Dave Fagg had a dream as his high school career wound down at High Point High School in 1954.

He wanted to be the first member of his family to attend college. But where was the money coming from to finance a poor boy’s dream? He was the baby in a family of seven children that lived in a two-bedroom house on a dirt road where money was as scarce as hen’s teeth.

His father was an alcoholic. Not a mean man, not an abuser in any way, nothing like that. But not very productive, either. He worked in a furniture factory and missed a lot of work. His financial contributions to the family were meager. His name sometimes appeared in the newspaper, charged with public drunkenness. When it happened, Fagg dreaded the inevitable question from friends and classmates: “Was that your father?”

Tough thing for a young boy to endure, hearing questions like that and having to answer them. Real tough. Sports helped get him through it, gave him some self-esteem. But Carrie Jones Fagg, his mother, gave him everything. Through her he learned real life lessons and survival skills. She demonstrated inner toughness and perseverance against overwhelming odds, and she showed him a love of family that ran deep.

She worked two cotton mill jobs, beginning the first one at 7 a.m. and finishing the second at 11 p.m. Fagg saw his mother come home late every night, her body covered in lint, bone-tired, and it burned an image in his mind that would never dim. Go find a football player or a wrestler – or anybody – tougher than her. Good luck.

Fagg’s dream of going to college might not have been practical, but dreams often are more open-ended than pragmatic. His was, although his resume was impeccable. Good student, member of the honor society, played defensive end and tight end in football, wrestled and played baseball. On Saturdays, he mowed three lawns, washed two cars and did other chores assigned by his mother. Football practice was like recess compared to his weekend.

His first wrestling match at High Point High was against a wrestler from Jamestown High. The opponent beat Fagg up, bounced him around, pretty much embarrassed him. Fagg retreated to the locker room afterwards, where he didn’t know whether to throw up or cry. He sat there alone in his misery and made a vow: “I will either quit wrestling or never let this happen to me again. I might get beat, but never again like this.”

He stayed after practice from then on, not to run yards but miles, several miles each day. He conditioned himself physically and mentally and became state champion in his weight class his senior year.

He was a good football player, too. Not flashy, probably a little too small to hold college football aspirations. But he was tough and highly competitive. When somebody told Fagg “no,” in his mind, it registered as “maybe,” leaning strongly toward “yes.” That remains true to this day.

As his senior football season at High Point High wound down, he received some bad news, a “no” that he couldn’t turn around. He was raised a Baptist and hoped he could play football at Wake Forest, but Coach Peahead Walked said, “Not quite big or fast enough to play for us.”

Where to turn? Fagg knew next to nothing about Davidson College. Two of his High Point High teammates – Charlie Lucas and Sonny Butler – had been named to the North Carolina Shrine Bowl team. When Davidson coach Bill Dole drove to High Point to scout the two Shrine Bowlers, Fagg – who had never scored a touchdown – intercepted a pass and ran it back 40 yards for a TD. On the ensuing kickoff, he scooped up a fumble and returned it 40 yards for another.

Dole saw all of this and talked with High Point coach Tony Simeon after the game. “Who’s that number 24?” That was Fagg, 170 pounds soaking wet and not the fastest man on the field. “He’s a good student and a tough competitor, a good football player,” Simeon said.

Dole played a hunch and offered Fagg a chance to come to Davidson and play football. Fagg accepted, as football gave him his only chance at a college education. He would never forget it.

Before college, though, a more important thing was at work in Fagg’s life. Barbara Ellington was a High Point High cheerleader. The two had known each other since elementary school, when their backyards touched.

Fagg somehow made the junior varsity basketball team at High Point in 1952, and Ellington practiced in the same gym with the other cheerleaders, so he got to see her every afternoon. When his coach told him he wasn’t going to be a candidate to play varsity, he joined the wrestling team, which also practiced in the gym, so he could keep seeing Ellington. He became a champion wrestler and finally got around to asking her for a date.

It was May 24, 1952. Fagg marched across his backyard to the Ellington house. They caught a city bus to the Center Theatre downtown, where they saw “Singing in the Rain.” The romance was touched by magic from the outset. As they got off the bus down the hill from the Ellington house after the movie, it began to drizzle. Fagg took Ellington’s hand, and they walked up the hill singing “Singing in the Rain.”

In 1954, when Fagg headed to Davidson, he excelled in football and wrestling, and was named Davidson’s Freshman Athlete of the Year. He won the top athlete honor as a senior, too, before graduating with a degree in psychology.

Before the start of his senior year, Fagg and Ellington married. She stayed in High Point and kept her bank job while he wound up his college career.

Then it was off to the races in a career that took them all over the place: Four years of active duty in the Navy. Assistant football coach at Garinger High School in Charlotte, where he also installed a wrestling program. Head wrestling coach and assistant football coach at The Citadel.

Then he returned to his alma mater as assistant football coach, and the team did well enough to play in the 1969 Tangerine Bowl. Then Fagg became head coach, a position he held for four seasons.

He bounced around several other college coaching jobs until 1990, when Davidson asked him to rescue its floundering football program, one that had won a paltry four games and lost 47 in the five previous seasons. The team won 16 games in three seasons, after which Fagg – by mutual agreement – went into administration, and he has served there since, mostly as the highly effective associate director of the Davidson Athletic Foundation. He’s worked at Davidson for 29 years – plus four more years as a student – and wears Davidson in his heart and soul like few ever have. Call out the name of a former Davidson athlete, and Fagg can most likely tell you when he or she graduated and what they’re doing now.

Fagg, now 73, retires from Davidson at the end of December. The poor boy from High Point and his wife will leave a legacy with the establishment of the Ellington-Fagg Scholarships, with the goal of a $1 million endowment.

“When you think of where we came from,” Fagg says, “I never thought leaving any kind of legacy would be possible.”

Furthermore, Fagg is this year’s winner of the coveted Hendrix Award that goes to a Davidson football letterman who by the use of lessons learned on the playing field has gone on to achieve outstanding success in his profession.

The father of four and grandfather of eight, Fagg plans to spend time volunteering, making calls for Davidson, and visiting his grandchildren.

Sitting on the porch and rocking is not in his DNA.

He and Barbara celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 2007, at a surreal mountaintop villa located in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, belonging to Davidson alumnus and former football player Steve Smith, a great friend of Fagg’s who played football under him at Davidson.

One glorious morning as Fagg looked from the front deck over the magnificent vista, he called Smith to thank him for his generosity. As Fagg described the view, Smith asked, “Dave, can you see High Point from there?”

Tears filled Fagg’s eyes. He could see the two cotton mills in High Point and his mother coming home late from working two jobs covered head to toe with lint. It’s a vision that will always be with him.

“Yes, I can see High Point,” Fagg replied. “I can see it clearly.”

JOHN KILGO is a writer living in Davidson who also does radio play-by-play of Davidson basketball.