Painting of McElveen salutes football at PC

John Carroll Doyle, a Charleston-based artist who played football for Presbyterian College in 1967, has shown his thanks to the school by presenting it with a large oil painting depicting Raymond McElveen, a player for the school in 1918, holding a leather helmet while wearing an old PC uniform.

The painting was created from vintage photographs of Blue Hose "leatherheads" supplied to Doyle by the school's Director of Planned Giving, John Cullum. On the back of the canvas 5-foot canvas titled 'Gridiron Warrior' the artist has written: "This painting is dedicated to all those young men of integrity who have worn the Presbyterian College uniform."

McElveen's family is working to fund a scholarship in McElveen's honor. Doyle, who didn't play football when he attended Charleston High, decided after four years of military service to use the G.I. Bill and try college football.

Doyle said he was assigned to the scout team, which he described as expendable players who run plays repetitively against the first-string players in practice. After one season of bruised ribs, sprained ankles, and many ice packs, the artist had experienced firsthand what college level football was all about. After that, he decided to stick with what he knew best, which is painting.

After years of questioning his less than splendid athletic career where he sat on the bench 42 years ago, Doyle couldn't be more surprised to be sitting in the presidential skybox today at Bailey Memorial Stadium as a guest of Presbyerian College president John Griffith as the Blue Hose host Gardner-Webb in the final game of the season. "Life is funny," Doyle said. "One day you're sitting on the bench, and the next you're sitting with the president of the college among the VIP seats."