Mike Hamner became a legend when he followed the nationwide fad and streaked across Valdosta State College’s baseball field in March 1974 and was arrested a few days later. Since then, the Covington resident, who taught special education emotional and behavior disorder for 31 years in Lowndes, Gwinnett, Rockdale and Newton County school systems, has distinguished himself in more socially acceptable ways, including being named Newton County Teacher of the Year in 2005. Last fall, the Norman Park native, who attended Valdosta State on a tennis scholarship and played No. 2 in singles, was inducted into the Colquitt County Sports Hall of Fame for tennis. And he and his wife, Sheryl, are active members of Covington’s First Baptist Church where he serves as a deacon, and, yes, his pastor knows about the streaking incident.

When a friend of Mike’s shared his memories of the streaking incident in our Jan. 25 newspaper, his recollections were a little “rusty,” according to Mike. So here’s what The Streaker thinks he remembers about the incident. Hey, it’s been 3 1/2 decades!

“It is hard to remember all the facts about exactly what happened that long ago. Those were not my finest of times anyway, so I guess I don’t dwell on them too often. However, I did make a lot of good friends, some of which I still stay in touch with. John Bradley (assistant principal at Lowndes High) and I play golf together at least once or twice a year, and I see Steve Whitley (head football coach at McEachern High School in Powder Springs) every now and then because he is not far from where I live.”

When I talked to Mike recently and asked if there would be a 35th anniversary streak, he said, “Absolutely not,” that he “very much” regretted the incident.

“As the old expression goes, ‘My mother raised me better than that!’ The worst part of the whole ordeal was her finding out about it, because I know how disappointed in me she was. She was not in good health at that time either which made it even worse.”

It started with a bet

“The whole thing got started with a couple guys kidding me about streaking across the baseball field that day and betting $50 that I would not do it. Well, back then, I wasn’t scared to do most anything. I remember riding motorcycles lying down to get extra speed, clipping the gas throttle so we could ride them standing up, and my brother and I used to catch rattlesnakes to take to the roundup in Whigham, Ga. So it really wasn’t a matter of being scared when I got to the gate that made me chicken out. It was my mother’s voice deep in the back of my mind saying, ‘Mike! I raised you better than that! God will not be pleased with you!’”

That’s when Johnny Caldwell snatched down Mike’s shorts and “some other huge guy” put his foot on them where he could not pull them back up.

“It was now time to run because I certainly wasn’t going to stand there nude. I didn’t need to hear my mother’s voice to tell me that wasn’t the right thing to do. Before I chickened out, the plan was to run from the entrance gate between first base and right field, run by second base, high five my roommate the second baseman, continue running out through the gate at left field.

“By the way, the second baseman, Bobby Tripp, is one of the culprits (who) kept trying to get me to do this. I can’t even begin to say (all) the things he said I would be if I did not do this, but they were not very nice. Tripp could come with names that most people had never thought of. He was quite a character back in those days.”

Not Steve Whitley

“The guy (who) was waiting on the other side to pick me up was (one of) your very own Valdosta High football coaches, Alvin Aiken. He had a 427 Chevy Camaro convertible. (Please don’t ask him anything. My mother would come back from her grave to beat me if she knew half the things that Alvin and I did and half the places we have been. Alvin got me into a lot more dangerous situations than any rattlesnakes could possibly compete with. The problem I hear from a certain Valdosta State head football coach is that when these stories get told now, I am the one that got us into all those situations, and that is simply not true.) ...

“I can see Alvin driving away now as I was trying my best to get this ordeal over with. I was chasing him and finally he slowed down enough for me to dive in.

“I (am) thinking this is finally over. But dear old Alvin decides we need to celebrate. He goes back to the baseball field like he is driving the homecoming queen and drives back and forth behind all the cars in the outfield where the spectators are lying on the cars or standing around.

“Everyone is hollering and honking at us instead of the game. The problem with this is that I still don’t have any clothes except the pink floppy hat (from the former Janice Simpson). Alvin has no towels or anything in his car. I’m begging to go home. Janice wants her hat back. Luckily, she had a towel and I exchanged the hat for the towel. Finally, someone brought my clothes to me.”

Not Clemson

“It was not Clemson, by the way, the Blazers were playing; it was Vanderbilt University. I would have never even considered this if it was Clemson. I don’t particularly care for Clemson University.”

