A banner weekend for sports fans
By Rory Ryan
The Highland County Press
For sports fans – especially southern Ohio sports fans – isn’t doesn’t get much better than Monday, April 6. And for those of us who are still “alive” in our respective NCAA basketball tournament brackets, it’s even better.
In the meager HCP office pool of 24 entries, we have narrowed the investment pool to three – including this guy.
While still in contention, my own brackets took a serious hit Saturday, March 28 when Kentucky squeaked out a win over the venerable Notre Dame Fightin’ Irish. (Can they still say “Fightin’ Irish in Indiana or is that now off limits, too?)
Nonetheless, I’m still in the Final Four hunt. Perhaps the funniest thing about this year’s HCP brackets – aside from Sasquatch’s mysterious boycott – is that our office manager is in second place after many years of finishing last. It seems someone finally had the unmitigated gall to explain to her what the numbers 1-16 (the seedings) following the team/school name mean. She’s a quick learner.
In addition to Monday’s national championship game (between Wisconsin and Michigan State), April 6 also is Opening Day for the Cincinnati Reds and the 96th annual Reds/Findlay Market Opening Day Parade.
Opening Day is considered a holiday by many in Cincinnati. Traditionally, since Cincinnati had the first professional baseball team in 1869, the Reds used to be assured of playing the first game of each new season. Television revenues changed all that. Still, Opening Day in Cincinnati is special.
I’ve been to many Opening Day games. Some courtesy of the Reds’ public relations office and some with tickets ranging from box seats to beneath the outfield scoreboard. There was only one disappointing day: The sad and untimely death of home plate umpire John McSherry on April 1, 1996. Was it really almost 20 years ago?
It had snowed that morning from Hillsboro to Cincinnati. Jim Hapner, John Fuller, Chris Fuller and I stopped for breakfast in Mariemont. By game time, the clouds drifted away, the sun came out, temperatures inched into the 40s, and tragedy struck just behind home plate.
The right field umpire (Steve Rippley or Jerry Crawford) raced to the plate. I remember that vividly. I’ve always wondered if Big John McSherry had said something to his field crew prior to the game about having chest pains or not feeling well. I don’t know. I read later that he had scheduled a doctor’s appointment for April 2.
Reds manager Ray Knight and team captain Barry Larkin were among the first to offer that the game should be postponed. It was, and it was the right thing to do.
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• Speaking of the venerable Notre Dame Fightin’ Irish, did you see the news release at www.highlandcountypress.com written by Tim Stried, director of Information Services for the Ohio High School Athletic Association?
Well, if you did, you read a slightly edited version of Tim’s original story. As Tim wrote, the OHSAA honored six former Ohio high school greats during the finals of the 2015 Boys State Basketball Tournament. Recognized were: Lisa Cline, Chris “Beanie” Wells, Troy Smith, Bob Golic, Randy Gradishar and Lou Holtz. It’s quite possible that The Highland County Press changed the lineup to put Coach Holtz in a more prominent position.
Tim writes: “Lou Holtz grew up in East Liverpool before attending Kent State, where he played football for two years and earned his bachelor’s degree. He then embarked on a long and successful college football coaching career beginning in 1960. He was a grad or assistant coach at five schools over the next nine years including Ohio State, where he was on Coach Woody Hayes’ staff of the Buckeyes’ 1968 National Championship team. … His most successful stint was at Notre Dame, where his 11 teams won 100 games, ranking second to Knute Rockne in Fighting Irish victories. The 1988 Notre Dame team won the national championship and he was national coach of the year.
(As a side note, Lou’s son, Skip, is the head football coach at Louisiana Tech. He once shared a flight for a military mid-air refueling exercise with HCP columnist Steve Roush. According to Steve, Skip watched from a plane window and said, “Ain’t that the (rhymes with spit).”
But back to the elder Coach Holtz for a moment or two.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer http://www.cleveland.com/osu/index.ssf/2015/03/ohio_state_woody_hayes_lou_h
ol.html) shared an interesting story this week about how Lou Holtz might have followed in Woody Hayes’ footsteps at The Ohio State University.
According to Doug Lesmerises at www.cleveland.com, “Former Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz was in Columbus for his induction into the OHSAA Circle of Champions. He told a story he said he’d never told before – how Ohio State called him after Woody Hayes was hired and told him he was the leading candidate. But Holtz refused to go through an interview.”
The report continues quoting Coach Holtz speaking to OSU athletic director Hugh Hindman in 1978: “Hugh, I was at Ohio State, served on the staff with you. I’ve been head coach at William & Mary, North Carolina State, Arkansas. What in the world are you going to find out in an interview that you don’t know about me already? Or, look at the track record. If I interview at (Ohio State), I wanna tell you they will run me out of Arkansas, because we had a better football team than Ohio State at that time.”
Coach Holtz wanted an offer, not an interview.
Having followed Coach Holtz’s career (yes, including with the New York Jets) for decades, I appreciated reading this. Coach Holtz was around 42 years old in 1978. He’d been around and he’d been successful. But he was loyal, too. Once word got out that he was considering Ohio State, he would have been done at Arkansas. If OSU really wanted him, they should have said so. Of course it worked out well. The Bucks hired Earle Bruce, who was a very respectable 81-26-1 in nine under-appreciated seasons.
Lou Holtz went on to win two national championship at Notre Dame. (Except they gave the second one to Florida State in 1993.)
Go Reds. On Wisconsin. And Notre Dame forever.
Rory Ryan is publisher and owner of The Highland County Press.