Dwight Gatlin's ringtone on his phone comes from the movie “Casablanca.” It is “As Time Goes By,” sung by Sam in the movie, played by Dooley Wilson.
When Gatlin hears it, he can't help but smile. In Gatlin, nicknamed “OT” (Old Timer), smiles at just about everything, especially if it involves anything to do with the Hawkinsville Red Devils.
The groundskeeper at the Hawkinsville/Pulaski Recreation Department, Gatlin said that his computer room at his home is full of Hawkinsville Red Devil stuff. Two of his most prized Red Devil items are the state championship rings he received for being a part of the football radio broadcasting team. “The coaches let us get the rings just like them and the players.”
He is about to start his sixth baseball season with the recreation department, before that he was employed at the Robins Air Force Base until the year 2000. “They then asked me to come back as a consultant for a couple years in 2001, but that turned out to be for six years.”
Gatlin came to Hawkinsville in the 1980s when he married his current wife, and love of his life. “We actually moved to Georgia in the mid 1960s – my parents did. My dad had worked at the Air Force Base in Mobile, and when that was phased out, my folks came on to Warner Robins.”
He started helping out with sports in Hawkinsville as a team statistician and a PA announcer and Booster Club officer in the 1980s. He was even recognized by the Macon Telegraph and News in 2002 for his service to high school sports. “Got my picture in the paper and everything. It was a real positive for what we do here in Hawkinsville and the program. I was honored.”
Gatlin is part of the Friday night radio broadcast of Hawkinsville Red Devil sports. “There are three of us on the crew, and if one of us is out, then we are up in the booth, but if we are all there, I am on the sidelines, roaming the sidelines, doing the broadcast.”
Born on November 28, 1945, the Citronelle, Alabama native graduated from Citronelle High School and entered Livingston State College, later called Livingston University, and now named the University of West Alabama in Livingston, Alabama, in 1964.
Of his time at Livingston University - “my graduating class was the first under the new name,” Gatlin said - “I loved it.” He graduated with his bachelor of science in business administration in 1968.
He had come to Livingston, at first thinking he would play baseball, as he was All-State while at Citronelle High School, but he said, “They offered to pay for my books and all, but I just didn't do it. Back then two-thirds of the football team played baseball.”
As a college student in the 1960s, Gatlin said, “There wasn't a lot to do in Livingston then – there was the laundry mat, a pool hall and the movie theater. If you had a date, you usually went over to Meridian, Mississippi, which is, what 35 miles away?”
At Livingston University, Gatlin said one of the most appealing aspects was “that you knew everyone. I remember, a couple of buddies and I went over early our freshmen year. We were housed in Brock Hall. Back then, there was Brock and Webb and Stickney. The student union was in the basement of Webb Hall at the time.”
Gatlin continued, “We were walking across campus and Dean Homer was passing us. I had never met him before. He was a big man, and as he passed us, he said, 'Hey Dwight.' I was overwhelmed. He knew who I was. Later on I found out that he knew someone from back home and they told him about us, and he had looked up our pictures, and he had recognized me.”
He laughed, “But still, that made an impression on me.”
Gatlin said, “When I was at LU, there was a referendum on the voting ballot about selling alcohol in Sumter County … back then, it was a dry county, and if you wanted a beer, you had to toward Tuscaloosa … there was a place called, Ethel's. You could get a beer and a hamburger.”
He continued, “A bunch of the students got registered to vote in Sumter County, and all I remember is that referendum got passed. The students passed it through.”
Pausing, Gatlin continued, “We went to football games, all the sports events and we formed bonds – friendships that last forever.”
He said that occasionally he still sees some of his classmates from LU, “and we get together and play golf.”
Gatlin was drafted. “When I was in the Army, and had just finished basic training, I was the only one with a college degree out of my whole battalion. They sent me out to Arizona where I attended a radar and warfare training, and then they say that I had gone to college and had a degree.”
Gatlin said, “So, when I went to Vietnam, I was not in the bushes carrying a gun. They had me on the DMZ(demilitarized zone) at a radar site.”
He did receive a Bronze Star for his part in bringing down a Russian tank. “We spotted the tank one night, and ordered the B-52 attack.”
Gatlin said, “I was never shot at. We had mortar and all shot around us, and I got some shrapnel in my leg, but I was never shot at.”
Dwight Gatlin, husband, father, grandfather and Hawkinsville Red Devil supporter, said, “My degree from Livingston University saved my life.”
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