CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Former President Bill Clinton first saw the late Rev. Billy Graham as a boy when a Sunday School teacher brought him to a football stadium for a crusade.

More than 30 years later, Clinton would join 10 other presidents who were ministered personally by the “Pastor to Presidents.” As Clinton paid his respects to Graham on Tuesday, one thing stuck out in his mind about those one-on-one White House chats.

“In that little room, he was the same person I saw when I was 11 on that football field,” Clinton said.

Clinton joined former President George W. Bush and thousands of other mourners to view Graham’s closed casket at his restored boyhood home. His library and headquarters of his evangelical center are located on the campus in Charlotte.

Like so many mourners, Clinton recalled his first memory of that Graham crusade 60 years ago in Little Rock, Arkansas. He called it a profound experience in his life.

“I’m just here as another person — grateful,” said Clinton, who visited without his wife, Hillary.

Bush visited Monday and said Graham also had a profound impact on his life. In an autobiography, Bush said Graham planted the seed in his soul that led him to recommit his heart to Jesus Christ during a private talk with the minister in 1985. Clinton and Bush said they came early because they could not make it to Graham’s funeral on Friday.