It’s a story previous as time.
Again in 1979, Eric Dickerson was generally known as the most effective highschool soccer gamers within the nation, and Texas A&M had its eyes set on him. The decades-old rumor was that the college purchased him a gold Trans Am to get him to verbally decide to the Aggies—a automobile he stored even after he flipped his dedication to SMU. The previous operating again all the time denied the story, claiming his grandmother purchased him the enduring automobile.
That’s till an excerpt of his memoir, Watch My Smoke: The Eric Dickerson Story, written with Greg Hanlon, was revealed in D Journal, revealing what actually occurred with the automobile.
Dickerson explains how he was below important strain to go to Texas A&M, even revealing that he obtained a suitcase crammed with $50,000 allegedly from the establishment to get him to commit there. He didn’t take the offers that got here his means.
“Though I turned that cash down, A&M stayed after me and remained within the image — there was that a lot strain for me to go there,” Dickerson wrote in his memoir, according to D Magazine’s excerpt. “After which, a number of weeks later, I discussed to my stepdad in passing that I actually appreciated the brand new Pontiac Trans Am. I’d seen it at a dealership on I-10 that I used to drive by to go to my grandparents in Houston, and I simply appreciated it: the chicken on the hood, the fins on the facet, how smooth it was.
“It was an harmless remark. Below regular circumstances, I wouldn’t have remembered even saying it. However recruiting isn’t a standard circumstance, and earlier than I knew it, I was speaking to Shear, the large A&M booster on the town.
“‘We are able to make that occur,’ he stated.”
He subsequently dedicated to Texas A&M earlier than flipping to SMU. Dickerson writes that he ultimately bought the Trans Am to a former teammate.
“Now, till the current day, I’ve all the time stated publicly that my grandparents purchased me that automobile. My grandfather made good cash from his job as a crane operator at a metal mill, and my grandma’s identify is on the paperwork, in order that’s technically true. However behind the scenes, A&M had agreed to reimburse her. And that, my buddies, is how the infamous Trans Am was paid for.”
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