Until a year ago, Hunter and Lisa Smith had never visited Chattanooga, let alone McCallie School. Then they brought their nine-year-old son, Hayes, to Father-Son Weekend, followed by a week at McCallie's Sports Camp.
As they were making the 370-mile drive back to their home in Greenwood, Ms., after leaving Hayes on campus for his week at Sports Camp, Hunter and Lisa began to discuss McCallie.
"I had just had the weekend with Hayes at Father-Son," recalled Hunter this past Sunday morning in Alumni Hall. "I was blown away by everything we had experienced. The campus, the teachers, the counselors. How nice everybody was. How impressive everything was. We talked for hours about this wonderful school and city on the drive back."
Greenwood had been home to the Smiths for more than 17 years. Because Lisa is a pharmacist, the couple owned three independent pharmacies in the area. Hunter was a successful businessman there. The couple had built their dream home there five years earlier.
"Our plan was to die there," Hunter said.
But like all loving, caring parents, their plan was also to provide as strong an education as possible for Hayes and his older sister, Emma. Not entirely pleased with their children's school options to that point, Hunter floated an idea.
"What if we move to Chattanooga?" he asked Lisa. "We could send Emma to GPS (Girls Preparatory School), and in another year, we could send Hayes to McCallie."
They slept on it. They talked about it. A lot. For days and weeks and months. After all, their roots were in Mississippi. Ole Miss graduates. A dream home built. Lisa was head of the Chamber of Commerce in Greenwood and in the Junior Auxiliary. It was certainly a carefully constructed and comfortable life to leave behind.
But that weekend in Chattanooga and at Father-Son Weekend kept calling to Hunter. What McCallie could do for Hayes and GPS for Emma. The couple came back last fall with Emma and studied GPS more closely. They looked at neighborhoods they might like to live in.
"We kept saying this did not make any sense," said Smith. "But the Lord kept opening up doors. So we bought a house here this spring. We sold our dream home in Greenwood. We have enrolled Hayes at Brainerd Baptist for his fifth-grade year. We are here to stay."
Not every Father-Son story ends this way. But it is also not an isolated event.
"I would say we have had at least 10 or 12 families visit on Father-Son Weekend or send a child to Sports Camp and wind up moving to Chattanooga," said longtime Father-Son director Mike Wood. "Between the school and the city, this is a pretty good place to be."
A record crowd figured this year's Father-Son Weekend was a great place to be. By Friday evening, 56 dads and 72 sons had checked in—more than double the number from the first Father-Son Weekend more than a decade ago.
"I think we had 25 dads that first year," said Wood. "It grew fairly quickly to 50 dads and 50 boys. Now we are filling two dorms."
Wood is clearly one very big reason for several fathers to return to campus and hang out with McCallie's former head track and field and cross country coach, who was inducted into the Chattanooga Sports Hall of Fame this past spring.
Just a few weeks ago, Austin Starkey '08 was playing golf at Brainerd Golf Club when he hit a hole-in-one on No. 17. Understandably giddy over the accomplishment, he entered the clubhouse, where he spied Wood, whom he had not seen in years.
Asked what was the bigger thrill, the hole-in-one or catching up with Wood, Starkey smiled and said, "Probably a tie."
Many dads are like Walker Steele, another 2008 graduate. Bringing six-year-old son Bradford to Father-Son Weekend for the first time, Walker, who lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, said, "Bradford has not seen McCallie before. This is a good chance for him to experience this."
The experience this weekend was exceptional in every way. The Friday night welcome dinner included spare ribs, pulled pork, and barbecue chicken with all the trimmings. Saturday's dinner was steak and baked potatoes. Activities ranged from Game Room fun to squash, basketball, football, baseball, and tennis to a class in Walker Hall with science teacher Dr. Ashley Posey.
When head of school Lee Burns asked over Saturday breakfast what Posey intended to teach the class, she said she would be showing the fathers and sons how fireworks explode and how they create the colors they do.
"We are going to have some fun," she said. "We are going to blow some stuff up."
It is never too early to start attending Father-Son Weekend. A year ago, Josh Vose '96 made the journey from his home in Seattle, Washington, with his then-five-year-old son Everett.
During the winter, Everett asked his dad if they could go back to Father-Son Weekend.
And what does Everett like most about the weekend?
"Spending time with my Dad," he said, before adding, "and I want to come back next year."
When Hunter and Hayes Smith return next year, they will only have to make the 18-minute drive from their new Chattanooga home, instead of the six-hour drive from Greenwood, Mississippi.
As he talked about that transition over breakfast Sunday morning, Smith thought back on all his family's changes over the past 12 months and got a little emotional, a tear or two forming in his eyes.
"I just kept coming back to this thought," he said, his lips quivering a bit. "If I do not do this for our children, if Lisa and I do not give them this incredible educational opportunity of GPS and McCallie, I am going to regret it for the rest of my life."
In these uncertain times, maybe that is why this year's Father-Son Weekend was the best attended yet.