This needs to be on the Main Board

Aug 17, 2008, 12:21 PM

One of the reasons I love 'Bama. (Frank, Danny and Dabo are some others)

Joe Medley: Stallings has 'no regrets' about son

08-15-2008

COLDWATER --- Gene Stallings arrived dutifully at Word Alive Church on
Thursday. His drawn face and crackling voice betrayed fatigue, but he
seemed up for his first public appearance since his son died nearly two
weeks ago.

The former Alabama football who led the Crimson Tide to its last
national championship in 1992 greeted his guide for the night's Circle
of Champions fund-raiser, then he asked for a piece of paper and a few
quiet minutes in an office.

Then he met with a reporter and shared a keen insight for all parents,
let alone those of children with disabilities.

"Raise your children where, if something happens, there are no regrets,"
he said. "You've spent the time. You've shared experiences. You've done
everything you possibly could to that point.

"Many of us will say, 'If I could go back and do it over.' I have no
regrets about Johnny."

That's not a bad place for a father so close to losing the son he so adored.

John Mark Stallings, a beloved figure to those close to Alabama
athletics and fans alike, died on Aug. 2 after living 46 years of a life
to be envied in some ways.

Down syndrome and congenital heart condition or no, he had 46 years with
two parents and four sisters who, by all accounts, made him feel their
love and unqualified pride.

His dad's coaching success meant that John Mark got to be around neat
stuff. He rode into Alabama practices on his golf cart looking for his
"favorite pop" and hung out with an extended family of more than a
hundred coaches, players and support personnel.

He was there on the team bus, ready to make all feel better after a bad
game and great after a good one.

The players knew his name, and he an amazing gift for remembering their
names.

He had a greater gift for making others feel better, which he did for
his dad very near the time of his death. The two were lying on a bed,
John Mark's blood-oxygen level in the 50s ... well below the nominal 90s
... and his dad asked how he felt.

"He'd just say, 'I'm fine,'" Stallings said. "I don't think I'll ever
complain again. I mean, he wasn't fine. It's just like you being at
25,000 feet on a mountain and trying to run up steps. You'd just have no
oxygen. You couldn't do it.

"He lived like that for a long time."

John Mark lived much better for much longer, and his sunny disposition
helped his dad come back from a very low point.

It was June 11, 1962 when Stallings and his wife Ruth Ann heard a doctor
utter "Mongoloid" to describe their newborn son. The word hit with
devastating force, enough to land the tough coach on the floor, unconscious.

Fast-forward some years, and one sees the frequent visions of Stallings
and his son walking off the practice field together, hand-in-hand and
smiling.

"I prayed to God that he would change Johnny, and he changed me,"
Stallings said. "... I just can't tell you how much I loved the child. I
love all my children, but he needed me a little bit more than the others
did.

"Every day, he'd tell me, 'You know who my favorite pop is?' I said, 'in
the whole world?' He said, 'the whole world.' I said, 'Who's that?' And
he said, 'You.' I said, 'You know who my favorite boy is in the whole
world?' He'd say, 'who?' I'd say, 'It's you.'

"We said that probably every day, so he brought a lot of joy to me.
Hopefully, I brought some joy to him."

Stallings certainly brought inclusion to John Mark. Stallings' fame
helped shine light on John Mark, who in turn became the most famous
Stallings in circles like Tuscaloosa's Rise School for children born
with disabilities.

Several members of the Alabama athletics family stepped forward last
week to offer condolences and their favorite John Mark stories. Current
head coach Nick Saban and his wife Terry flew to Paris, Texas, for
visitation.

As for Gene Stallings, the grieving process goes on. His appearance here
Thursday was all about the cause and honoring a commitment, though he
admits it would have been tough had it come a week earlier.

"I don't feel bad for Johnny; I know where he is," he said. "I feel bad
for me."

He said he'd feel a lot worse had he and John Mark not lived their time
together so well.

"If I had a lot of regrets and said I wished I'd done this and that, I
would really be low right now," Stallings said. "But I don't, and I
think that those of us who raise children and take on the responsibility
of children, we never know when something is going to happen. It may be
a car wreck. You never know.

"I just don't have any regrets."

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Deja Moo: The feeling that you've heard this bull before.

This needs to be on the Main Board

I finished "another season" by stallings recently

As the parent of a 23-yr-old son with CP, that really

Re: As the parent of a 23-yr-old son with CP, that really

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