Day Twenty Five

One of the best gifts I ever received from an old friend was a compliment. At my 20th grade school reunion in 1999 I was chatting with my friend and fellow athlete from those days -- James Bommarito -- who went on to play football at Rice as a star running back in the mid 1980's. James was always an exceptional all-around athlete. So we are standing in my grade school cafeteria chatting about life today, etc., and catching up. We take a couple sips of beer and he looks at me and says, "You know, Bill, if you had not sprained your ankle, we would have had a real shot at the City Championship in basketball in 8th Grade. We had one heck of a team and you were really coming into your own."

Now I must admit I had these thoughts to myself for many years, but never shared them with anyone. And I was stunned to hear someone else say them. It is one of those things that makes you think of that Bruce Springsteen song, Glory Days -- we really did have a great team. I always felt that our class had great athletes and could compete with the cities' (St. Louis's)best teams on all levels for organized sports at our age level.

Come to think of it there have been several times where I received kind words when I least expected it. Rich Koster, who was a sports writer for the St. Louis newspapers, once told me that I had the potential to be another Jim Hornoff. For those of who dont know what I am talking about, Jim Hornoff, a DeSmet HS alum, played power forward for the Missouri Tigers when the legendary Steve Stiponovich, also a DeSmet alum, played at MU under Norm Stewart. See, I had a little chippiness to my play. I liked the physical game. Hornoff would create space for Stipo and the other Tigers.

My freshman year in high school we had a sports camp before school started. Rich Grawer was the basketball coach at DeSmet, where he won several state championships. In St. Louis, coach Grawer is a legend. He went on to coach at St. Louis University and he was an assistant under Norm Stewart at Mizzou. Well, we played in a one-on-one tournament.

I can't remember how many there were of us; I would guess at least 75 to 100 kids. I made it to the finals and lost to Jim Spencer who was a grade school rival. This was after I had messed up my ankle and pretty much stopped playing basketball. Jim had a great outside shot and that is what did me in. But the really beautiful gesture was that Coach Grawer came over to me and said, "Bill, you are a far better athlete than your three older brothers, and for a big man, you have a nice, soft touch (meaning a good shot). You should consider going out for basketball." That really blew me away. The thing is, I stopped growing. The doctor said I would be 6' 4" and they were way off. And I could not dribble, so playing guard was out of the question. Besides, I really liked the physical part of the game.