Former Mocs Golfer Shares Heartfelt Reflections Of Coach Reed Sanderlin

Nicu Nastase was a letter winner from 1996-99 with the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men’s golf program after arriving as a walk-on from Maryland. He shared with me his personal reflections of the impact Coach Reed Sanderlin had on his life and is being published with his permission.

Sanderlin was a long-time English professor at UTC who became the school’s first official men’s golf coach in 1977 when the athletic programs moved up to Division I. He served for 28 years in that role before retiring in 2005 and was deemed the title of Golf Coach Emeritus. Sanderlin died last week at age 87 after a long battle with cancer.

Today I am communicating with the good people of Chattanooga from Tokyo, Japan. I sit here thousands of miles away in a day where social media drives our youth, and I am reminded of the importance of personal relationships and the impact those relationships can have on other’s lives.

Last week, I had the privilege of speaking to Coach Sanderlin on a lengthy call. He and I had spoken regularly through the years and I visited him every time I visited Chattanooga. He enjoyed hearing of my life adventures and I enjoyed hearing of his latest endeavors during his retirement. “Coach” - as all his players referred to Reed - filled me in on his daily exploits and those of fellow UTC golfers I may have known from the past, many of whom have accomplished remarkable feats both on and off the golf course. A piece of each of their life successes were a direct result of their relationship with Reed Sanderlin.

Everyone who played for Reed has a Coach story. While I, like the others, have many Coach stories, there were some that highlighted a program that was serious about winning but lacked the funding that the current UTC and other college golf teams had at their disposal. This was before the days of the Trackman and other modern equipment, so Coach had set up an on campus “training facility”. It was located under the stands of the former football stadium, Chamberlain Field.

Coach had borrowed a storage area from the football team, filled the floors with fake turf and had lined the walls with actual parachutes and a series of nets. The walls themselves were cinder block, but the netting and parachutes kept the balls from impacting the walls as long as the shots were relatively on target. I do remember a day when an errant shot went ricocheting around the room, which certainly caught everyone’s attention. I also remember the putting green Coach had set up consisting of a series of 10-foot-long strips of artificial turf equipped with ball return devices from Hammacher Schlemmer.

Along those lines, Coach had determined that our wedge play was lacking. In an effort to refine our distance control, he would set us up in the football end zone and have us hit shots to specific yardages as clearly denoted by the lines on the field. After a few practice sessions the length of the shots increased until one member of the team caught a ball thin, resulting in it flying through one of the windows of an adjacent classroom. That brought an abrupt end to our on-campus football field practice sessions.

As we all know, Coach was never really retired. He used his time to help and encourage others and to set the example for what it meant to be a husband, father, man of faith, teacher, coach, mentor and friend. In our final conversation, Coach and I spoke of the influence he had on everyone he met and I reminded him of how much he was loved by all who had crossed his path.

Our conversation included some comments Coach made. Most notably he said “Nicu in all my years, I have seen all types of individuals pass through the UTC golf program. There were golfers who knew how to party, party animals who knew how to golf, and there were golfers who were actual students.” We both chuckled at his statement as we could each name individuals who fit into all of those categories.

Ironically, as we talked, having not played much golf over the past few years, I was on my way to a golf reunion at Parris Island, S.C. involving former members of the U.S. Marine Corps golf team. I thought this was truly symbolic in that this meeting I was attending would not have been possible without Coach Sanderlin. He gave me life opportunities that may not have materialized without his kindness and belief in me. He bestowed this on others whom he has positively influenced their lives, not just locally but globally as well. Let me explain the truth in these statements.

Coach and I met in the winter of 1993 at Lake Lanier, Ga. where I was leading the Ping Junior Tour after the first of two rounds in cold, wet and windy December conditions, with an unremarkable first round score of 75. My journey to that fateful day was certainly unique. Being followed on the course by my very proud immigrant father (who had defected in 1971 to be with my mother) and his sister presently still living in Romania. This was the culmination of a dream in the making: leading a national junior tour event while being followed by actual college coaches.

Unfortunately, the pressure was too much or my confidence too little. After a lost ball in the leaves on the 10^th hole, my final round took a turn for the worse. A short while later as I stared at the scoreboard and my abysmal score, I pondered how I could go from first to the middle of the field in such a short time span. The truth was, I thought this tournament was my last shot at joining a golf-focused college program.

