Remembering Coach Dennis Green

Former Minnesota Vikings and Arizona Cardinals head coach Dennis Green passed away on July, 21, 2016 at age 67.

Prior to his professional career, Green was head football coach at Northwestern University when I met him in 1985. I shared our meeting with my friends on Facebook after his passing was publicly announced. I should have saved it here then. Better late than never. 

When I was a senior at Indiana University studying Telecommunications and Journalism, I did a student-assist job for ESPN's coverage of an IU vs Northwestern football game.
As Coach Green walked toward me after warmups, he saw me wearing a headset with "ESPN" on the mouthpiece.
"Will you be doing the (on field) interviews (at halftime and at the end of the game)?" he asked.
"No sir, My instruction is to let your team out on the field when ESPN is ready," I replied.
"Aren't you cold?" he then said.
"I'm fine, sir. Thank you," I said.
Apparently, Coach didn't think I was dressed warm enough for a chilly mid-fall day, because a few minutes later, a student manager gave me a long-sleeved shirt and said "Coach wants you to have this."

Later, as I'm holding back the Northwestern team and waiting for my cue, the giant linemen were getting antsy.
"Come on! Come on! We want to go!" they were yelling.
"SHUT UP AND WAIT UNTIL HE LETS YOU GO!" I hear from behind me. "THE MAN IS JUST DOING HIS JOB!"
That day has, and always will be, a valued memory for me.
RIP Coach Green.

Putting my Life on Ice

I was asked to contribute to the Daring Adventures newsletter for January 2016. Daring Adventures is the organization that puts on the sled hockey days during the summer that Nik and I participate in, as well as other activities for People with Disabilities, like kayaking, handcycling and hiking the Grand Canyon. Since computer links are not active forever, I posted the whole thing here.

Athletics has always been a part of my life. I was on the basketball team and ran the high and low hurdles in track while in high school in northwest Indiana, but I had my greatest success in bowling.
I grew up in the Saturday morning youth leagues and regularly competed in, and occasionally won, individual and Father/Son tournaments. I then bowled intercollegiately at Indiana University. After graduating from IU in 1986, I bowled in multiple adult leagues per week in and around Indianapolis, and for five years worked at Indianapolis bowling centers as Youth League Director and Instructor for youth and adults.
But in 1993, I started feeling the effects of what I later learned to be Multiple Sclerosis. When my season average fell from 200 to the mid-120s, I “retired” from the sport of bowling. 

In 2005, I moved to Prescott Valley, AZ to be one of the editors of the Prescott Daily Courier. From 2006 to 2013, Prescott Valley was the home of the CHL’s Arizona Sundogs, and Amy and I were regular spectators.
At a Sundogs game on New Year’s Eve in 2011, I met Prescott’s Tom Lopeman, who plays for the Arizona Coyotes Sled Hockey team in Phoenix. Tom lost both of his legs to injuries he received while serving in Vietnam. After a short video presentation, Tom skated out to center ice, delivered the game puck to the referee and skated past both benches before skating off.
At the end of the first period, I quickly drove my mobility scooter to the lobby where I met Tom and his wife Sharon, got a good look at Tom’s equipment and learned about sled hockey, a sport that up until that moment I didn’t know existed.
A couple of weeks later, at Tom’s invitation, I attended a Coyote sled team practice at the Ice Den in Scottsdale. Tom and his teammates got me on a sled, loaned me a couple of sticks and put me on the ice. While the Coyotes practiced on half the rink, I pushed a puck around and skated back and forth along the width of the other half. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, especially since I hadn’t done anything that physical for approximately 12 years prior to that day. My arms were so sore, I thought they were going to fall off my shoulders, but I loved every second of it, especially the comradery of Tom and the other Coyotes that I missed since my bowling days. I had to be able to do this sport!
I joined a gym in Prescott Valley and followed a strict weightlifting regimen to strengthen my arms and upper body. I’m able to walk short distances with the aid of a walker, but other than that, my legs are basically useless. I also have feeling and strength problems in my left hand, so weight training and physical therapy help me maintain modest ability there. 

