Right off the bat, if you’re not interested in reading a column where a Dad brags about his kids, then you should probably look for a paper with no sports columnist. Maybe I should be writing about the Bengals and that disappointment but what can I write that hasn’t been written already. Today, I’m the gushing father and that’s what I feel like writing about, a Little “braggadocio” on my part.
It’s really amazing sometimes when you reflect back at the directions that life takes. Here I was three decades ago, wallowing in pity from a broken relationship and along came another basketball coach…and she’s still here. That midcourt meeting resulted in a pair of children, both of whom have gone through the normal ups and downs of life and are now quite successful adults. Last Saturday night, one of them became an official Ripley High School Hall of Famer, pretty cool after that sinks in for me.
Neither of my kids had any choice but to have sports running through their blood. My grandfather was a semi-pro baseball player as was my uncle, who is also a Ripley Hall of Famer plus a Brown County Hall of Famer. My Dad also has those two distinctions and is as far as records show the all-time leading boys scorer in Ripley history. My mother was an athlete too, a softball shortstop and I can just imagine her going deep in the hole to field a grounder and rocketing a throw to first. Mom was also a pretty fair basketball player but there was no high school girls basketball when she was in school, so she would often tell of being able to hold her own on the court against the boys. My grandmother was the scorekeeper for all of those Higginsport baseball teams, probably where I learned to “keep a book”. Their grandfather on their Mom’s side was a basketball and softball coach and their Mom was a pretty fair multi-sport high school athlete herself, so it’s safe to say that their Dad’s .180 senior year batting average didn’t influence them much, though I had a keen eye and got a lot of walks.
As many of you may know because you probably saw her play, my daughter was a four-sport athlete in high school, All-SHAC in all four her senior season. She worked hard at all the sports and kept a 4.0 GPA at the same time, yes I’m bragging. My son decided early that he was just going to be a baseball guy, though I still think he could have been pretty decent on the hardwood. I think he preferred to just run 90 feet with a break than do 94 feet suicides all the time. Really don’t blame him there. Though only my daughter has a Hall of Fame plaque, they are certainly both Hall of Famers in my book.
I spoke earlier about how life can be amazing and I certainly felt that Saturday night at Ripley’s HOF ceremony. Beyond my daughter, my cousin was also inducted, who was also in our wedding party along with his Dad and sister. Another of the inductees was the son of my best friend growing up, Randy Fulton, a name familiar to all his relatives in Adams County. His son Eric was in inducted on Saturday and deservedly so. The final inductee was the brother of my college roommate, whose Dad is still our neighbor to this day and also a Ripley Hall of Famer.
Those of you who read this and have children playing high school sports, let me tell you what you already know. Enjoy every minute of it because it’s all over in a blink of an eye. Whether they are Hall of Famers or not, they are all special in their own ways. Be proud of any of their accomplishments, athletic or academic.
One last thing. My daughter will be leaving this Friday to begin a new adventure in her life, one that will take her to a new job in New York City, Brooklyn to be precise. I guess it didn’t totally dawn on me on Saturday night when I told her goodbye that she was leaving that soon. I could only think of the little girl that sat on the front steps with me and counted the trucks that drove by our house among a million other things. I didn’t cry then and I haven’t yet, but I miss her already. But on the bright side, I’m going to start planning a trip to the Big Apple.