If you expect flash and swagger when you meet David Freeman, you’ll be sorely disappointed. The majority owner of the Nashville Predators looks like—and is—just a regular guy: a regular guy with a lot of money to invest in a National Hockey League franchise.
This could possibly be the saddest story you ever read, but it isn’t. Far from it. It’s a story of courage, faith, and friendship that gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “a host of Volunteers.” It begins in 1971. Walter Chadwick, hero of the 1967 Tennessee–Alabama football game who wobbled the game-winning touchdown pass left-handed to tight end Ken DeLong, had just started a promising high-school coaching career in Smyrna, Georgia, near his hometown of Decatur.
