Do you follow a professional athlete?

[Joubert[$]]

I don't mean stalking although this is a good place to come clean about that too. I'm talking about an athlete whose performance you always follow.

Sports fans know the one I'm talking about. There might always be the star to whom you pay due attention; as a kid growing up, Mets pitcher Tom Seaver was that man. But there's another athlete who holds a special place in your heart. That person is someone for whom you used to scour The Sporting News in the hopes of finding a mention in the agate type. Now, of course, a few simple keystrokes and clicks reveal the same.

I've followed a number of athletes closely over the years, but the one who might surprise you is a woman I went to high school with back when dinosaurs roamed the earth. She's Cathy Johnston-Forbes, a pro golfer who attended a tiny (average graduating class = 35) private school in North Carolina a year behind me. She was our closest thing to a celebrity. In fact, during my senior year, she won the PGA National Junior. Not bad, considering we had no golf team. Hell, we barely had golf courses!

She's earned a million dollars on the pro tour over 15 years, which is not really a great deal of money when you consider expenses and the fact that, well, this is a living. In some years, her best finish is a top 20. She hasn't won a tournament in 11 years, and this year, she's only won twenty-three thousand or so in 15 tournaments.

But there I am, religously checking on her. We haven't spoken in over twenty years and were never close, but she's someone I silently root for every week in season.

What about you? Is there an athlete you've watched from the beginning? Someone in whose career you've taken a special interest?

[Magick1]

but there are a few players that when I hear their name, I listen more closely.

Those would be some of the football players that went to either Iowa University or Iowa State University, and made it to the pros.

Ross Verba
Troy Davis
Sage Rosenfels

And, there are a few others. Just generally, players tied to Iowa, I will listen for news on them.

or example, Kurt Warner, the Iowa Barnstormers (arena football), quarterback. He has been making some terrific headlines the last couple of years.

[quasar]

I grew up in a small town an hour NW of Philadelphia. It's known for two things - the world's largest casket factory (ack!) and the best American Legion baseball team in the country.

To put it in perspective, when I was about 8 or 9 the town built a new baseball stadium. It seats about 5000 with the ability to expand to 8000 with temporary seating. I don't remember all of the dimensions but it was a major league size stadium. 380 CF, 320 down the lines. It had lights, it had concessions, it had all sorts of amenities. It was always full.

I went to 20 or so games a year. The team played 60-70. They played teams from all over the world every year. They played the Taiwan national team at least once every other year and always destroyed them. Over the years I got to see a lot of really supurb baseball players.

Most of them never got a shot at the bigs. Some because scouts are morons, some because of injury, some because they became interested in other things and let baseball drop out of their life.

But a few players did make it. None from my team, which is a total travesty (I could go one for an awfully long time about how good some of these players were, how good the teams were, and back up my statements with numbers, but I won't. I will just say that one year our number three pitcher was 21-1 with a 0.69 ERA, many strikeouts, and two no hitters. Our number two pitcher played first base on the days he didn't pitch and hit .600). I always look for them.

Boyertown made it to the American Legion World Series final in 1980 (not that unusual) and lost to this big hulking pitcher from Hawaii named Sid Fernandez. I didn't see that game but I listened to it on the radio. When Sid became a Met I felt like I knew him already.

In 1981 we lost earlier in series thanks in large part to the play of one Dave Magadan.

Mike Mussina lost twice in his last year of American Legion eligibility. Both times to Boyertown. We slaughtered him both times. I saw both games. We made him look like a little leaguer trying to pitch against Reggie Jackson (the scores were 16-1 and 23-0 IIRC).

Stan Spencer who pitched for the Stanford team that won the College World Series in the 1991 (I think) and had a brief Major League career pitched for the Vancouver American Legion team I saw Boyertown destroy in the 1987 World Series finals. Gregg Olsen was also on that team. That was the only time in the history of American Legion baseball that the host team won the World Series. If you host the WS you get no automatic entry into any of the earlier rounds. You have to win your county, your state sectional, your state tournament, your national regional, and the world series.