This phase of my life has been a series of what I’ve heard called “God Winks.” I don’t know if it’s divine intervention or just coincidence, but various events have encouraged me to continue to learn and play sled hockey. A couple of months after my first time on the ice, I met a man in Flagstaff who was selling all of his personal hockey gear – helmet, gloves, pads, stick and bag – everything but his skates, which I didn’t need anyway. That summer, I learned Daring Adventures would hold weekly Try Out Sled Hockey events at the Ice Den, so I quickly signed up. Thanks to Daring Adventures, I was able to borrow a sled, put my personal gear to good use, and work on my basic sled hockey skills. I also got to reconnect with Tom and most of the Coyotes I met four months before. The captain for the Coyotes Sled team, Paul Crane, told me about the grant program of the Challenged Athletes Foundation. With reference letters from Tom and Lynette Hoyt of the Arizona chapter of the Multiple Sclerosis Society, I was approved for a grant for a handcycle so I can improve my conditioning for sled hockey. In April of 2015, I got a handcycle through Prescott Valley Bike Works, whose owner, Marc Hanses, is good friends with Tom and Sharon Lopeman’s son, Keith. It’s pretty amazing how everything ties together!
Thanks to Daring Adventures and the Coyotes Sled team, I’ve been able to try out various sleds and note what features, like the amount of back support, I need for when I’ll be able to afford a sled of my own. I understand that thanks to the Arizona Coyotes Foundation, Daring Adventures was able to get new sleds this year. One of the new sleds has really high back support, which has been a big help to me. 

Even more gratifying is I’ve been able to get my son, Nik, involved in sled hockey. Nik is now 15 and lives most of the year with his mother in Indiana. He comes to Arizona at Christmas, during his school’s Spring Break and for seven weeks during the summer. I took Nik to one of the Daring Adventures Sled Hockey days so he could help me get into and out of a sled, see me do this sport, and try it out himself. He has fallen in love with the sport of sled hockey and he’s really good at it. Tom Lopeman and Paul Crane have told me that Nik is good and they want him to be part of the team, even though he is not disabled. I am in the process of getting Nik his own personal gear. And he enjoys telling his friends back home that he plays sled hockey … during the summer … in Arizona.
Not only am I happy that Nik and I do something together that we both love, but I’m also very proud that he helps other players get in and out of sleds and on and off the ice. He is always the last person to get on the ice and the first person off on the summer sled hockey days, not because I told him to help others, but because he wants to. Whenever I see one of the Coyotes or the Daring Adventures staff and helpers, they say “Where’s Nik?” “How is Nik doing?” “Tell him I said ‘Hi.’” Yes, I am one proud papa.
I have a long way to go before I can really play sled hockey with the Coyotes Sled team, but I’m trying and they encourage me and help me. I was thankful that they asked me to help them prepare for the Sled Hockey Classic tournament in Florida in November, and thanks to Daring Adventures, I was able to borrow the high-back hockey sled to do so.
My goal is to be a contributing member of the Coyotes Sled Hockey team someday. And what better place to have a goal than a hockey rink where there is one at each end.

Patrick Kane’s Top 5 Pick-Up Lines

It’s no secret the Chicago Blackhawks’ forward Patrick Kane has trouble keeping his pants on.

For the second time in five years, Kane has been accused of inappropriate sexual activity with a woman he met at a bar. No criminal activity has been proven, but the most recent accusation has yet to be concluded.

While in the shower today, I wondered, “If I was Patrick Kane, what would be my Top 5 Pick-Up Lines?”

5.) “Hey, babe. Wanna see my ‘Stanley Cup’?”

4.) “I can make you a top stick handler.”

3.) “Every time I shoot – I score.”

2.) “I am one of the league’s best at ‘putting the biscuit in the basket.’”

And the number 1 pick-up line if I was Patrick Kane is:

(Drumroll)

1.)         “Let me introduce you ‘Lord Stanley.’”

At the Reuniting of a Nation

150 years ago, my great-great-grandfather, William Fairfax Gooden, stood outside a farmhouse in a sleepy little town that few people outside Virginia knew existed. But at 3 p.m. April 9, 1865, when pencil lead touched paper and two well respected and opposing military generals shook hands, that time – that place – was etched into history books studied by the six generations since and the hundreds of generations yet to come.

