It's been a tough spring. No, not in the way most of you think. While coaches and players in the area are all wondering how they will get games rescheduled and played before the end of the school year, I had life put in perspective over the last month.
As an assistant to Roger Plachta at the University of Wisconsin in women's fastpitch softball, I spent the early days of last month getting my work done at WKLK and here at the Pine Journal so I would be able take the annual spring softball trip to Florida. Each year UWS travels south so they can get a jump start on the season. As you can see, it was a good idea, because the team has not played a game since they got back because of the weather. The first week of March was a wild scramble and with the date of March 13 looming ever closer I had to really buckle down and budget my time to get my work completed. Stressed? You bet!
However, an afternoon phone call from a former co-worker, just days before we left, put life in perspective. I received a call telling me that my good friend, Jim "Tip" Tipton had died of a massive heart attack. The news was devastating. You see, Tip was not necessarily someone you would know around the sports circuit, but I had worked with him at KDAL for a number of years and he and I became friends. Tip loved sports, all sports, but he especially loved football. Maybe he loved football so much because of growing up in Nebraska, or maybe it was just him, but regardless, the guy loved the game. Tip lived in Esko and he lived for the Esko versus Moose Lake-Willow River game. Oddly enough he ended up becoming a manager of Market Place Foods in Moose Lake about six months before his death.
The two of us managed to take in a couple of games a year, mainly with me covering them for the Pine Journal and Tip showing up on the sidelines with me. You could see his love for the game.
Tip's funeral was held on March 12, the day before I left for Florida.
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A few days after our arrival in Florida I received a call from my wife telling me another friend had passed away, this time because of an automobile accident. Kevin Zegan, a longtime school buddy and my wife's cousin, lost control of his vehicle and was killed when his car was hit broadside by an SUV. It was hard to believe that this was happening.
Life was put in perspective at that moment for me because we had just lost a pair of close games and the coaching staff, which includes assistant Mike Sylvester of Cloquet, was feeling down about the losses. Suddenly the losses didn't seem nearly as important.
Kevin was a member of our 1976 Cloquet High School track team, and while he wasn't what you'd consider a great athlete, he never missed a practice, never complained and did everything with a smile. "Zeke" or "Ziggy" as he was known, had the misfortune of coming along when the track team had some of the best throwers in school history in the shot and disc, so he never broke the lineup for the big meets, but he did get his chance to perform in the smaller meets.
Neither Zeke or Tip would have names extremely familiar to the sports community in Cloquet, but both were the kinds of people who made sports better. Whether it was Zeke playing slow pitch softball (sometimes pretty badly), or Tip just bubbling over the next day explaining what happened at the big game, they played a part in what sports is all about.
Nobody will wear a black arm band, like the Twins are doing this season for Herb Carneal, but many of us will remember how they always had a way of enhancing the moment as we go through the seasons to come.
All I ask is for parents, coaches and players to relax and enjoy the games this spring, when they finally do start. Life is way too short, and while we think the world will end because of a loss in the big game, it won't. We never know when our chips will be cashed in, maybe we'll be here a long time, or maybe we check out early, but to live and die because of a win no longer seems as important.
So, go out and bust your tail to win. Leave everything you have on the track or on the field in an attempt to win, but when it is done, go home with your head held high and realize you had the chance to play a game for your high school team. Make this a great time!
Pine Journal sports reporter Kerry Rodd can be contacted at: kdrodd@aol.com .
