Oct. 23, 2007

By Wilt Browning
Special to theACC.com

For most of 20 years now, Clarkston Hines has had the consolation of knowing that, in a sense, his college football career at Duke University lives on.

Now in his work-a-day world of health care, Hines still encounters people from time to time who remember that in the late 1980s there was none better than he at catching a spiraling football as it sliced its way through autumn afternoons in the Southeast.

"Hi, I'm Clarkston Hines," he'll introduce himself.

"Hines," someone will say. "Sounds familiar. Football?"

"Yes, sir," Hines will confirm.

"Duke?"

"Duke."

"Times have been tough at Duke lately," he'll be reminded, though not always so gently. Still, until the 2006 season, Hines had a ready answer.

"I'd tell them that Duke was the last North Carolina team to win an Atlantic Coast Conference championship (which the Blue Devils shared in 1989, Hines` senior season)," Hines said. "But Wake Forest kind of messed that up for me last season."

But he has remained in exclusive company in that regard. Eighteen graduating classes have come and gone in college football since that magic season. And all this time, Hines has had a championship ring to spin on his finger until it began to show the signs of wear.

So, he is left with a reminder that, in its own way, is more remarkable than the season represented by the ring. In an era of wide-open offensive college football, the ACC record to beat when it comes to career touchdown receptions remains Hines' at 38.

"I guess that is amazing," he said in an interview in which he was participating on his cell phone as he drove toward a business appointment in the western end of North Carolina recently.

"There are several reasons it's still there, I expect. One is that the defenses in college football have gotten a lot more complex. You see zone blitzes in college now; you never saw that when I was playing. That just adds another layer in the defensive scheme that we didn't have to worry about.

"The other is that I was a fifth-year senior. Kids will leave early and go to the pros now, and that's made a big difference. Take Calvin Johnson at Georgia Tech. As tall as he was and as talented as he was, if he'd stayed for his final season, there's no telling what he could have done."

Like Hines in his time, Johnson had become the ACC Player of the Year in his three-season career in Atlanta.

For Hines, if there were any pressure to head to the pro ranks, it never was seriously considered. "I thought about it," he said, "but I was having fun. We won seven games my senior season and came close to going to a major bowl."

Clarkston Hines Duke Wide Receiver 1986-89 Chapel Hill, N.C. 1989 ACC Player of the Year & Consensus All-America Led the ACC in receiving three years Still the ACC career leader for touchdown receptions Hines, one of the most productive receivers in ACC history, was named the Conference's Player of the Year following a 1989 campaign in which he caught an ACC-record 17 touchdown passes and was named a consensus All-America. He led the ACC in receiving for three consecutive years in 1987, 1988 and 1989, and completed his career holding Conference marks in pass receptions (189), reception yardage (3,318) and touchdown receptions (38). To this day he remains the ACC's all-time leader in TD catches, and still ranks eighth overall in career receptions and third in career yardage. After his senior year he was chosen as recipient of the ACC's prestigious McKevlin Award, which is given annually to the Conference's Overall Athlete of the Year. Although a native of Chapel Hill, N.C., Hines played his high school football at the Bolles School in Jacksonville. He currently resides in Statesville, N. C.

This fall, college football fans through the ACC footprint also are remembering Clarkston Hines. He is one of 12 former football stars in the 2007 ACC Legends series. The 12 will be honored during this year's Dr Pepper ACC Championship weekend in Jacksonville, Fla., thus returning Hines to the city in which he first attracted the attention of college football coaches.

That Hines was one of the biggest reasons that Duke won 24 games during his four seasons there is a matter of good fortune for the Blue Devils.

Though Hines grew up in neighboring Chapel Hill, he never seriously considered return to his hometown to play collegiately for the Tar Heels. "I was fortunate to have gone to Bolles School (a highly regarded prep school in Jacksonville, Fla.) and I came out of there knowing that I wanted to go to a prestigious school."

Hines also came out with two attributes, according to former Bolles coach Bill Borg, that made him a pass catcher who himself had become a great catch for some fortunate college recruiter. "He had blinding speed and great hands," Borg once said.

"It was like throwing the ball into feathers, his hands were so soft."

So, Hines made a plan. He would make official visits to Georgia Tech, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame and Duke.

"It was the process of elimination and I believe it was meant to be Duke," Hines said.

"I remember it was too cold in South Bend," he said. "And they were loaded with receivers. There were four receivers who had been the players of the year in their home states and there were two true freshmen who would have been ahead of me. The only one of them that got to play as a freshman was Tim Brown, and he was good enough to win the Heisman.

"And I wasn't sure how long Gerry Faust would be coaching there." Indeed, Faust would not have been there to greet Hines on his first day as a freshman; he had zipped away to coach the Akron Zips.

"At Vanderbilt, there were rumors (at the time) of the beginning of a steroid scandal, and at Georgia Tech there would have been a lot of math and sciences to take and I knew I needed history and English."

The perfect solution was Duke located in a part of the country in which Hines had grown strong and talented and where he would feel at home because he was. "When I came to Duke, I knew I wanted to do something special," he said.

"It was a great decision. I was meant to go to Duke. Every now and then, we are blessed to be in the right place at the right time."

The "right time" to which Hines referred was the brief Steve Spurrier era at the school, an era that began on the first play with a pass off a double reverse. With Steve Slayden, Anthony Dilweg and Billy Ray doing the throwing, Hines did most of the catching for three wide-open seasons.

"The times could not have been better," Hines said. "We beat Carolina and beat them soundly and got a share of the ACC championship as a result.

"Then we got our first bowl invitation in something like 25 years (actually 28 years) and my career wound up in my hometown.

"It couldn't have been better."

Wilt Browning is a special contributor to theACC.com. He spent more than 40 years as a sports editor and columnist in the Southeast. He worked for the Greenville News, the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, the Charlotte Observer, the Greensboro News & Record and the Asheville Citizen-Times. His numerous awards include five North Carolina Sports Writer of the Year honors. He is also the author of five books, including Come Quittin' Time which was released this summer.

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