The moment was the surrender of Confederate Army of Virginia General Robert E. Lee to Union Army of the Potomac General Ulysses S. Grant, and the place was Appomattox.

William Fairfax Gooden was the father of my great-grandmother, Estelle Gooden Boyer; grandfather of my grandmother, Helen Boyer Stoker; and great-grandfather of my mother, June Stoker Daravanis.

William Fairfax Gooden was born in March 1849 in Pennsylvania and enlisted in the Union army on March 14, 1864 at age 15 despite the opposition of his father, Hiram.

William was assigned to the Pennsylvania Volunteers, 65^th Regiment, 5^th Cavalry, Company I. William was among 231 new recruits to join the Pennsylvania 5^th Cavalry in Notoway Bridge, Virginia. His company saw action at Notoway Bridge throughout April; fought at Jarratt’s Station and Bellville, Virginia May 8 through May 19, 1864; fought at Petersburg June 2 through June 15; fought at Staunton Bridge, Stoney Creek and Darbytown from June 29 to mid-July; fought numerous skirmishes around the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia from September 29 until the end of 1864.

A profile of the Pennsylvania 65^th Regiment, written in 1999, continues the story:

“In the latter part of March, 1865, it joined Gen. Sheridan's command and on April 1, started on its last campaign. The enemy was met and routed at Five Forks, where the 5th cavalry made a gallant dash, capturing 300 prisoners. During the succeeding week the command was active in the pursuit, skirmishing at Gravelly Run, Amelia Court House and Burkesville. On the 7th its picket line was established near Prince Edward Court House and on the evening of the same day it reached Appomattox Court House, where it shared in the fighting up to the time of the surrender.

“It moved to Lynchburg on the 12th and thence returned through Appomattox, Farmville, Burkesville, Five Forks and Richmond to the Mechanicsville Pike, where it encamped.”

William Fairfax Gooden and 330 other members of the Pennsylvania 65^th Regiment mustered out on May 14, 1866.

For the entire Civil War, one officer and 76 soldiers of the Pennsylvania 65^th Regiment were killed or mortally wounded in battle. An additional six officers and 210 soldiers died of disease or accident.

William moved to Johnson County, Indiana, south of Indianapolis, where he married the former Sarah Russell on Dec. 20, 1869. Their son, Charles, was born on Christmas day of 1870. Sarah died the following year. He then married Lavinia Sanders Kaufman, who also lost a spouse to death and had a son, on March 29, 1880. From this union, my great-grandmother Estelle was born in 1884. She died seven months short of her 100^th birthday in 1984. 

William studied medicine, moved to Aurora, Nebraska in 1886 and eventually became Burlington Division (Neb.) Surgeon for many years. Lavinia died March 9, 1900. In 1904, William married Luella “Lulu” Ream, another widow with one son, and moved to Montgomery, Alabama where he died and was buried in 1914.

But before my great-great-grandfather could come to the rescue of injured and ailing citizens of Indiana, Nebraska and Alabama; William Fairfax Gooden stepped forward to help save a budding nation. And he was only a teenager.

Though I have driven through Virginia a couple of times in my life, I’ve never stopped at Appomattox. Someday I hope to visit Appomattox and see what he saw. I know the trees will be bigger and the exterior paint will have been refreshed since then, but the ground where he stood and the aura he felt on that particular day – at that particular moment – is eternal. 

The School I Did Not Attend and the Guy Who Made it Memorable

I grew up in northwest Indiana. Though not officially by definition, the cities and towns of northwest Indiana are in effect suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. For the residents there, local news, weather and sports come from television stations in Chicago. Car radios are tuned to stations in Chicago. Those who love the arts go to museums and theaters in Chicago. Those who love animals go to zoos and aquariums in Chicago. Sports fans cheer for the Chicago Bears in football, the Blackhawks in hockey, the Bulls in basketball and either the Cubs or White Sox in baseball. An unwritten rule prevents people from cheering for both the Cubs and Sox.

When I was growing up in the middle and late 1960s, there were four television stations – the three networks and a local independent with the call letters of WGN. While the networks had news and interview programs, WGN’s early morning fare was more kid-friendly Captain Kangaroo, Garfield Goose and Ray Rayner and Friends. The Captain and Garfield were fun, but I really liked Ray Rayner.