On the Tuesday afternoon following the streak, Mike was sitting in class when a deputy showed up at the door and asked the teacher if Mike were in the class. She told the deputy that he was, but he would have to wait until the class was over.

“That is all right; I will go with him now,” Mike told her.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, ma’m."

Mike said the teacher was “a tough lady and I didn’t want her to get into an argument with the officer. He told me what the charges were and I could not believe it. He laughed and said they probably would drop them because everyone had been doing this. I told him that I had watched several hundred do this the past Thursday with a police escort through the campus. That is when he told me about the warning that had been issued on the radio.”

Needless to say, Mike hadn’t heard the warning. He was fingerprinted and put in a cell with about 10 more guys who were playing cards right by the door on a blanket.

“I had to step on their blanket to get in. They turned and all looked at me and asked what I was in for. I stared back at them as mean as I could look and said, ‘Streaking!’ They all rolled over laughing, high fiving, and then high fiving me. Then my mother’s voice really started coming in loud and clear. ‘Now you know I didn’t raise you to end up in here.’ A few hours later, my tennis coach came and bailed me out. He was trying to act upset, but if you know John Hansen, that just wasn’t happening. He was really laughing too, but he had a job to do.”

But the worst wasn’t over

“I go to my apartment and a few of us are sitting around. It was myself, Steve Whitley, John Bradley and Bobby Tripp. There were maybe some others there also, but I can’t remember exactly, but this I remember well: I was saying that I don’t know if I should tell my parents or not because they might find out. Five minutes later, the news came on, and the very first thing that came on the news was a picture of the arch out in front of Valdosta State College at that time. Then came the headline news: ‘A 23-year-old sophomore, Mike Hamner, was arrested for streaking today.’ It wasn’t bad enough that they opened with this headline, but they also demoted me to a sophomore on the news.”

The phone rang two minutes later and it was his parents.

“My mother was crying and I told her that everything was going to be all right. Dad got on the phone and wanted to know what was wrong with me. Then he started laughing and I heard my mother yelling for him to stop because it wasn’t funny. Finally, Mother calmed down when I convinced her I wasn’t going to prison. Then came those words: ‘You know I raised you better than that.’”

Mike had to plead “no lo,” pay a small fine, be on probation for three months, and do community service during that time.

“If I had any money at that time I could have gotten the charges thrown out, but I was just thankful to get it over with. When someone openly admits that they are using you as a scapegoat and uses someone’s name on a warrant and that person did not know about (the incident) ... They listed that person as a witness and that person wasn’t even present. I had a great lawyer representing me. I don’t hold any grudges, but I do hope he has changed his ways and represents people to the best of his ability. I didn’t have anyone to pay for my college, my fine, or my lawyer fee.”

His record follows him

“Twenty years ago, I ran into a problem when I tried to start teaching in Gwinnett County because they required fingerprinting. I had to get a copy of the court disposition, meet with a member of the Professional Practices Commission and finally got it cleared up. The same thing happened again five years later when I had to renew my teaching certificate. I knew a member of the commission from the golf course where I played and explained the situation. He investigated and gave me a letter of clearance, but I still have carry that letter every time I do volunteer work with children or change school systems in order to clear up my fingerprint records.

“By the way, I only received two phone calls from my parents when I was in college. The one I just talked about and one from my mother a little over a year later telling me to come home on a Thursday. I did because she had never done that. She wanted me to cut the grass. She watched me the whole time. When I finished, she told me to tell my oldest brother, Bud, that she wished she had gotten to see him again. She then showed me a new dress she had bought, and said she had gotten her hair fixed. These are things that my mother just never did. This was my senior year at Valdosta State, and the state tournament was the next day at Columbus. I called John and told him I would just meet them there instead of driving back to Valdosta. I drove to Columbus the next morning and had not been there but about 45 minutes when John came to me and told me I needed to leave, that my mother had a stoke and was in the hospital. I drove as fast as I could and I got stopped by the state patrol in Tift County, and he led me to the hospital. I ran in and she squeezed my hand and said, ‘I knew you would make it.’ She was my family. My dad was an abusive alcoholic, so as soon as my bothers and sisters got married they left. Mother was all there was as far as I was concerned, but that voice will always live on, but now I listen to the source of the voice. She told me that last night when I was home, that she has seen her Lord and she was at peace.

“Never again, Mom!”