It was the Monday before Christmas at Calvin and Paula Days’ home in Marietta, and the sounds of the season filled the halls.
The football season, more precisely.
What, you were expecting Andy Williams singing “The Little Drummer Boy?” C’mon, the Orange Bowl was nigh. Other lyrics were topical, too.
Those might be Calvin explaining the demanding baseline from which he works: “My mindset is every time you touch the ball you should score, find a way.”
Might be Paula talking about her role as an equal partner in the regular family film study: “It’s about 50-50 (with her husband). I sit there with him and break down the tapes and give advice.”
Their son Synjyn was due home soon, making the short drive from his apartment near Georgia Tech. His father already had lined up recordings of the next opponent, Mississippi State, as well as one of Tech’s last game against Florida State. They’d all sit down — father, mother and senior B-Back — and perform a familiar game-planning ritual. Separate of everything Synjyn had studied on the practice field and in the meetings rooms at Tech, he would put in the little bit extra that has been the main ingredient of his entire upbringing.
The young Days has had an “up and down career” at Tech, by coach Paul Johnson’s estimation. In five years, he pretty well ran through the backfield alphabet, starting at QB, getting unceremoniously moved to A-back as a sophomore, and then to B-back in this his senior season.
The up part assuredly revealed itself this season, as he has had nearly 50 more carries in 2014 as he had the combined rest of his career. Asked to tote more of the load while an injured Zach Laskey was out in midseason, Days responded with three consecutive 100-yard-plus performances (the best being 157 yards versus North Carolina State). He scored three times against FSU in the ACC Championship Game.
Complaints? Days says he’s got zero.
“I’ve enjoyed every moment I’ve been here,” he said.
He honestly can declare that, even after the dream of playing quarterback died, even after serving this team inconspicuously for so long?
“Yeah I can,” Days answered.
“If I hadn’t gone through that — moving to so many positions, having some difficulty in some classes — I wouldn’t know what adversity was about. I wouldn’t know how I’d react if everything wasn’t going OK. Everything I went through made me who I am today.”
Above his refrigerator, Days still displays the sprig that he ripped from the privet hedge in Athens after last month’s dramatic victory over Georgia. The Yellow Jackets will be playing for their 11th victory in the high-profile Orange Bowl, finishing the most successful season of Days’ tenure. See, he has plenty of reason to smile, he said, not that he has ever found that expression difficult.
His is a family celebration.
“It’s a blessing how it worked out,” Calvin said. “Things he hoped for as a team have happened, and he can look back and say he helped. That’s the idea of coming back truly to team. I see that in him.”
Beyond a collection of determined rushes, many in that toothy territory between the tackles, Synjyn’s legacy at Tech will include in large part a quality not preserved on video — his good-natured adaptability.
“If he was frustrated he didn’t show it. He just played and did what we asked him to do,” Johnson said.
“He’s got a good attitude and a really strong support system. His family has been behind him from the start. They’ve been tough on him but they’ve been there, too. They’re not just tough on him and walk away,” the coach said.
How tough? Tougher even than this coach so noted for chewing on his players during game day like a Rottweiler on rawhide?
Judged Johnson: “Calvin’s tougher, hands down, no question.”
There’s a standing bargain between the Days and their son. They’ll help him pursue any worthy goal, but they demand full commitment. No half measures. “He knows my way is a lot harder, but my way is focused solely on him,” Calvin said.
“Anything you commit to work that hard at, you will get some success,” is a father’s promise.
When it came to his football, that approach meant both Calvin and Paula coached their son’s youth football team. And as he grew out of Pop Warner, they stepped back to coach just one boy — their own.
The workouts that the couple devised for Synjyn didn’t end when he went off to Tech. As recently as this past summer, they both went by the school two days a week to work out with Synjyn, beyond the Yellow Jackets’ own offseason program.
When it came to his schoolwork, they were no less unrelenting. To ensure that their son finished strong this most recent semester, Calvin, who works in MARTA’s budget department, and Paula, a city of Atlanta engineer, camped out in their son’s apartment for three weeks. That meant leaving a very comfortable home and sleeping on an air mattress, a small concession by the Days’ way of thinking.
“We always want him to have a purpose in life using his head,” Calvin said.
As he has told his son, “I don’t want people just clapping and cheering you on because you’re entertaining.”
The in-your-face, uncompromising parenting is not the easiest way to go. The Days adopted Synjyn’s cousin, Jabari Hunt-Days, a Tech defensive lineman of great promise who was ruled academically ineligible for this season. Off scholarship, he continued to practice with the Yellow Jackets. But his relationship with Calvin and Paula has been strained.
For Synjyn, the outcome is proof of the method. He graduated this fall with his degree in science, technology and culture. While physically preparing to show himself to NFL scouts, he also is plotting a course toward dental school.
Being Synjyn Days hasn’t always been easy, but as the Georgia Tech part of the trek is ending, he says he wouldn’t change a thing. Not as the interchangeable college football player, nor the intensely reared son.
“When I was in middle school — you know how that is, always going against what your parents say — I was like I am never going to raise my kids this way,” he said. “But looking back on it now, they’ve done a pretty good job. Their tough love has made me a better person. If they weren’t tough on me it would kind of show they didn’t care.
“Like I was telling my mom at graduation, yeah, I would raise my kids the same way.”