Ray Rayner and Chelveston

Ray wore a one-piece jumpsuit with a number of pockets. Clipped on each pocket with paper clips were little squares of paper. Ray would rip a square off a pocket and introduce the next cartoon. In between cartoons, Ray would do arts-and-crafts or cooking projects, or skits with a big dog puppet named Cuddly Dudley or a real life duck named Chelveston. Very little was scripted. I doubt Chelveston would have followed the script anyway.

Ray and Cuddly Dudley

About halfway through Ray Rayner and Friends, Ray would do weather and sports reports. Occasionally during college football season, Ray would announce with great fanfare “And winning this weekend was Slippery Rock!” Mom and I (dad was either at work or if he had to work the “graveyard” shift then he was sleeping) didn’t know if Slippery Rock was a real school or something Ray made up. All we knew was it was a silly name.

A quarter of a century later, I made a solo trip to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. As I was driving north on I-79 in western Pennsylvania, I saw a sign that read “Slippery Rock University next exit.”

“OMG! Slippery Rock is real! I have got to see it and get a shirt!” I said to myself as I zipped the car off the interstate.

Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania, founded in 1889, has a very pretty campus with limestone buildings, lots of green grass and big trees. I don’t know about the quality of the curriculum or its faculty, but the school with the silly name is a beautiful university.

Every year about this time, as Amy and I get our winter clothing out of storage, I pull out the grey sweatshirt with the Slippery Rock University name and crest in green that I bought that September day in 1994 only because Ray Rayner mentioned Slippery Rock on TV. I didn’t graduate from or attend Slippery Rock University, but I wear the shirt with pride. And when people ask me about Slippery Rock, I tell them the story of my trip through western Pennsylvania and growing up with Ray Rayner.

Ray Rayner passed away in 2004, but his memory lives on in my mind, in my heart, and on my shoulders.

It’s Christmas time! Whoopee

For the ninth year in a row, my child will not wake me up before dawn to open his presents this year. The almighty biased judge ruled my son should live primarily with the destroyer of our family, not the one who fought to save it.

This year, because of the cost of airfare, Nik will not get to Arizona until in the evening of Dec. 29. We’ll open our Christmas gifts to each other on Dec. 30, but the morning of Dec. 30 is not Christmas morning.

I’ll smile and appear festive in front of family and friends on Christmas day, but it’s all a façade. It’s the same façade I stand behind 302 days a year, but my Christmas façade is a heavier burden to bear. Perhaps I’ll be able to sneak away and find a secluded and dark spot to cry my eyes out. The problem is when I’ve had those rare moments in the past, the tears don’t come. You see, the destroyer not only ruined my dreams for an idyllic family, she also ripped out my ability to cry. I guess I shed my God given supply of tears during my futile fight.

Savor every second you are physically with your child, my friend. Savor every hug. Savor every kiss. Savor every time they laugh and they make you laugh, because someday you won’t be together. And then all your problems of today will seem rather trivial.

I pray that day for you comes later rather than sooner.

Thanksgiving Moments That Have Passed

My precious Thanksgiving memories:

* Sitting at the "Kid's Table" with Brian and Stephanie Palvas at our Yia Yia and Papou's house on Taft Street in Gary, Indiana.

* Moving up to the "Adult Table" at either the Palvas house or my house.

* Gathering around the TV to cheer on the Chicago Bears against the Detroit Lions. We didn't care about the other Thanksgiving day game at Dallas.

* Sometimes, the weather in northwest Indiana was good enough that Brian, Stephanie, later Ronnie and Mark Cool, others and I could go outside and have our own football game.

Today, we’re making new memories at our own tables in Chicago, central Indiana, Denver and Arizona. New adults and grown children sit at the “big” table and the “Kid’s Table” has been handed down to grandkids. Yia Yia, Papou and Uncle Bill Palvas are feasting with our Lord in heaven – and either cheering for or yelling at the Bears.

A line in one of my favorite songs, A Long December by Counting Crows, is “I can’t remember all the times I tried to tell myself / To hold on to these moments as they pass.” I wish I could remember more moments that have passed, but I am, and will eternally be, thankful for the memories I have.