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This may be the understatement of the 21st century, but 2020 has been a rough year.

Even going beyond the pandemic of COVID-19 and the social unrest, 2020 has given us all a lot to work through.

Amidst all of that, though, the Pfeiffer Pfamily has lost two icons in 2020 in the span of just a few months.

Losing Coach Joe Ferebee in March was tough enough and then to lose Snake this week is another burst of sadness.

In my 19 years of announcing basketball games at Pfeiffer, starting in 1994, I saw a lot of faces at those ball games.

Some faces were ones I only saw one time, while others were a constant presence which made doing the games more comfortable for me.

Some faces I missed at those games came back later in my life in a whole new way, but that’s another column for another day.

In this case, I always found it comforting to see two things whenever I walked into Merner Gym: Coach Ferebee sitting just inside the doors on the home bench side, and Snake standing up against the wall.

Snake, I remember, always had a way of standing up against the wall which made his shoulders look twice as big. He normally had a smile on his face for everyone, but one could imagine how intimidating those shoulders would be if you were on the opposite side of the law.

I always wondered if referees or opposing players ever noticed him as well just keeping an eye on things, quite frankly, like a falcon sitting on its perch.

We all know those good parents in life who seem to have eyes in the back of their heads, but Snake always looked like he could see 360 degrees around himself.

When you read the comments online about how he lit up a room when he came in, it was true. He had the kind of disarming charisma you see very rarely in people these days, sorry to say.

I can’t speak for every person who ever met or knew Snake, but I can say Snake always made me feel like we had someone taking care of us, watching our backs.

Like Coach Ferebee, Snake was a fixture for so many years around a small campus where new faces still stick out from among everyone else, which for me will always be one of the charming aspects of going to school there.

Thanks for keeping us safe all those years, Snake.