Where are they now? Phil Prince

Friday, 24 October 2008

Page 1 of 2 By Lydia Dishman Contributing Writer Phil Prince doesn’t really want to rest on his football laurels. In fact, since he says he’s not much of a computer user, he hasn’t even seen the YouTube version of the moment his star rose on the gridiron. Sixty years ago this October, Prince blocked a punt against South Carolina, allowing the Tigers to score a touchdown that clinched Clemson's 13-7 win. He chuckles softly to himself at the memory of that “Big Thursday.” “We were undefeated and untied that year,” says Prince noting, “It was quite a distinction.” Indeed it was given that it was also Clemson's first undefeated season in 48 years, and a feat that only three teams in Clemson history can claim to have accomplished. Prince was a starting tackle and co-captain on a Tiger team that wrapped up with Gator Bowl and Southern Conference championships. Though he started as a first-year freshman in 1944, Prince was called to active duty in WWII. When he returned, the Erwin, Tenn.-native trotted back out on the field as a junior in 1947. He graduated in 1949 and was immediately signed to the New York Giants. “I played five exhibition games and got hurt,” shrugs Prince who finished out the season with the New Jersey Giants, the farm team for New York. Even though he married soon after and went on to take a position in Bristol, Tenn. as a teacher and coach, football was not completely off the radar — yet. Prince was called back for service during the Korean War and was stationed at Fort Jackson. “I had a coach tell me, ‘you don’t you want to play service football, you’ll get hurt.’” He signed up anyway, playing football for his entire 10-month tour. But it was during a pick-up basketball game that summer with a group of Army reserves from Greenwood that his career took a turn away from sports. “Most of the officers in the unit were Clemson grads. They worked at Milliken, and I knew I wanted to stay in South Carolina because my wife is from Rock Hill,” Prince explained. The Milliken fellows urged him to enter the company’s training program. “I told them I had no experience,” recalled Prince, who held a degree in English and a minor in history and government. “They said, ‘that is alright, you’ll learn.’” So he did. Sitting up a little bit straighter in the chair he’s occupying in the lobby of Clemson’s Madren Conference Center, Prince launched into the tale of a chapter in his life that clearly impressed more lessons on him than any of his time on the field, or in the classroom. Milliken’s industrial engineering program was designed to give trainees a comprehensive look at the way the company did business, from every department in the mills, to conducting product, time and motion studies. “It was a very good experience and introduction into the world of business,” Prince said, adding that he’s always considered Mr. Milliken something of a mentor because, “he believed in developing his own people and bring them up through standard training indoctrination and orientation.” As a newly-minted junior industrial engineer, Prince took an open position in production planning before becoming plant manager at Abbeville Mill. Just as his career was really gaining steam, Prince was offered a promotion and a big pay increase — with another company. “At that time it was sort of an unwritten rule that if you left [Milliken] you didn’t come back,” Prince said, who admits that he accepted the job at Burlington in North Carolina reluctantly. It wasn’t long before he proved that hard and fast rule had an exception. He was invited back to Milliken in 1957 to be a product manager, a new position at the time. “It was a chance to be exposed to merchandising, fabric and product design,” he said, explaining that a fringe benefit was the ability to travel to New York City to sell to textile converters who bought Milliken’s unfinished materials from their cutting-edge plants for lingerie and curtain fabrics. << Start < Prev 1 2 Next > End >>