCalmon was recently named to the 22-member Allstate America Football Coaches Association Good Works Team.
The team consists of 11 players from the NCAA’s Football Bowl Subdivision and 11 more from the rest of college football — the Football Championship Subdivision (of which UT-Chattanooga is a member), NCAA Division II and III and NAIA, which is where McCalmon competes as a senior offensive guard on the University of the Cumberlands.
Just for the record, no Southeastern Conference player made the list and the only Southern Conference player was John Behn of Davidson, which doesn’t compete in the SoCon in football.
“It’s a great, great honor to make the Good Works team from any school,” said Patriots coach John Bland. “But to be one of 11 to make it from all the schools who play football outside of Division I-A is remarkable. Madison was one of only three NAIA players in the whole country to make the team.
“Madison has made major contributions to our football team’s success, but more importantly, he has made a difference in people’s lives all over the world. He is an amazing young man.”
This is how amazing: The 22-year-old has helped build churches and basketball courts in Ecuador, done missionary work throughout Central America and the Caribbean, and tirelessly tutored his fellow students in hopes that they might one day mirror his collegiate academic record of having made but a single B among a sea of A’s in his Business major. He’s even the president of his school’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes chapter.
But that’s not all. He’s helped organize both a Valentine’s party and a beauty pageant for a nursing home in Williamsburg, Ky., where the University of the Cumberlands is located.
“They’re fun people,” said McCalmon of his elderly friends. “We talk and play games. When we have the beauty pageant in the spring, some of the players will be escorts. We’ll wear shirts and ties. Everybody really enjoys it.”
If all this sounds too good to be true, both Bland and Madison’s parents try to lessen the perfection.
“We called him Messy Madison when he was growing up,” said Camie.
Added father Greg, “Yeah, he was probably off to college before we had a meal where nobody spilled anything.”
Said Bland, “Our players call him Mad Dog because he’s anything but that. What he is is a perfectionist. He’s actually going to repeat the one class he made a B in because he wants to have all A’s.”
But a second later, both Greg and Camie are gushing about the oldest of their three athletic sons — Landon is a redshirt sophomore wideout at Carson-Newman and Preston a two-time state wrestling champ at Lafayette High School headed for Arizona State — and daughter Brennan, who’s a standout soccer player at Lafayette.
“It’s so wonderful to see Madison get an award for doing something he loves,” they said. “He’s brought such honor to our family.”
Here’s the power of family and friends. Long before Madison was born, Greg played on national championship football teams at Carson-Newman, where one of his best friends and teammates was Bobby Hughes.
When Madison got to Cumberlands, his first roommate was P.J. Hughes, who was Bobby’s son, though the old friends didn’t know their sons would be playing for the Patriots.
Yet that’s only part of the story. A year ago, Hughes was named to the Good Works team, which made Bland all but certain that McCalmon would be overlooked for the same honor.
“I was thinking who I might nominate next year and I decided I probably won’t,” said Bland on Friday. “Because there’s nobody who’s approached what Madison has done.”
What Madison will get to do as a Good Works member is be introduced at halftime of this year’s Sugar Bowl. If he wins an online poll for the best of the best among the 11 in his small-school division, he’ll also get to appear on a television show with ESPN analyst and former Notre Dame and South Carolina coach Lou Holtz.
Said Holtz a couple of weeks ago when asked about Madison, “You look at all the demands on Madison’s time just being a student-athlete and he still finds time to volunteer at a nursing home, and speak to churches and be a two-time Academic All-American. There’s nothing more important than getting involved in the lives of others and this kid’s done it every day for years and years.”
It all started because of a long ago conversation between Madison and his late grandfather Grady McCalmon.
“He told me one day,” recalled Madison, “that if I was ever in a position of power or influence that I needed to use it any way I could to make people’s lives better. I’ve never forgotten that.”
Sometimes a little tenderness can go a long way.