My dad was an engineer. He grew up in Newport News, Va., where they made and still make the best ships.

He spent time in the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Apprentice School. He served in World War II below deck as an engineer on a Liberty Ship. The war ended with his ship docked in Naples, Italy.

When Scott Paper Company transferred him to Atlanta in 1958, he bought season tickets to Georgia Tech football games. He had a degree from Virginia Polytechnic Institute, now Virginia Tech. No matter. In 1958, Dad became a helluva engineer.

I was 7 when he took me to my first game. We parked on a gypsy lot east of the expressway. We took the Fourth Street tunnel that ran underneath the highway. Dad was 6-foot-4, and he walked like a man on a mission. I ran to keep up. I recall his brown

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