Answering the Call of (Lunch) Duty

“It was January of 1970 during my senior year at Randolph-Macon,” the Collegiate icon related. “Mr. (Malcolm U.) Pitt (head of the Boys School) had said, ‘Come on over and meet with me.’ When I got here, we had lunch.”

 

McFall, who hoped to land a job as a coach and math teacher, was no stranger to the North Mooreland Road campus. As a three-sport athlete at Randolph-Macon Academy, then a Prep League signatory, he had often traveled from Front Royal to compete against the Cougars, but he’d never ventured past the sports facilities.

 

“I remember seeing guys I knew from Camp Virginia,” he said of that initial visit. “Mr. Pitt had me meet with (math teachers) Richard Towell and Jeannette Welsh and sit in a couple of classes. Then he said, ‘I’ll send you a contract. Sign it. Send it back.’ I said, ‘Okay.’”

 

That was the beginning of a 43-year career during which McFall served as head football and baseball coach and director of athletics. On October 26, 2013, Memorial Hall was renamed McFall Hall in his honor.

 

“That’s kind of scary,” he said of his recognition. “Hard to fathom. It really is. It was never anything that would have entered my mind.”

 

For the past 18 months, McFall Hall has been under renovation, but the new state-of-the-art facility will soon be open for business.

 

Students will return to a 15,600-square-foot multi-purpose facility with a seating capacity of 450. There’ll be four serving lines rather than three, a new kitchen and equipment, increased storage space, LED lighting, code-required safety systems, and noise-muffling acoustical ceiling tile. Several of the areas can be partitioned off. A new AV system has been installed.

 

It’s a far cry from the 1960-vintage, 9,500 square foot building that seated 300 and has been used over the years for lunch, assemblies, meetings, drama productions, concerts, dances, and graduations.

 

McFall remembers those days well. In fact, there’s a good chance he spent as much time in his namesake as anyone because he pulled lunch duty for 40 years. Yes! Forty years! His choice.

 

“In the early days,” he explained, “the faculty didn’t eat with the students. They ate in a private dining room. It seems like everybody’s fear was having lunch duty. One day in ’72 or ’73, (Boys School history teacher) Charlie Slick and I went to (Boys School head) Ned Fox and said, ‘Get us out of study hall, and we’ll do lunch duty every day.’ Ned agreed. That was fine with everybody, because back then, they hated lunch duty with a passion.”

 

It’s no secret that Memorial Hall operated differently in the old days. It was not unusual for faculty who smoked to light up after they finished lunch. And the tenor of the lunch hour could get a bit rowdy at times. In fact, occasionally a food fight would erupt or some miscreant would commit an offense that sent him to the main office to explain himself. Not every day, of course, but old timers no doubt have tales to tell. Thankfully, the dining hall is much more civilized now.

 

“That’s safe to say,” McFall said. “I remember when a hot dog with mustard hit me. Missed my tie, but mustard on a shirt doesn’t do very well. The last day of school was always tough. I always invited (football coach) Grover (Jones) to be there. He always obliged me. Sometimes, Mr. Pitt came in too. That gave me a little firepower. When they did away with the faculty dining room and everybody ate together, things really changed. It was the right thing to do. That was a key.”

 

Charlie Slick eventually moved on, but McFall continued covering lunch duty, even after he became AD.

 

“I figured if I was there every day, why not?” he said. “I’d basically taught every freshman or sophomore in geometry. When I didn’t teach, I wanted to get to know the kids. Six or eight were on duty every week. That’s how I got to know everybody. It just seemed normal every year to do lunch duty.”

 

I asked him about the rumor that he might have done a bit of flirting, albeit innocently, along the way.

 

“Nah,” he said with a laugh, “I didn’t do stuff like that.”

 

He shared other memories. There were the times in the ‘70’s when he brought in a venison hind quarter from one of his hunting expeditions, and Elizabeth Miller from the cafeteria staff prepared it and served it to the faculty. There were the many times that he arrived for his 11 o’clock duty shift to find Claud Whitley, Collegiate’s longest tenured employee, waiting for him.

 

“It was like clockwork,” McFall said. “We got into a rhythm. Claud might have had a few more meals than I did, though. He might have slipped by the Lower School cafeteria too.”

 

Very soon, the construction site will be a memory, and McFall Hall will be a bustling showplace in proximity to Pitt Hall, Flippen Hall, Jacobs Gym, and the Reeves Center, all honoring Collegiate legends.

 

“It’s humbling,” McFall said. “When I was told (of the recognition), it was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ I was completely shocked. With the people some of these buildings are named for, I don’t think I’m in their league.

 

You’ve definitely earned it, I told my long-time friend.

 

“Well, I don’t know about that,” he replied, “but I did spend a lot of time in that building. There’re a lot of memories.”

      -- Weldon Bradshaw