MY DAD

It's hard for me to single out my favorite memory involving my dad.  There are too many of them.

Anyone who knows Jeff Class knows that as much as he is anything else, he's an athlete.  As a little kid looking up to him, his strength and ability seemed beyond all reckoning.

From the time I was around 9 up until I was in my early twenties, it seems like my dad and my brothers and I must have played thousands of basketball games on the driveway.  We probably really did, too.  Thousands.

At times it was indescribably fun to spend two or three hours running around and playing our hearts out.  My enduring memory of my dad from those endless contests really has nothing to do with anything he could do on the court.  He was a decent re-bounder and a streaky outside shooter, though he was usually the best player on the court, depending on which of the neighborhood kids joined us.  And they did join us, too....kids from all over the neighborhood flocked to our house to play games, because everyone knew we had a dad who actually enjoyed being out there with us, and there's always been a very powerful, very natural magnetism my dad has with boys of a certain age.  Boys just see him and want to be like him, it's always been that way.

But what I reflect on now, as a man looking back at those times, was the absolutely pure sense of sportsmanship he brought to those games.  He liked to win, no doubt.  But five minutes after the game, it never seemed to make the slightest bit of difference to him who won or lost the game.  He just loved to compete.  He didn't cheat; he didn't abuse his power, and being, often times, the only adult out there, he easily could have.  He didn't dislike you for beating him, he didn't gloat when he beat you, and if you were lazy or sloppy, he'd point it out to you, but he had a way of doing it that helped you realize why you lose sometimes in life.  And in the rare game where some just whooped him hands down, he never had any problem congratulating you, shaking your hand and saying nice job, today was your day.  I've seen my dad get beaten many, many times, but I've never once seen him hang his head in shame, or seen the agony of defeat on his face.  Never.

I know that love of competition, and that sense of sportsmanship and fair play has rubbed off on me.  If I can pass it on half as well as he did, I'll be a happy guy.

Happy Birthday Pops!

John