By Bill Koch
I was all set to do a Father’s Day post based on a story I wrote in 2011 about the relationship between Mick Cronin and his dad, Hep. The last line of the story was a quote from Mick, “Every day is Father’s Day for me.”
At the end of the Mick-Hep story, I was going to offer up a story about my relationship with my dad, who passed away in 1986 nine days short of his 64th birthday after a very difficult battle with cancer. It was about how thrilled he was when I introduced him to then-Reds hitting coach Ted Kluszeswki in a St. Louis hotel lobby when I was on a Reds trip in 1983.
Both were nice stories about the sports bond between fathers and sons.They were written and ready to be posted when I thought about the sports bond between me and my 34-year-old daughter, Heather, who just finished her 12th year as an elementary school teacher, a job she loves and has devoted her life to.
Heather wasn’t an athlete, even though her father was a sportswriter and her mother was a three-time state champion high school volleyball coach. I guess she got too many of my genes because she just didn’t have the ability. That didn’t stop us from playing one-on-one in our driveway when she was little. She always reminds me how I accidentally tripped her during one of those battles, ripping her knee to shreds.
But that didn’t stop her from loving sports. And it didn’t stop us from sharing them.
When she was six years old, she and my wife, Rose, accompanied me on a UC basketball trip to Honolulu to watch the Bearcats play in the Rainbow Classic. That’s when Heather fell in love with UC basketball. Three years later, she went with Rose and me again, this time to San Juan, Puerto Rico to watch UC play in another holiday tournament. Danny Fortson was her favorite player then and when he left, Kenyon Martin became her favorite.
She had to get used to having a father who travelled to cover UC football and basketball, along with an occasional Reds and Bengals trip. In 2000, when she was in the eighth grade, I was gone for more than three weeks to cover the Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia. She took it all in stride.
After she graduated from Mother of Mercy High School, she decided to go to Xavier despite her fierce allegiance to UC basketball. For four years, she was an avid Musketeer fan. She camped out to get tickets to the Crosstown Shootout and we had our picture taken together at Cintas Center before one of XU’s wins over UC.
She played basketball in grade school, but wasn’t good enough to play at Mother of Mercy High School. Instead she became a team manager so she could stay close to the sport she loved. On Senior Night, when she was to be honored along with the rest of the seniors at Mercy’s final home game, I was scheduled to be in Tampa to cover the UC-USF game. I asked the Enquirer if I could skip that trip to make sure I was on the floor with her that night when her name was called. It was the only UC road game I ever missed as a beat reporter, and I never regretted it for a second because I knew how much it meant to Heather.
It didn’t take long after she graduated from Xavier in 2009 before she returned her college basketball allegiance to UC, where it steadfastly remains today. In nearly all of the sports books I’ve written and self-published, Heather laid out the pages, helped me locate photos, and handled the technical computer stuff that I don’t understand.
In 2010, Heather and I were at Great American Ball Park when Jay Bruce hit the home run that clinched the NL Central for the Reds. That remains one of our best sports memories together. On more Sunday afternoons than I care to count, we’ve sat in our living room and suffered through Bengals losses, wondering at the end of each afternoon why we continue to bother. But then the next Sunday, we always come back for more.
A few weeks ago, I was in the Northgate Pot Belly Stove restaurant when I saw a photo of a 1961 Sport magazine cover hanging next to the men’s room. Oscar Robertson and Jack Twyman were on the cover for a story about how the Cincinnati Royals were about to get good because of those two UC graduates.
I had to have that photo. I asked the woman behind the desk whom I needed to talk to about buying it. She said I had to contact the district manager, who sometimes comes around on Sunday mornings. I asked for the manager’s email address and emailed him the next day to see if he could help me. He didn’t respond.
A week later, I emailed him again. Again, no response.
Then, on Friday, the night before Heather was leaving with her friends for a trip to Myrtle Beach, the three of us got together for Father’s Day. Rose and Heather gave me more gifts than I deserve. Heather had strategically placed one of hers at the bottom of the bag so I would see it last. You guessed it. She had gone online and purchased an actual copy of that Sport Magazine issue and gave it to me. So now I not only have the photo, I can actually read the story.
I was blown away. Two days later, I still am.
Unlike Hep Cronin, I didn’t have a son like Mick to share my love of sports with. I didn’t need one. I have Heather.
