{"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 Bates 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 Bates\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 Bates 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. Bates has struggled mightily forever, it seems, to win more than two or three games a year.<\/p>\n

Unless you\u2019re an alum, Bates 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 Bates 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 Bates 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 Bates 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 Bates 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 Bates 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, Bates football beat Hamilton 37-0 to finish at 3-5.<\/p>\n

But that wasn\u2019t the end of Sean Atkins\u2019 Bates 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 Bates player to perform in a postseason bowl game since the 1946 Bates 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,"_dimp_site_id":"","_dimp_override_contact":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"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}]}}