Possibly the single most nail-biting sporting event I've ever sat through (well, listened to on the radio, and I was pacing not sitting) was a game in the 1986 World Series against Oklahoma City. Boyertown lost 1-0 in the 16th inning when the OKC catcher bunted in a run - his name was Todd Zeile.

There are many others, but these are a few that stick out. Mike Piazza played a few towns over but he was so unremarkable compared to some of the other players that I don't even remember seeing him play although my dad insists I did several times.

I also used to go to a lot of minor league games and notice some of the players I saw coming up, but not with the same degree of interest or detailed memories of the player in his previous life.

Janice

PS The stadium was so nice the Phillies tried to buy it and move their AAA team there but the town refused.

[quasar]

There is one other player who I really follow.

I went to graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania. I was there for the 1992-93 and 1993-94 school years. The Penn basketball team was one of the best teams in the country at that time, particularly the second year, but got very little respect. At one point in the 93-94 season they were ranked 8th in the country. They were in the top 25 most of the season. I can't remember which teams they beat other than Cal and Princeton twice, but they won the Madison Square Garden Christmas tournament and beat several top teams and lost close games to one or two others. They lost to Temple by 1 point, for instance. They had something like a 23-3 record going into the tournament and all of their loses were to top teams (jeesh my brain is fuzzy today. I can't believe I can't remember the details). Oh yeah, they only got an 11th seed in the tournament. Oh yeah, they did all of that without any athletic scholarships.

The physics department is right next to The Palestra where the team played. We could hear the PA system during the games. We saw most of the players daily. They may not have been close friends, but we knew each other. I got along really well with most of the players, but particularly Jerome Allen and Matt Maloney. They were both smart, funny, and nice. They were also the starting guards and the core of the team. Allen was the flashier player and actually did draw enough attention to make the 1994 Goodwill Games team. Maloney kind of disappeared after graduation.

Then all of a sudden he was the starting point guard for the Houston Rockets. Wow. And everyone was talking about him. It really made me smile. I still smile every time I hear his name or watch him play. I keep tabs on how he's doing.

It's a combination of the fact that he really was an excellent player who deserved a shot, that he was a nice guy, and that it gives some validation to a woefully underrated team.

Janice

[CurtisEdmonds]

I follow Ivan Rodriguez religiously; the best player of his generation at the hardest position on the field.

I cheer for Michael Johnson at the Olympics; he was in my graduating class at college (although I never laid eyes on him).

[mrisch[$]]

I tend to follow the athletes from my Alma Mater or from Colorado State University, the alma mater of everyone else in my family.

Sure, this is easy when you are looking for Tiger Woods, John Elway, Ed McCaffrey, John Lynch, etc.

It gets tougher when you are looking for Moses Moreno, Glyn Milburn (just cut from the Bears, ouch), Touchdown Tommy Vardell (now retired), Jon Ritchie, and Steve Stenstrom.

Now it gets really tough when you are looking for Kevin McDougal, Uwe Tuitelle, Matt Newton, Greg Myers (no offense to Greg - he does, after all, start for the Bengals), and the like.

Nonetheless, I try to keep up.

[evmori]

I'm a big womens basketball fan. My daughter plays (trying out for the HS team). I love following a college player to the WNBA. Suzie McConnell-Serio (he husband is my daughter's HS coach) was one of my favorites. She now coaches at a local HS and is very successful.

[quasar]

Originally posted by mrisch
Sure, this is easy when you are looking for Tiger Woods, John Elway, Ed McCaffrey, John Lynch, etc.

It gets tougher when you are looking for Moses Moreno, Glyn Milburn (just cut from the Bears, ouch), Touchdown Tommy Vardell (now retired), Jon Ritchie, and Steve Stenstrom.

Why do I have the Peter, Paul, and Mary song Right Field going through my head right about now?

Janice