Q: Why did Billy Graham have to leave a Wheaton football game early?
A: After graduating from Florida Bible Institute in 1940, Billy Graham moved north to Chicago to continue his education at Wheaton College.
Because he was born and raised on a Southern farm, the young student felt out of place in the North—and was missing his friends in Florida. At 21, he was also older than most of his classmates, a fact that didn’t help his self-image.
“I was sure they were staring at my Li’l Abner appearance, what with out-of-style clothes and brogan shoes.”
Determined to do something about it, Billy Graham and some other students went to a flea market, where he paid $4.95 for a turquoise tweed suit.
Not long after, he proudly wore his new suit to a Wheaton football game. But then it started to rain—and plans for his new city clothes backfired.
The suit fabric started shrinking from the water, and the young student’s pant legs were soon ankle length.
To make it worse, the seat of his pants shrunk so much that the seam busted. Billy Graham wrote about his predicament in his autobiography, Just As I Am, saying, “I couldn’t get home fast enough!”
—Paraphrased from Just As I Am: The Autobiography of Billy Graham
