Here’s a story that will make you feel old – and proud of it.
 
Dabo Swinney, the head coach of the top-ranked Clemson University football team, told his players the other day that he was making long snapper Jim Brown for the Tigers’ ACC game against Syracuse on Sunday.
 
He explained to them that he had had been waiting all season to do that.
 
Swinney’s players didn’t get the joke. They had never heard of the iconic running back named Jim Brown who had played for Syracuse 60 years ago and then went on to the Browns and, in a nine-year career from 1957-65, became the greatest player at any position in the game’s history.
 
Wow!
 
Double-wow!
 
Triple-wow!
 
Some people, I’m sure, will go to bat for the Clemson players, saying that, with Brown having played so long ago, there was no way they could have ever known about him.
 
To that, I say baloney. Hogwash. Rubbish.
 
That’s no excuse at all. Not even close.
 
If you’re a college football player and you have never heard of the man who is the greatest ever, then you’re ignorant. You’re stupid. You’re a knucklehead.
 
And you ought to be ashamed of yourself.
 
I wasn’t alive when Franklin Roosevelt was president, but I know who he was.
 
I wasn’t alive when Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson and Joe DiMaggio played baseball, but I know who they were.
 
I wasn’t alive when Charles Dickens was writing classics, but I know who he was.
 
There’s such a thing as history, and historical perspective. Too many young people today – and I know I’m going to sound like some old guy when I say this – believe that the world began in 2012 and anything that happened more than 15 minutes ago is ancient history.
 
All of us are where we are today because of everybody who has gone before us. To be sure, most of those people were, in essence, nameless and faceless, but as for those who weren’t – who stood out, a lot, from the crowd by their marvelous deeds – we need to be aware of them and pay some respect to them.
 
To do anything else is a great injustice, and it makes us look like buffoons.
 
So while the Clemson Tigers are tops in college football, they’re at the bottom of the standings when it comes to common knowledge.
 
And to be fair, the Tigers aren’t the only ones. There are likely a lot of other college teams joining them.
 
“That’s sad,” Swinney said.
 
He’s right.