"I'd been 79 my sophomore year, I'd been 79 my junior year," he said. "The first half of my senior year I was 79, those were our warm-weather jerseys. The second half of the season when it got cooler, I switched to 78. But 79 (which he also wore during his four years at Mizzou) was what I always considered my number."

Former Jays player and still staunch supporter of the program, Jason Jett, found out about the story and "set things in motion," Bedosky said. Jett talked with Jays head coach Terry Walker, and they went to Bedosky's head coach, Pete Adkins, about switching out the numbers.

"Coach said, 'Sure, let's go ahead and do it,'" Bedosky continued. "They told me this summer that they'd like to do this and I was completely blown away."

Now, No. 79 is off limits for any future Jay, but 78 is back in the rotation.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

BEDOSKY IS THE PERFECT high school football example of bigger is better --- he was 6-4, 285 (he's currently 6-5, 300), making him a nuclear mismatch for mortal high school players.

And whether it was 78 or 79, it really didn't matter to Adkins --- Bedosky was No. 1.

"He the kind of player that you dream about having," said Adkins, who just turned a very young and energetic 94. "He was very coachable and whatever you asked him to do, he was going to try and do it to the best of his abilities.

"And of course, he was very intelligent."

If you needed proof: Bedosky is now known as Dr. Bedosky, as he earned his doctorate in Education.

"Being so smart," Adkins said in his deadpan tone, "he was hard to coach, because he was a lot smarter than I was.

"We still keep in contact, we'll talk once every four or five weeks. It's been a good relationship for a long time."

Rest assured, Bedosky feels likewise. He also remembers his playing days with the Jays fondly --- well, for the most part.

"It was always an experience," Bedosky, 47, said. "You learned so much from coach, but you didn't appreciate it when you were in high school.

"But as I've gotten older --- from college to the pros, and being a husband and a father --- I really began to understand how much I learned from him. The discipline, the work ethic, and just the tenacity to know that life doesn't get much harder than two-a-days.

"If you can make it through Pete Adkins' two-a-days, you can basically make it through anything."

The Jays only had seven regular-season games Bedosky's senior season --- back when they played a 10-game schedule --- "because nobody wanted to play us," Adkins said. "We went two weeks there, back-to-back, with no games and that was the worst thing I ever went through in my life, as a coach.

"We gave them Fridays off, but the rest of the week, we worked the (heck) out of them. Then when we got into the state playoffs, you talk about a hungry bunch --- they made it miserable for everybody who wouldn't play us during the year."

The Jays won their four playoff games by a staggering 131-14 with three shutouts, including a 53-0 devastation of McCluer North in the state championship game.

"We just beat the tar out of everybody we played, those guys were mean and they were hungry," Adkins said. "It's one of the great stories of my coaching career, I think."

When the Jays faced a third-and-short that season, which wasn't often, you knew where the play was going.

"When I needed a yard or two," Adkins said, "we went behind Big Mike and he didn't let me down very often. He would open up a hole and that running back would have clear sailing."

Bedosky is currently the principal at Landmark Christian High School in Fairburn, Ga. (just outside of Atlanta), where he's also an assistant football and head wrestling coach. He has two sons who both play football and they are indeed chips off the old block --- both are linemen.

Oldest son Steven is 6-4, 285 and a sophomore at Coastal Carolina; Trey is 6-6 1/2, 250, and is a junior at Landmark.

In this case, the chips are as big as the block himself.

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