I was all set to do a Father’s Day post based on a story I wrote in 2011 about the relationship between Mick Cronin and his dad, Hep. The last line of the story was a quote from Mick, “Every day is Father’s Day for me.”
At the end of the Mick-Hep story, I was going to offer up a story about my relationship with my dad, who passed away in 1986 nine days short of his 64th birthday after a very difficult battle with cancer. It was about how thrilled he was when I introduced him to then-Reds hitting coach Ted Kluszeswki in a St. Louis hotel lobby when I was on a Reds trip in 1983.
Both were nice stories about the sports bond between fathers and sons.They were written and ready to be posted when I thought about the sports bond between me and my 34-year-old daughter, Heather, who just finished her 12th year as an elementary school teacher, a job she loves and has devoted her life to.
Heather wasn’t an athlete, even though her father was a sportswriter and her mother was a three-time state champion high school volleyball coach. I guess she got too many of my genes because she just didn’t have the ability. That didn’t stop us from playing one-on-one in our driveway when she was little. She always reminds me how I accidentally tripped her during one of those battles, ripping her knee to shreds.
But that didn’t stop her from loving sports. And it didn’t stop us from sharing them.
When she was six years old, she and my wife, Rose, accompanied me on a UC basketball trip to Honolulu to watch the Bearcats play in the Rainbow Classic. That’s when Heather fell in love with UC basketball. Three years later, she went with Rose and me again, this time to San Juan, Puerto Rico to watch UC play in another holiday tournament. Danny Fortson was her favorite player then and when he left, Kenyon Martin became her favorite.
She had to get used to having a father who travelled to cover UC football and basketball, along with an occasional Reds and Bengals trip. In 2000, when she was in the eighth grade, I was gone for more than three weeks to cover the Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia. She took it all in stride.
After she graduated from Mother of Mercy High School, she decided to go to Xavier despite her fierce allegiance to UC basketball. For four years, she was an avid Musketeer fan. She camped out to get tickets to the Crosstown Shootout and we had our picture taken together at Cintas Center before one of XU’s wins over UC.
She played basketball in grade school, but wasn’t good enough to play at Mother of Mercy High School. Instead she became a team manager so she could stay close to the sport she loved. On Senior Night, when she was to be honored along with the rest of the seniors at Mercy’s final home game, I was scheduled to be in Tampa to cover the UC-USF game. I asked the Enquirer if I could skip that trip to make sure I was on the floor with her that night when her name was called. It was the only UC road game I ever missed as a beat reporter, and I never regretted it for a second because I knew how much it meant to Heather.
It didn’t take long after she graduated from Xavier in 2009 before she returned her college basketball allegiance to UC, where it steadfastly remains today. In nearly all of the sports books I’ve written and self-published, Heather laid out the pages, helped me locate photos, and handled the technical computer stuff that I don’t understand.
In 2010, Heather and I were at Great American Ball Park when Jay Bruce hit the home run that clinched the NL Central for the Reds. That remains one of our best sports memories together. On more Sunday afternoons than I care to count, we’ve sat in our living room and suffered through Bengals losses, wondering at the end of each afternoon why we continue to bother. But then the next Sunday, we always come back for more.
A few weeks ago, I was in the Northgate Pot Belly Stove restaurant when I saw a photo of a 1961 Sport magazine cover hanging next to the men’s room. Oscar Robertson and Jack Twyman were on the cover for a story about how the Cincinnati Royals were about to get good because of those two UC graduates.
I had to have that photo. I asked the woman behind the desk whom I needed to talk to about buying it. She said I had to contact the district manager, who sometimes comes around on Sunday mornings. I asked for the manager’s email address and emailed him the next day to see if he could help me. He didn’t respond.
A week later, I emailed him again. Again, no response.
Then, on Friday, the night before Heather was leaving with her friends for a trip to Myrtle Beach, the three of us got together for Father’s Day. Rose and Heather gave me more gifts than I deserve. Heather had strategically placed one of hers at the bottom of the bag so I would see it last. You guessed it. She had gone online and purchased an actual copy of that Sport Magazine issue and gave it to me. So now I not only have the photo, I can actually read the story.
I was blown away. Two days later, I still am.
Unlike Hep Cronin, I didn’t have a son like Mick to share my love of sports with. I didn’t need one. I have Heather.
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