The Purple and White: a hole in one for community building
By Vince Moore
Whatever else you might say about the Purple & White Golf League at Furman, it is truly an egalitarian exercise.
The 30-plus members of the league include vice presidents, assistant professors, faculty chairs, retirees, administrative directors, department assistants, and even one president. But all have equal status under the banner of the Purple & White. In fact, the higher one ranks in the Furman pantheon, the more grief he or she is likely to receive in the league.
“We not only tolerate trash-talking, we highly encourage it,” said John Burns, Furman's associate athletic director who also serves as the league's commissioner. “So if (Vice President for Development) Don Lineback hits a screaming line drive into the trees, which he tends to do fairly regularly, you had better believe that someone will point that out to him.”
No need to worry about Lineback, however, a member of the White team and one of the league's more faithful and talkative players. He can dish it out pretty well himself. “ I want to seem very sincere when I say how much I enjoyed the Purple Team's banter this past year, especially on my take away,” he said. “They stopped at nothing to mess up my amazing swing.”
It's all in good fun, of course. Beginning in early April and running through early September, the group gathers at the Furman Golf Course every Tuesday about 5 p.m. to do battle. There are two teams – Purple & White – and the players are measured against a scoring system that is so complex and, some would say, convoluted, that it nearly defies description. Suffice it to say that players are awarded points for pars, bogeys and birdies (and the highly irregular eagle) and that the golfer is always playing against his or her own potential. The team with the most points at the end of the season wins.
The Purple & White, which is actually in its third reincarnation, has proven to be a great community exercise. It began in 1975 when a small group of guys in the Physical Plant started an afternoon golf league known as the Plumbers and Carpenters. They were joined over the next few years by employees from the rest of the university and it soon morphed into the Purple & White. The league went dormant for a few years in the 1990s, but came back into existence last year.
The league's latest incarnation might also be the most successful. About 26 or 27 players teed it up on average every Tuesday, and assigned tee times guaranteed that all golfers played together at some point.
For instance, Tom Kazee, Furman's new vice president for academic affairs and dean, joined the league upon his arrival at the university in July and didn't miss a round the rest of the way. He got to meet a lot of people he might not have otherwise met, although it did put some folks in a quandary. If you are an assistant professor in a tenure-track position, do you give the new dean his three-foot putt?
“It's a great way for Furman people to get together and get to know one another outside of work,” Burns said. “That's the biggest reason we do it. But we also love to play golf and you can't have a better format for enjoying the game than this.”
If you still have trouble believing the Purple & White provides an equal opportunity for all, consider that the two big winners in this year's league competition were women, a fact that bruised at least a dozen male egos. Dianne Alexander, who works in the Office of Multicultural Affairs, won Player of the Year award, while Mickie Spencer, an administrative assistant with Theatre Arts Department, was named Rookie of the Year. Janis Bandelin, director of the Furman Library, even won the Most Improved Award.
In fact, the women dominated play so much this season that it was rumored that the league briefly considered limiting the ladies to two rounds per month, not so much to slow down their onslaught of points as to ensure their husbands had a properly prepared meal on Tuesday nights. Fortunately, more enlightened heads prevailed.
“That is nothing more than conjecture and I have no further comment about that,” commissioner Burns said.
(The author is director of media relations, an avid golfer and member of the xxx team)
Inside Furman is published monthly during the school year by the Furman University Department of Marketing and Public Relations. For story ideas, e-mail John Roberts, editor.
