One of my all-time favorite athletes has left us.

     Allen Mitchell, South Carolina's starting quarterback in all but one regular season game during the Black Magic year of 1984, apparently committed suicide Sunday.

     He was only 48.

     Mitchell was coached in high school baseball by an old friend and a former USC star Steve King. King told me then that Mitchell was a great athlete who had a chance to play professional baseball.

     I remember umpiring some of his high school games at Batesbsurg-Leesville. He was a fine player and a polite young man.

      Mitchell also played baseball at USC.

     One never knows what another's life is like. We feel helpless when someone takes their own life and wonder if there was anything we could have done.

      Mitchell is the third former Gamecock football player to choose suicide the past few years. Kenny McKinley and O.J. Murdock are the others.

    RIP, Allen.