Walk-On:  A Memoir by Thom Gossom, Jr.

My friend Doug Bigelow has created a new award to honor those student athlete football players who show the inspiration and courage to be a contributor for his football team minus the scholarship.  The award will be named the Lynn “Pappy” Waldorf Trophy.  You can learn more about the award by visiting www.collegefootballwalkon.com.

Thom Gossom, Jr. was a walk on football player at Auburn University from 1970-1975.  But Gossom wasn’t just a walk on at Auburn, he was an African American walk on.  Gossom had made a promise to himself, a goal really, to play football for Auburn as a boy growing up in Birmingham, AL.  Goals were encouraged by his father on New Year’s Day, and Gossom made that goal even though most boys would have wanted to play football for the Alabama Crimson Tide.

Gossom describes with detail the clash in cultures as a young black man who attended a college with very little integration in the rural south and dominated by the culture of the southern whites.  The barriers were plentiful, but Gossom managed to secure a student loan to pay for the first year.  As a walk on, Gossom had to live in a small apartment just off campus failing to have some of the luxuries of the scholarship athletes including the dining hall which the scholarship athletes had access to.

Gossom’s work ethic, and raw talent eventually earned him a scholarship for the legendary coach “Shug” Jordan and an opportunity to contribute to the famous 1972 team nicknamed the “Amazins.” Gossom had a kind of love-hate relationship with Jordan, a man he admired and greatly respected but who had trouble understanding many of Gossom’s cultural experiences.  Jordan also struggled with the changing cultural in society at large as well.  Somehow, through the misunderstandings and cultural changes, the two men respected and admired one another.

While Gossom was not the first African American to play football at Auburn, or even the first African American in the entire athletic department at Auburn, he was the first African American athlete to graduate.  Gossom equiped himself well to be in the communications industry taking a class in theatre and journalism.  Gossom even worked as a reporter for the school newspaper getting the opportunity to interview Mohammed Ali.  Gossom went on to be an actor and an enterpreneur.  Gossom had roles in such films as Fight Club and TV shows In the Heat of the Night and Boston Legal.  Gossom is the Principal and founder of Best Gurl Entertainment.