Rudy Hayes as a Clemson Tiger in the 1950's



      Many know of the talented Pickens High School Blue Flame football star who captured further fame with the Clemson Tigers and Pittsburgh Steelers, but a love greater than football is even nearer and dear to Rudy Hayes’ heart – his love for God. 
      One Sunday afternoon a month, for the past 27 years, he has visited prisoners at the Pickens County Law Enforcement Center, sharing his testimony and witnessing for Christ.  “All of them need to hear the word of the Lord,” he said. 
      “You never know who may make a decision for the Lord," he told this writer. "It’s always rewarding for me, and it has been a growing experience for me. It keeps me humble. I have a compassionate heart for those guys, because I know it’s not only them that is affected, but their wives and children and mothers and fathers and neighbors. They all get hurt when somebody’s life is messed up. It doesn’t affect only that one person. A lot of people will say, ‘It’s my life. It’s not going to hurt anybody but me.’ But no, when a person messes up, somebody else is going to be affected as much or more. 
      “I try to do what the Lord leads me to do, to help them. The main thing is to share the Word with them and let them know that I’ve been about as low as a person could go, and now I’m working for the Lord. He’s still working on me and trying to bring me back up to where He wants me to be. He can do the same for them. It has been a good experience for me to go there.” 
      Rudy became involved in the prison ministry through the encouragement of Rev. Jesse Meece, his fellow church member and retired Pastor of Red Hill Baptist Church in Pickens. Meece had been approached by Theron Crenshaw, Rudy said, to start a ministry with four men, each taking one Sunday afternoon a month to visit prisoners at the LEC. Meece asked Rudy, James Gilstrap, and Ralph Grant to join him. “I was on fire for the Lord and wanted to do something,” said Rudy. 
      “I had rededicated my life to the Lord in 1977, at the age of 42,” he said. “I was saved when I was 14 years of age, but, at 17, I decided to manage my own life. I don’t blame anybody but me. I rebelled against the Lord. If somebody had asked me, between the ages of 17 and 42, if I was a Christian, I would have said, ‘Yeah, I’m a member at Pickens Mill Church.’ And they would probably have said, ‘If you’re a Christian, the way you’re living, I don’t want to be one.’ The Scripture says that, if we’re a child of His, and we’re rebelling and becoming a stumbling block, then He’ll remove us, as a hindrance. I was treading on the mercy and grace of the Lord. If I had gotten justice, what I deserved, I would have never lived to be the age I am. But He knew that I would come back.
      “When I talk to the prisoners, I usually give them my testimony. I’ll let them know where I’ve been. I was out of the will of the Lord and under conviction. I went to church on Easter Sunday, 1977. Nell and the children wanted me to go. I just went to please them. The Lord spoke to me, and I rededicated my life. It was a short time after that, I found out I had cancer. I had been carrying around cancer in me.” Then, he said, that cancer was no longer there, and he credits the Lord and the fact that he had rededicated his life to God. 
      “That was a humbling experience,” he said. “I thank the Lord every day for the will and desire to want to live for Him. As long as I’m able to go and speak with the prisoners, I hope that it will be open, so that I can share my testimony and try to help other people make the right decision. It has been a growing experience for me. I’ll go there, expecting to give them a blessing, and I’ll come out blessed, myself. I let them know that all of us make mistakes, and that it might be that the Lord has allowed them to be there where they could evaluate their lives.” 
      When Rudy first began visiting the LEC, in 1980, the prisoners would be allowed out of their cell blocks into the recreational room. But, with time, and more incarcerations, that was not feasible, and Rudy would have to go into the cell blocks. An officer would ask the prisoners, “Do you want the preacher to come in today?” And the prisoners would answer yes or no. “I’d say, ‘I’m not really a preacher,’” said Rudy. “I’d say, ‘I’m a car salesman by trade and an old ‘washed-up’ football player, but I have a message I think you need to hear today, and I want to share it with you.’ ” 
      Rudy speaks humbly of his football days, but the 1955 Pickens High yearbook tells the story of how highly regarded he was by his teammates and fellow students. Liked here, there, everywhere, the best as an athletic leader and friend were words recorded in the yearbook to describe the graduating senior Rich Rudolph Hayes. With a photograph of Rudy atop the shoulders of his Blue Flame teammates read these words on Page 70 of the yearbook: This page is dedicated to Rudy Hayes for the football honors that he brought to Pickens High School during his past three years. Our success in football for the past three years is due to his great ability. He is truly a ‘coach’s dream.’ Since 1952, our teams have been called ‘Rough ‘n’ Rudy.’ He has been the Most Valuable Player on the Pickens squad the three years that his stardom was known. In 1954, he was nominated to play on the Shrine Bowl team, but an injury kept him out of the classic. He has been on the All-State and Up-State teams for the last three years. His honors also go farther, as he won honorable mention on All-Southern and All-American teams in 1954. As his football career closed, he left some 53 school records, mostly on scoring. Rudy will enter Clemson College next fall, and area fans will be able to see the ‘Pickens Flash’ in action for four more years.