Growing up in a small town in Maryland and attending a small school with only nine graduates in my senior class, sports was not the focus of the school’s ethos. While we had basketball and soccer teams filled with 7^th graders to seniors just to field a team, there was no golf team or really much interest in the sport by others I knew.

My interest in golf started when my grandfather (who did not know how to play golf) bestowed upon me a set of Junior Hogan clubs at age 13. My grandfather had some business dealings and owned a travel agency where a famous amateur golfer from Tennessee who is a member of the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame named Curtis Person Sr. had led golf tours for paying clients internationally. Ultimately from that experience, my grandfather started to provide clients golf experience tours to South Africa while accompanied by Gary Player.

I guess my grandfather thought it might be a good idea for me to learn how to golf. I had previously been a ride-or-die soccer player based on my father’s interests. Without much ability to showcase my talents locally, my only chance at next level golf was through Delaware State Golf Association events or national events. Up to this fateful winter day, and after having unsuccessfully applied to all the big-name schools I could think of and having written countless letters to all the golf coaches I could find, I was destined to attend my backup option which was another Southern Conference school - The Citadel - where my uncle had successfully graduated years prior.

After the round, Coach approached me and said, “Nicu I know you didn’t play your best, but I like your swing and I think you have potential. My problem is that I have already offered my final scholarship slot to another golfer. However, I would like for you to visit UTC and if you would like to attend, I can offer you a walk-on position.”

I felt lucky to have a chance at all and jumped at the opportunity. That other golfer he offered ended up being my roommate, and I eventually played well enough to be offered a scholarship. The rest, as they say, is history.

Like all who enter the college golf arena, I dreamed of making it big on the PGA Tour. College golf was the first of many tests for those who did, and then join the PGA Tour. For me and the majority of others, it was a wake-up call that we may not be as good as we thought.

I was able to enjoy some memorable moments. After my redshirt freshman year, I shocked Coach and the team as medalist for qualifying for our first fall tournament. My career at UTC was average at best, but I was able to shoot my best round – a 69 in Virginia Beach – in my final round as a Moc. Later I did qualify in 1998 for the U.S. Public Links at Torrey Pines and was two shots away from making it into match play.

Nonetheless it was a fascinating time in my life, filled with lots of personal satisfaction and life lessons learned. In a nutshell, I learned to live with and socialize with other students both in a competitive golf team environment and with other students that I would not have otherwise had the opportunity to know. I learned to include people from all societal, racial and socio-economic backgrounds since I lived in the athletic apartment community known as Boling Apartments back in 1994. Until this point in my life, I hadn’t known I was a Yankee. I learned to prioritize my time, be a good teammate, study, how to party and even plan for my future.

During one semester, I lived with a young man named James Derrick, who was a wrestler and a U.S. Marine Corps reservist. James and I amassed many miles running around Chattanooga and over the many bridges as he kept in Marine Corps shape, and I strived to keep up my endurance for those 36 holes of golf we often played. Years later, after having begun an interest in aviation, I found myself in a U.S. Marine Corps OSO’s office taking tests that would determine my suitability as a pilot. Ironically, later in life James Derrick and I both passed the rigorous tests and became Marine Aviators.

I flew AV-8B Harriers and James flew Ospreys. Again, ironically years later, while I was flying on a combat mission over Fallujah, Iraq I checked in with a Forward Air Controller with the callsign “Rosie”. As I heard a distinct South Carolina twang through the crypto radio designed to scramble our communications from the ears of the enemy, I couldn’t help but think I’d heard that twang before. I asked “Rosie” if he knew of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and he said, “Yeah, I went there.” I announced it was me, “Nasty”, and we had a quick chuckle and then got back to the work at hand. I called “Rosie” after the mission for an after-action report, but it turned into more of a chance for us to catch up.

Later in life I would meet my wife in Japan thanks to a tour of duty in the Marine Corps and eventually fly the Boeing 777 for a major cargo company. My stepson, having known no English at the age of 15, came to the U.S. and ultimately graduated high school. He is now a junior at Auburn University (I know… I couldn’t get him to UTC).

All of these life events certainly could not have occurred without the opportunities that Coach, knowing or unknowingly, bestowed upon me that fateful December day. As I sit here and watch the sun rise on another day in the Land of the Rising Sun, I will be forever grateful to Coach for the influence he had upon me and those lives he has touched over the years.

Paul Payne can be emailed at paulpayne6249@gmail.com