Charles Alexander, Former Player, on being close with his college teammates

Charles Alexander: LSU Photograph Collection, RG #A5000,
Louisiana State University Archives, LSU Libraries, Baton Rouge, LA.

Yeah, you can still remember your teammates and you tend to call them or keep up with them. I guess because you live with them, you . . . You're in the dormitory with them. We were. I don't know if they going to still continue this, but . . . We ate together. We went to class together, a lot of times. We practiced with each other two and three hours a day. We were just around each other a lot. And we knew that the four years that we were going to be there, or the two years, or whatever, that they were going to be there next year. In the NFL there's a different story because you tend not to want to get too close to someone because you don't know if they’re going to be there six weeks from now. You don't know if they're going to be there two years from now or one year because of the high turnover that they have in the NFL. You know the average career when I was playing was only four years, at most. I don't know what it is now. So, you really don't get to know these guys and you don’t . . . You’re not with them as much because, the off season, most guys go to their homes. I know I used to come back to Louisiana. Once the season was over I was gone, I'd come down South. Only for the football season though, those were the only times that you're really with those guys. So I guess that's why you tend not to become as close to those guys as you would in college.

-- Charles Alexander, interviewed by Scott Purdy, 1993