A Lasting, Limping Legacy
A Lasting, Limping Legacy By: Paige Ellenberger Challace McMillin knew he was destined to be a football coach. What he didn’t know was the impact he would have on athletes over 750 miles away from his hometown. “He was there with me during the cold days, the hard days and the painful times,” Charles Haley, a five-time Super Bowl champion and NFL Hall of Famer, said. Haley lived with depression and bipolar disorder while in college. He is also one of McMillin’s former players. Haley played for the James Madison University Dukes in 1987. Something that wouldn’t have been a possibility just 16 years prior. It all started from predominantly female class registration lines and a muddy Godwin field. McMillin, his wife and two babies left their childhood hometown of Memphis and traveled northeast to the Valley in 1971 because of an opportunity he knew he couldn’t pass up. “We’ve never heard of Harrisonburg, Virginia,” Mary Lou McMillin, his wi