{"id":3381,"date":"2010-04-21T17:59:41","date_gmt":"2010-04-21T17:59:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hub-dev.bates.edu\/magazine\/?page_id=3381"},"modified":"2017-09-06T11:44:30","modified_gmt":"2017-09-06T15:44:30","slug":"sports-notes","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/back-issues\/y2003\/winter03\/departments\/sports-notes\/","title":{"rendered":"Sports Notes"},"content":{"rendered":"

The glory belongs to others, says Sean Atkins ’03.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Steve Solloway<\/p>\n

It took five days before Sean Atkins \u201902 understood what he had done.<\/p>\n

Five days of friends and strangers seeking him out on the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ campus to shake his hand and offer smiles of congratulations. Five days of reading e-mails and answering his phone.<\/p>\n

On the night of the fifth day, Atkins sat with several of his closest friends in their apartment. The television was tuned to the Cincinnati-Louisville game. Halftime arrived and there it was, as promised.<\/p>\n

Atkins was on videotape running for touchdown after touchdown in ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½\u2019 big 48-28 win over rival Bowdoin on Nov. 2. Seven touchdowns scored, 302 yards gained.<\/p>\n

The \u201cHidden Video\u201d segment, a staple on ESPN, highlights outstanding performances from athletes at colleges whose football games aren\u2019t televised. \u201cThat\u2019s when it sunk in,\u201d said Atkins. \u201cSeeing it on ESPN.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not because he got his moment of glory. Atkins shrugs that off. The glory, he says, belongs to ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College and the people who gave him his opportunities to get ahead.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s too bad it took a seven-touchdown performance to thrust Atkins front and center. ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ has struggled mightily forever, it seems, to win more than two or three games a year.<\/p>\n

Unless you\u2019re an alum, ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ football doesn\u2019t show up on anyone\u2019s radar. Until now.<\/p>\n

Atkins is a New York City kid. The East Village, in lower Manhattan, was his neighborhood. A Boys Club scholarship got him to the Darlington School in rural Rome, Ga.<\/p>\n

That was a culture shock, he says, laughing. Maybe it prepared him for his visit to ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ four years ago when coach Mark Harriman, recruiting his first class of student-athletes, made his pitch.<\/p>\n

\u201cI loved it when I visited,\u201d said Atkins, a senior and an African-American studies major.<\/p>\n

He wanted out of New York City, not that he had to watch his back every time he left his apartment. Violence wasn\u2019t the problem so much as drugs and despair.<\/p>\n

His mother used drugs and abandoned the family, which included his father and an older brother. Years later, after kicking her habit, she returned to Sean\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

She went to college. She got a job and remarried. She got sick from pneumonia and her body couldn\u2019t fight it. She was 39 when she died. Atkins was at school in Georgia.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt kind of destroyed me. I lost my faith in God and my ambition. But it made me a stronger person.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her initials, DGN, are tattooed on his left biceps. Before tests or football games, he rubs the letters. \u201cTo remind me of her. To remind him of someone who overcame.\u201d<\/p>\n

Playing at Bowdoin, he had no idea how many times he had carried the football, but knew it was a lot. He had no idea how many touchdowns he had scored but knew his team was winning.<\/p>\n

Late in the game, he felt tired. The cold had tightened his muscles and he tried to ignore the cramping in his leg.<\/p>\n

Yet ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ had the ball again, a first down on the Bowdoin 15 with more than three minutes left in the game. \u201cI figured, if I can score,\u201d said Atkins, \u201cI\u2019ll put this team away.\u201d<\/p>\n

He did, scoring on a 15-yard run to back up his words. He had talked a little too much before the game. A few Bowdoin players had visited the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ campus for a cultural event and one was wearing a Bowdoin football sweatshirt.<\/p>\n

Atkins took offense. With a microphone in his hand, he guaranteed a ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ win. Later, he wondered if he should have kept his mouth shut.<\/p>\n

Winless Hamilton College was in town for the final game. A ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ win would give the team a three-game winning streak to close the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt could be the start of turning this program around. When I leave here, that\u2019s what I\u2019ll remember.\u201d<\/p>\n

Atkins to the Aztec<\/h3>\n

In the last game of the fall season, ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ football beat Hamilton 37-0 to finish at 3-5.<\/p>\n

But that wasn\u2019t the end of Sean Atkins\u2019 ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ football career. On Dec. 14, Atkins was part of a Division III all-star team that faced the Mexican National Team in the 2002 Aztec Bowl in Torreon, Mexico. He\u2019s the first ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ player to perform in a postseason bowl game since the 1946 ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ team faced Toledo in the Glass Bowl.<\/p>\n

The U.S. team, sponsored by the American Football Coaches Association, won the game, 15-9. Atkins had eight carries for 39 yards.<\/p>\n

For game information, click on www.afca.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The glory belongs to others, says Sean Atkins ’03. Steve Solloway It…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":221,"featured_media":0,"parent":3375,"menu_order":6,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"bates_author_byline_override":"","_hide_page_title":false,"_header_override":"","_template_width_override":"","_dimp_site_id":"","_dimp_override_contact":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"_sidebarChoice":"","footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"class_list":["post-3381","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3381"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11176,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3381\/revisions\/11176"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}