Gary Kimball encountered a huge rattle snake on his trail walk in Warner Parks.

When Gary Kimball played football at Vanderbilt, he got used to running for his life.

He was a quarterback who often found himself having to elude angry linebackers.

Kimball, who played from 1980-84 and is now a Vanderbilt finance professor, still has to watch his step when he hikes the trails at Nashville's Warner Parks.

Kimball has now twice encountered a rattlesnake on the Mossy Ridge trail.

His latest episode came Friday when Kimball and his wife Carroll happened upon a slithery serpent on the trail.

"Carroll was a couple of steps ahead of me and about a step-and-a-half from stepping on (the snake)," Kimball said. "I grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back. She didn't see it. She was looking down and looking for her next step and I just happened to be looking ahead and saw it."

In 2016 Kimball was setting out on a hike with a buddy when they encountered a rattlesnake in the parking lot at the trailhead.

After his initial scare Kimball gathered himself and videotaped both snakes, which he estimated to be about 4 feet in length.

Timber rattlesnakes are also known as canebrake or banded rattlesnakes. They are venomous.

The snake the Kimballs found last week was about a mile and a half from the trailhead had 10 or 11 rattles.

It was resting and stretched from one side to the trail to the other.

"He was very docile. He wasn't moving a bit and seemed to be minding his own business," Kimball said. "Eventually I guess he thought better of us standing there and he kind of slithered off. You can see him on the video go up over the log and off into the woods."

The first snake Kimball encountered reacted differently. It curled into a ball and used its rattle to try to chase Kimball and his friend away.

"He wasn't happy that we were there," Kimball said. "This one was different."

Kimball, who is director of Vanderbilt's undergraduate business program, hikes four to five times each week, covering a total of about 25 miles.

Timber rattlesnakes are found throughout Tennessee. They prefer remote, rocky, wooded slopes where there are few humans and they are seldom disturbed, according to the Tennessee Herpetological Society.

"They've got plenty of dense cover and I guess there's still enough wildlife in the park that they can make a decent living for themselves," Kimball said."

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Reach Mike Organ at 615-259-8021 or on Twitter @MikeOrganWriter.