You Might Need a Jacket

  During the early 1990’s, a parent of a player from one of the area’s top high school basketball programs used to call Richard “Onion” Horton’s radio talk show on WGNU every morning to rip his son’s high school coach on everything from his game strategy, substitution patterns, his son’s playing time or anything else he could think of. His scathing criticisms knew no boundries. The man was relentless in his verbal assaults on the coach and on live radio.

  An area basketball coach had more problems than he could deal with one of his players, so he wound up removing him from the team. The young man had a pair of strait-jacket parents who were a constant thorn in the coach’s side. However, the coup de grace came when the child’s grandfather paid the coach a visit. After a few minutes of heated discussion, dear old Granddad busts out with, “If you mess with my grandson again, I’m going to kill you.”

  Welcome to the club, Grandpa.

  Excerpt #3:  When you kick dirt on your own child after she is thrown out at third base at a softball game, you might

  In a girls’ softball game, the manager of the team was coaching third base when his own daughter was thrown out at third base. She slid right in front of her father as she is tagged out, and the frustrated coach reacted by kicking dirt on her. For good measure, he went into the dugout, took her softball glove and threw it over the fence.

  Nice, Dad!

  Excerpt #4:

  When you go out on the soccer field in the middle of your child’s game and give her a high-five after she has scored a goal, you might need a jacket.

  One of my fellow media colleagues gets the jacket on this one. About four years ago, he was taking his oldest daughter, then six years old, to her final youth soccer game. The little girl told her father to hurry up because she was going to score her first goal of the season. As fate would have it, she made good on her promise as she scored a late-game goal after stealing a pass from the goalie and putting the ball into the back of the net. That sent the father into action. As the happy girl made her way back to midfield for play to re-start, she was greeted by her father, who had run out on the field to give his baby girl a high five.

  Said Dad, “I just remembered what she said about scoring her first goal. I just calmly ran on the field, gave her a high five and ran off the field.”

  And into this book.

Excerpt #5

  When you take your eight-year old son to 17 different basketball camps during one summer, you might need a jacket.

  Several year ago, a father took his young son to 17 different basketball camps during one summer. That’s right; 17. I know this for a fact because I saw the actual list. The father showed it to me.

  We were at a basketball camp at McCluer North High and I saw his son playing, and he was very good for his age. He was dominating the competition, and everyone at the camp was taking notice. He became quite the little celebrity that week as he continued to put on a show.

  At the end of the week, the kid’s father comes up to me and asked me, “How do you like my son, Mr. Austin?” I told him he was a very good player with a bright future.

  The father proceeds to whip out a sheet of paper with a list of all of the camps that he’s taken his son to that summer and the schedule of camps that he will participate in. The list looked rather extensive, so out of curiosity, I counted the list of camps, which turned out to be 17.

  “Seventeen camps,” I asked him. “Why so many?”

  He had a simple explanation for his son’s city-wide tour.

  “My wife wanted me to put him in day care for the summer, but it was too expensive. I went to several different places, but I could not afford it. So, I thought I would just take him to basketball camps. He would have fun, he would get taken care of and it does not cost a lot of money. So, we just went from basketball camp to basketball camp.”

  Today, the young man is one of the area’s top point guards. And that father continues to be one fo the most enthusiastic parents going today.