      The jersey of #33 has long been retired at Pickens High School and is enclosed, along with a photograph of a uniformed Hayes from his Clemson days, in the trophy case in the school’s gymnasium. 
      Rudy was voted the Blue Flame’s most improved player his freshman year and the most valuable player his sophomore, junior, and senior years. The Hall of Famer was captain of the football team his junior and senior years, as well as a member of the ‘Block P’ Club all four years and its President his senior year. 
      The Big Blue, A History of Pickens High School Blue Flame Football 1925-1975, paid tribute to Rudy. Quite early in the 1952 season, Ben Bagwell and L.C. Tankersley, Jr. wrote, newspapers began to refer to Rudy as the greatest football player to come out of Pickens since the great Johnny Justus of the 1920’s. The papers were correct. Hayes was to break records right and left, offensively and defensively, not only for Pickens High School, but statewide. In 1952, Big Rudy helped lead the Blue Flame to its first state championship in history. 
      Baseball was also his sport, all four years of high school, as was track, his sophomore year. Rudy was named the most athletic and best looking for the school’s yearbook his senior year. 
      At Clemson, Rudy wore the same #33. 
      He spoke fondly of his college alma mater and Coach Frank Howard. “I thought a lot of Coach,” he said. “He really looked after the ballplayers. One time, somebody asked how we got along, and I said, ‘As well as anybody if you spend four years together.’ If you spend four years with anybody, you’re going to have an argument every once in awhile, and we had ours. He’d chew me out sometimes.” 
      Once, Rudy missed a pre-game meal with the team because he was fishing. According to Coach Howard’s rules, a player would be in jeopardy of not playing in a game if he missed a pre-game meal. “He reached out and grabbed me by the collar,” said Rudy. “He said, ‘Where in the world have you been?’ There was no use lying. He said, ‘If you don’t get out there and play like you ain’t never played before, I’ll send you back to Pickens plowin’ that mule where I got you.’ He was mad, sure enough.” 
      Coach Howard told Rudy he had ‘changed his coaching habits forever’ after what he called Rudy’s ‘longest interception pass without scoring.’ Rudy said he had just ‘run out of gas.’ From that day on, Rudy said, Coach Howard made the team run the full length of the field instead of 60-yard sprints. “The guys said, ‘Do you see what you caused?’ ” 
      Not long before Howard’s death, Rudy reunited with his former Coach, when Howard paid a visit to Grant Ford, where Rudy worked. “I wasn’t there,” Rudy said. “The guys called me at home and said, ‘There’s a fella over here who wants to see you.’ I said, ‘I’ll be right over.’ When I opened the door, I saw him sitting there, and he had his walker in front of him. He said, ‘Is that old Rudolph coming yonder?’ I said, ‘Yeah, it is, Coach. Stand up here and let me hug your neck.’” 
      When Rudy joined the ranks of the professionals in 1959, he wasn’t able to keep the same #33 he had in high school and in college. He wore the #36 jersey for the Pittsburgh Steelers and was a starting linebacker. His playing days with the NFL were short-lived however, for he suffered a heart attack in December of 1962 and quit professional football. 
      “Not too many people thank the Lord for a heart attack, but I do,” said Rudy. “Every day, I thank the Lord for that heart attack.” 
      Rudy explained that some of his fellow teammates had given him ‘pep’ pills, which energized him, and he became addicted. “I got to where I couldn’t play a game unless I had one of them at half-time,” Rudy said. “And I was drinking some. Our coach would drink a lot, and he would say, ‘I don’t care what you do off the field, but when you’re on that field, you’d better give me 100%, or you’ll be gone.’ 
      “I thank the Lord for that heart attack. If I had kept going in the direction I was going, I would have lost my family and everything else. I’ve not regretted giving up football. It was my choice. The doctor told me, ‘I’ll leave it up to you. My advice to you is not to play, but I won’t tell you what to do. But if you were to get out on the field and have an attack, when you’re already exhausted, we’d never get you off the field.’ I said, ‘I’m going home.’ 
      “I changed the way I was living. I said, ‘Thank you, Lord, for that heart attack. I still have my family and my self-respect.’ I don’t have the money I might have had, but we survived. The Lord looked after us.” 
      Rudy left Pittsburgh with a diamond ring and an autographed football, gifts from his teammates while he recuperated in the hospital. The ball, signed by all of his Pittsburgh teammates, was the game ball from their victory over the Philadelphia Eagles. 
