SEC football fans don't come any more passionate, loyal or knowledgeable than Randy Peay

My teenage memory of Randy Peay is unsettling.

He was two years older and far more skilled at baseball. So, I wasn’t optimistic when I took my turn in batting practice at the American Legion field in our hometown of Clinton, La.

Bad enough that I had never faced a left-handed pitcher. But his pitch was worse than I could have imagined. Just as the ball was within striking distance, it abruptly tailed off  down and away as though a gust of wind had rushed across home plate.

Our relationship improved after that. Although we lived in the same town again only once — when I was a sportswriter in Baton Rouge, where he had his own accounting firm — we remained friends.

We occasionally met at the same stadium, where I was working and he was working even harder as an LSU fan. But the phone was our best connection.

He usually would leave a message related to the SEC news of the day, identifying himself as Curley Hallman, Mike DuBose, Vince Dooley or Phillip Fulmer.

You didn’t have to know Randy to relate to him. Fans like him are as much a part of SEC football as future NFL players and multi-million-dollar coaches.

Now, as the holiday season mingles with the bowl season, I see Randy often in my mind's eye, either grimly condemning a coach's play call or smiling wickedly at his team's good fortune.

He didn’t smile as much in his last few years. No one on dialysis smiles as much.

He survived open-heart surgery, but diabetes took his kidneys. He fought through the dialysis for 4½ years, managing his accounting business in Clinton at the same time, before his body gave out. He died last month, the day before Thanksgiving, and three days before the last regular-season SEC game.

My wife, Melinda, once sat next to Randy in the Georgia Dome when LSU and Georgia were playing for the SEC championship. Afterward, she talked more about Randy than she did the game.

She said that by game’s end, every LSU fan within earshot was listening to Randy, who practically had a photographic memory when it came to sports. He could watch one play or player and relate them to another play or player from a year or decade earlier.

He did so loudly and authoritatively. In fact, for all his success as an accountant, I’m convinced he would have been a nationally acclaimed­ talk-show host if he had taken that course.

Randy wouldn’t have needed a co-host. He had the stamina and passion to carry a four-hour show by himself.

Just as importantly, he had an opinion. On everything. Sports, politics, business — you name it.

The last meal I shared with Randy was breakfast at Johnny B’s Café in Clinton this past summer. I can’t remember how "Don Perkins" came up, but Ted Chaney revealed he was a fan of former Dallas Cowboys running back.

"He's in the NFL Hall of Fame," Ted said as testament to Perkins' prominence.

“He’s not in the Hall of Fame,” Randy said matter-of-factly without looking up.

As the debate ensued, I Googled "Perkins" for confirmation. Randy was right.

Later, when Ted and I were alone at the table, he said, “You know, Randy's usually right about football.”

I thought back to another football argument many years earlier, on an LSU alumni return flight from Gainesville, Fla., to Baton Rouge. As Randy delivered a colorful monologue, characterizing LSU's coaching staff as anything but competent following a 3-3 tie, renowned Cajun chef and humorist Justin Wilson angrily came to the defense of the coaches.

As their argument intensified, Wilson's wife took Randy's side. 

Randy's last month was the worst. A sinus infection put him the hospital and further sapped his strength. But he made it home before he died.

At the news, I remembered Randy’s childhood home, where the famous purple-and-gold bus was parked more than 40 years ago. Randy, John Powell, Mike Felps and John Irwin Stewart bought the bus from a Baton Rouge man, who apparently hid his excitement well enough to complete the transaction.

It was an old military bus, and parts weren’t available. When it broke down on an LSU-Auburn road trip, it had to be towed to Randy’s family home, which had a big enough lot to accommodate a broken-down bus. It never ran again.

Months earlier, Randy, John Irwin and Mike had spent an afternoon painting a vehicle they thought would carry them around the Southeast for years.

None of them knew about the hazards of paint fumes. So Mike and John Irwin could only sit back and enjoy the show when the paint got the best of Randy. He picked up a hose, pretended it was a microphone, and delivered his best Johnny Carson impersonation.

The spontaneous performance came as easily to Randy as his natural-breaking fastball.

John Adams is a senior columnist. He may be reached at 865-342-6284 or john.adams@knoxnews.com. Follow him at: Twitter.com/johnadamskns

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