I need your help. I tried something new with the column this past semester. Three non-varsity-athlete students, one varsity athlete and I spoke about our finest athletic accomplishments before we started college at Loyola.
Some of them were funny. Others were somber. Others were admirable, if not inspiring. The best were all of them. But now, I turn to you, to help me find students who have cool, whacky sports stories to share.
Among us, I have been able to find a martial artist, a Little League world champion and the right-hand man to an NBA first-round draft pick. I cringe thinking about the stories in classrooms, the Residential Quad, the Peace Quad and the Danna Student Center that I am missing.
Let me know if your girlfriend, boyfriend, drinking buddy or the kid who sits next to you in your intro class practices a cool sport. Drop me a line as soon as you can at [email protected] or on Facebook and nominate someone – yourself, included. Give me a rundown of the sport, the accomplishment and some contact information.
If it is lackluster, I’ll just deal with topics every other hack blogger and radio personality touches upon because it’s not like anyone would be reading me anyway.
You will help prove that bully on my block who has been calling me a failure since kindergarten right.
THE FALL-TIME RAMMY
Moving on to the second order of business, it is time to present the fall-time Rammy, a spin-off of the springtime Rammy Awards that debuted in a May column of mine.
The fall-time Rammy went to the student who told the best story in this space.
Marketing junior Carlos Vera and management sophomore Ryan Brock both told great stories. Brock hit the game-winning shot in a Louisiana Class 5A state championship basketball game against his neighborhood rivals. Vera, then a high school martial artist, scored a tae kwon do victory against his toughest opponent just months after his father left him alone to help his mother raise his little brother.
However, nothing I heard this semester topped the story Little League World Series winner Keaton Postler, a music business freshman from Tampa, Fla., shared.
Every child in each of the world’s seven continents who steps into a batter’s box toting a bat or takes a position on a diamond dreams about winning a World Series under the floodlights of a stadium packed by thousands and in front of a television audience of millions. I know I did. Well, Postler got the chance, and he seized it. At 15, during the Junior League World Series in Taylor, Mich., he posted an insane .417 batting average and helped his team of Little Leaguers from Palma Ceia-Bay Shore conquer the world. My hat’s off to you, Keaton. Enjoy your Rammy.
