{"id":33080,"date":"2020-11-01T15:41:51","date_gmt":"2020-11-01T20:41:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/?p=33080"},"modified":"2024-07-09T15:43:48","modified_gmt":"2024-07-09T19:43:48","slug":"a-lasting-devotion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/a-lasting-devotion\/","title":{"rendered":"A Lasting Devotion"},"content":{"rendered":"

IT WAS THE MID-1950S WHEN\u00a0Carol Mullikin \u201958<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0David Mauldin \u201955<\/strong>\u00a0met at a fraternity party and began dating, a courtship that often took them to Furman basketball games at the downtown Textile Hall, where basketball games had been held since at least 1949.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere wasn\u2019t that much to do in Greenville back then,\u201d remembers David. \u201cIf you had seen the couple of movies playing downtown, you would either go to the basketball game or study, and we didn\u2019t care about doing that all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today the Mauldins have been married for more than 60 years. And their life together still includes a shared devotion to Furman, one that is evident every time the Paladins take to the court at home.<\/p>\n

When the next basketball season starts, David and Carol Mauldin plan to be in the stands \u2013 just like they\u2019ve been for more than 700 home games.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason we\u2019ve been so involved in basketball is that it\u2019s exciting, but mainly because we got to know the players,\u201d David says. He started attending basketball games in 1951 during his freshman year and didn\u2019t miss one until after\u00a0his graduation in 1955.<\/p>\n

The pair missed games for two years while David was in the service but resumed their basketball game attendance when they moved back to the Upstate in 1958. They\u2019ve missed no more than 10 home games since, mostly because of bad weather.<\/p>\n

Gary Clark \u201974<\/strong>, who played basketball for the Paladins and later served for 15 years as director of athletics, says the Mauldins\u2019 most significant impact has been their personal relationships with the players.<\/p>\n

The Mauldins were part of a group that hosted covered-dish dinners for the players twice a year. Carol organized the potlucks for more than 20 years before handing the responsibility to someone else last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were genuinely interested in our athletes,\u201d says Clark. \u201cAs a student, knowing somebody is in your corner means so much.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2018, the couple was inducted into the Furman Athletics Hall of Fame, having been members of the Paladin Club for more than 40 years, served multiple terms on the Paladin Club Board of Directors, and assisted in almost every Paladin Club fundraising event over the years.<\/p>\n

Longtime members of the Order of the Paladin, the Paladin Club\u2019s highest recognition level, the Mauldins also made a gift to the football program in 2013 that resulted in the creation of \u201cMauldin Hall\u201d within the Pearce-Horton Football Complex.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve been steady supporters of Furman basketball, and not all those years were good years competitively,\u201d says Clark. \u201cBut they were just as enthusiastic, just as supportive and just as consistent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Consistency is part of who they are. The Mauldins celebrated their 63rd<\/sup>\u00a0wedding anniversary last December.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have children of our own, but the players felt like they were family. We\u2019ve stayed in touch with a lot of them,\u201d says David. \u201cWe\u2019ve received invitations to lots of weddings and graduations.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Their love for each other \u2013 and for Furman \u2013 spans two centuries. Carol \u201958 and David \u201955 Mauldin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":295,"featured_media":33081,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2895,2892,1963],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-class-notes-fall-2020","category-fall-2020","category-furman-magazine"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/295"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33080"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33080\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33083,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33080\/revisions\/33083"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}