"In those days we thought yankees were people from North Carolina."
Dr. Jack Chandler, Jr. of Greenville, S.C., played in the 1947 game.  "You had to be living in the 1940's to appreciate the very limited travel we Carolinians experienced, and the cultural shock resulting from being chosen to play in the Shrine Bowl.
"Wartime gas rationing had a lot to do with it, but plain old provincialism was part of it."  So when Shrine Bowl coaches plucked players like Chandler out of their high schools, it blew their minds.  The only trip Chandler had taken before then was to the beach.  Now he was going to the big city: Charlotte, N.C.
Young men picked for the two squads never had anyone chauffeur them around before.  Never had anyone buy their meals three times a day for a week and never had to pay for it.  Never saw the traffic, lights and crowds of a city as big as Charlotte.  Never stayed in a hotel, no less one as big as this.  They may never have had a decent pair of football shoes to play in.
Shrine Bowl player escorts quietly admit that they've seen more than a few boys from underprivileged homes arrive for the game with clothes that shouted poverty and shoes that would not carry them into the second quarter.  The remedy was always simple, direct and dignified.  The escorts took them privately to Charlotte retailers and bought them everything they needed, smiled, shook their hands and wished them a beautiful week of memory-building.
By the time that week was over, some 19th century Carolina boys played 20th century football before the biggest crowd of their lives.  Their images had been broadcast to more TV sets than they ever dreamed about.  Their deeds and statistics had been published throughout the Carolinas for generations of people to read.
"Our horizons were very limited.  The Shrine Bowl broadened them so widely and so quickly that anyone who didn't experience it himself can not understand," Chandler said.