This past Wednesday, Brad Gaines drove for over three hours from Nashville to Russellville., Ala., on a mission only few can understand. I thank God I am one of those who does.

Twenty years ago Brad was a very good football player for Vanderbilt. I remember him well, maybe because Ray Oldham, my old friend with the Super Bowl ring who died too early, was his uncle or because Brad was so full of life, but I remember Brad with a certain fondness.

So it was with a knowing heart that I cherished the pilgrimage Brad makes three times every year to tiny Russelllville with his bottle of Clorox, his Windex and a bucket of tears. Brad Gaines goes deep into Alabama to tend to Chucky Mullins’ grave.

On Oct. 28, 1989, it was Homecoming at Ole Miss when Vanderbilt – and Gaines – came to town. At one point early in the football game, Vanderbilt had driven to the Ole Miss 12. Gaines, a hardy running back for the Commodores, then lined up in the slot on the right and, crossing the middle about the Rebel five-yard-line, whipped around to catch a perfect pass from VU quarterback John Gromos.

The play carried Brad and the ball into the end zone, but Chucky Mullins, playing the nickel in the Rebels' defensive scheme, anticipated the play and, weighing 50 pounds less than Gaines, slammed into the Vandy player’s back with such force it knocked the ball loose.

As Mullins did, four vertebrae in Chucky’s spine were shattered and he was paralyzed instantly. It has been said that what happened after that did more for race relations in Mississippi than any other thing because the outpouring of love for Chucky was, quite candidly, so sensational it will never be forgotten.

Mullins, you see, was an orphan. Poor and black, he literally had to beg Ole Miss coach Billy Brewer for a chance, but he turned out to be what Brewer would later call a “glue player,” one who held the team together, and the whole state began a foundation, even built him a house on land donated by the town of Oxford. Chucky Mullins was loved in such a colossal way that Larry Woody, the brilliant writer from Nashville, wrote a glorious book about the whole thing called “A Dixie Farewell.”

But this story is about Brad Gaines. It is about his soul. You see, every October 28th, every Christmas Day, and every May 6 (the day Chucky died in1991), Brad drives to Russellville to scrub and polish Chucky’s headstone. The headstone reads simply, “Chucky – Man of Courage.”

Brad will never forget the first time he spoke to Chucky. Mullins was in a Memphis hospital, in Intensive Care with lines and tubes sticking out everywhere, and, as Gaines approached the bed, Chucky said something Gaines could not hear. So Brad had to lean down, his white face almost touching Chucky’s black one, before he could hear, “It’s not your fault.”

It was the beginning of a very unusual friendship that only men who wear the cloak of valor can understand. As Chucky went through rehabilitation, Gaines would go see him. When Chucky got better, and returned to Ole Miss to attend classes in a motorized wheelchair, Brad would visit and he would call.

Chucky’s guardians, a white recreation director and his beautiful wife in Russellville, had adopted Chucky and his younger brother when Chucky’s mom died at age 34. So they greeted Gaines into “the family” and then, two years afterward in late spring, Brad – by then a businessman in Nashville - read in his morning newspaper where Mullins had been tragically stricken with a sudden pulmonary embolism.

Gaines rushed to the Memphis hospital again and no one could pry him away from a three-day vigil by Chucky’s side. When the decision was made to take Mullins off life support, Brad Gaines was the last person to leave the room. That’s when Brad found his way to the hospital roof, laid on a concrete helicopter pad, and wept uncontrollably.

Do you dare be puzzled? Chucky himself said, “It wasn’t your fault.” You can watch the play, the hit, a thousand times on tape and it wasn’t head-to-head or in any way dangerous. But even Brad’s wife does not understand why every Christmas they must interrupt the day so she can take their four children to her parents, while Brad drives 350 long miles with his Clorox.

It may be best described as the warriors’ way. Brad Gaines doesn’t make excuses for it or seek understanding. He vows he will do it for the rest of his life, picking away the weeds, polishing the granite. He also prays mightily and, yes, he still weeps unashamedly with every visit.

When his wife suggested that maybe he could go a day or two before Christmas or even the day afterward, he shook his head. “Christmas is probably the most popular, coveted, important holiday of the year," he says. "I just want him to have somebody there on Christmas.”

Brad makes sure “somebody” is also there on the date Chucky died and on the day he and Chucky Mullins first met, one fateful afternoon in late October on the Ole Miss football field.

That is the way with warriors. I thank God I can understand it. And I thank God for Brad Gaines.

royexum@aol.com