      Rudy returned to Pickens, a legend to his hometown, but still the same down-to-earth friend everyone knew and loved. 
      After managing Owens-Dillard Marine Sales in Easley, Rudy became Sales Manager at Grant Ford in Pickens, from which he retired in 2000. 
      Today, retirement finds him fishing and gardening and spending precious time with family. 
      He and his wife, Nell, daughter of former Pickens County Sheriff Clyde Bolding, were married on June 25, 1955.
      Their oldest daughter, Teresa, and her husband, Mike Landers, have two sons: Will and Sammy. 
      Daughter Linda and her husband, Chris Constance, have two sons and a daughter: Michael, who is married to Adrea; Clay; and Kelli. 
      Son David has a daughter, Candace, who is married to Jason Alleshouse, and a son, Bryan, from his first marriage, and four children, Amanda, Andrew, Jonathan, and Aidan, with his wife, Amy. 
      “I can proudly say that, on Sunday morning, when I’m leaving to go to church, I know my children and their families are heading to church,” said Rudy. “All of the adults and a lot of the grandchildren profess to be Christians.” Pointing to Nell, he added, “She has held this family together, because I was off playing ball and worked out of town and was kind of self-centered, when I was trying to manage my own life, without the Lord’s help,” he said. “If it hadn’t been for her, there is no telling what this family would have done.” 
      Every Sunday, after church, the Hayes family congregates at Rudy and Nell’s house for dinner. “We have a big feast,” said Rudy. “We enjoy it, and hope to be 100 years old still doing that.” 
      But one Sunday afternoon a month, Rudy leaves home, for a three-hour visit to the prisoners at the LEC. 
      James Gilstrap remains involved, as well, going one Sunday a month. 
      “Ralph Grant had to quit for health reasons,” said Rudy.
      Jesse Meece passed away. Rudy called Meece a positive influence on his life. “Other than my Daddy, he has been a role model for me,” he said. Meece had taught an adult Sunday School class at Red Hill, and Rudy had been his assistant teacher. 
      After Meece’s death, Carl Cloer, whom Rudy also calls a mentor, became the teacher, and Rudy remained the assistant teacher. 
      Other influences in his life have included Ralph Grant, Rev. Gerald Martin, who was Pastor at Red Hill when Rudy rededicated his life to the Lord, and Rev. Paul Hayes, Rudy’s first cousin who was the Pastor at Pickens Mill Baptist Church (now known as East Pickens Baptist Church) when Rudy was saved at age 14 and who married Rudy and Nell. 
      Rudy and Nell are active members of Red Hill Baptist Church. 
      Nell, who grew up at Pickens First Baptist Church, is Clerk of the Pickens–Twelve Mile Baptist Association. 
      Rudy became a Deacon at Red Hill in 1979, and was Chairman of Deacons and Chairman of the Pulpit Committee when Rev. James Dyar was called as Red Hill’s Pastor. 
      Rudy said that his favorite Scripture remains John 14:1-3: Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you into myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. “I learned that in Bible school,” Rudy said, “and all through the years, those verses always stuck with me. I can quote several other verses, but those are the ones that always come to my mind first.” 
      Sharing the Word of God and witnessing to prisoners has led Rudy to be thankful for his own life. “But for the grace of God, I could be sitting where they are,” he said. “I try to tell them that it’s all about Jesus — faith and trust in Him and obedience to Him. That’s what it’s all about. Without Him, we’re subject to anything. If the devil has the rule in our life, there is no limit to where we could be or what we could do. The devil wants to take a person down just as deep in the miry clay of sin as they’ll let him. Christ wants to lift us up as high as we’ll allow Him. 
      “I’ve seen some saved and some rededicate their lives to the Lord and some commit themselves to be a better person. I try to tell them that, if they feel their lives have been changed or they have had a new experience with the Lord, as soon as they get out, they need to get in a church where the people can minister to them and where they can share their needs. They’re going to need some help when they get out. They need confidence built back up between them and their children and their parents. They need good, Christian people to help them. I always bring their requests to the church and let the church get involved in praying for their needs.” 
      Rudy recalled one time when he shared with an inmate. “I told him, ‘I’ll be praying for you, and the church will be praying for you. God is a just God.’ He said, ‘Whoa, wait a minute. I don’t want justice. I want mercy.’ 
      “We all need mercy,” said Rudy. “But for the mercy or grace of God, we could be sitting where they’re sitting. We all need mercy. He showed that grace and mercy when He died on the cross. I try to tell them that His mercy and grace are still available for them today, or He wouldn’t have me or James Gilstrap or the others who minister there trying to persuade them. 
      “I tell them it’s a pleasure to serve the Lord.”