Reading names for our school's commencement ceremony: The single most terrifying gig ever

This evening, the 102nd Wickliffe High/Upper School graduating class will walk across the stage and receive their diplomas.

It will be an occasion for celebration and reflection, as it always is.

I wouldn't normally attend this commencement, as all five of my kids have already graduated, but I'll be there tonight in a working capacity. I have the distinct honor and dread of being the person whose job it is to announce the graduates' names.

Look, I'm not shy when it comes to a microphone. I've announced hundreds of sporting events from the youth level to the minor leagues. I've done freelance MC work for corporate events. For some years I was the superintendent/MC for our church's annual Bible school. The announcing/hosting thing is what I do.

This is different. I always try to be perfect when I'm on the mic, but with a soccer game, for example, there's some leeway if you mess up a kid's name.

Not so with graduation. Each of those young people in the caps and gowns will have several friends and family members in attendance cheering them on and recording the moment on their phones for posterity.

The person who announces their name has one shot and one shot only to get it right. Botch it and the kid's parents will be stewing over the memory years later.

This is the first year I've taken on this assignment. Recently I talked it over with Ryan Beeler, the person who handled the reading of names at Wickliffe commencement for many years before me. Ryan is an articulate guy and an excellent teacher and football coach. He knows how to speak to large groups of people.

But when I brought up the fact that I was taking his place (as he is now teaching at another school) and asked him for any advice, the first thing he said was, "Oh man, I hated it."

He didn't hate commencement, of course. He hated the pressure of getting 100+ kids' names right at one of the most important moments of their lives.

I'm right there with you, Mr. B.

Still, I wasn't especially nervous about this until a month ago when I was talking with a soon-to-be Wickliffe graduate named John Colacarro. John is a funny, bright, highly accomplished kid who has achieved a lot in his high school career and will achieve a lot in whatever he chooses to do in life.

I casually mentioned that I would be reading names at commencement, and he jokingly told me, "Make sure you get mine right!"

I laughed. I've known Julie, one of John's moms, for decades. I was saying "Julie Colacarro" long before John was ever born.

Except I always said it the way most Wickliffe people said it: "col-uh-CARE-oh."

Turns out that's wrong. Dead wrong. John informed me it's actually pronounced "cola-CAR-oh." "Cola," as in the beverage, middle syllable "car" like the vehicle rather than "care."

I'm sorry, what? How did I never know that?

More to the point, he's one kid out of dozens whose names I'll be tasked with announcing. What other pronunciation traps await me tonight if I can't instinctively nail the one I thought I was most familiar with?

To be fair, I'll be attending commencement practice this morning, and I'll have the chance to ask each graduate personally how to say their names correctly.

But I won't lie: I'm already sweating this one out. No one will be more relieved tonight when the last kid gets his/her diploma and they all toss their caps into the air.

It will give me just enough time to run home and avoid the angry mob of families whose names I've butchered.

A little self-doubt can actually be the greatest motivator

I try not to write too often about my sports public address (PA) announcing side hustle, as it's a pretty niche little world and not all that relevant to most people.

However, I sometimes learn life lessons from announcing that are worth sharing. One such instance occurred last month.

By way of background, I am the PA guy (i.e., the person whose voice you hear over the loudspeakers in the gym, arena or outdoor stadium during sporting events) for just about everything that gets announced at the Wickliffe (Ohio) Upper School, formerly Wickliffe High School.

That means I get to be the voice of the band, football, volleyball, boys and girls soccer, and boys and girls basketball. I also step in during the winter and spring months to do Senior Nights for "non-announced" sports like swimming, tennis, baseball and softball.

In addition, I do quite a bit of work at Perry High School (basketball, soccer, track) and University School (soccer, hockey), along with regular substitute PA announcing work at Cleveland State University (soccer, basketball, volleyball, lacrosse) and other local schools.

Altogether, I announce more than 100 events every year, and I enjoy all of it. It's a fun hobby.

I worked for several years to secure my ongoing announcing gigs, but there has always been this expectation that I would keep trying to move up to the next level, whatever that might be.

I've never presumed I have the chops to announce for any of the big three sports teams in Cleveland: the Browns, Guardians or Cavaliers. But our region's minor league teams have always seemed obtainable, as has a permanent gig for one of Cleveland State's higher-profile programs like men's basketball at the Wolstein Center.

In the past couple of years, I've had three opportunities to audition for minor-league PA spots.

The first was for the NBA G League Cleveland Charge in early 2023. I had a tryout for that job and didn't make the cut. The guy who got the gig, David Kammerman, absolutely deserved it. He's good!

The second was for the Class AA baseball Akron RubberDucks earlier this year. I sent in an audition video, but I wasn't even selected as a finalist. Guess who got that job? Dave again, and again, he deserved it. The man has pipes.

When Dave took the Akron job, I messaged him a note of congratulations, and he mentioned how his previous baseball employer, the Lake County Captains (the high Class A affiliate of the Cleveland Guardians), would now be looking for a PA replacement. At his encouragement, I reached out to them.

The Captains ended up having an open public tryout for their PA announcing position, as well as for the roles of on-field host, mascot and drummer. They were expecting 40 people to come in that day, and from what I could tell, most were trying out for PA announcer.

My voice wasn't in peak shape, as I was still recovering from a cold, but I went anyway and gave it my best shot.

I came in assuming I didn't stand much of a chance. Two reasons for that:

(1) What many professional teams are looking for when it comes to a PA guy is someone with that naturally deep, bass/baritone voice. You know what I mean. It's the voice you hear advertising monster truck rallies on the radio ("SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY!") I simply don't have that. My voice is an octave higher, more in the tenor-to-baritone range. I describe my style only half-jokingly as "congenial white guy TV host."

(2) I had already fallen short in my two previous professional auditions. I was thus somewhat resigned to the idea that I was not of the caliber to work for a pro team.

The Captains audition was on a Tuesday. The following Friday afternoon I received an email from the team offering me a position as one of their PA announcers.

Imagine my surprise.

There are three of us sharing PA duties for the Captains this season. One is an established veteran named Wayne, while the other is an up-and-coming younger guy named Mitch. Both are fantastic PA pros.

To date I've only done a few games, but the fact is, against my own expectations, I got the gig.

In retrospect, I think the self-doubt worked to my advantage. I went into that audition vowing I would just be myself, come what may, and that's exactly what I did. I read in my normal announcing voice without trying to be SUNDAY! SUNDAY! SUNDAY! guy. That's not me, and I'm not going to pretend it is.

You're better off just being yourself in almost every situation, personal and professional.

I also came in with a bit of a chip on my shoulder. Subconsciously, I thought, "I'll show these people." That put a bit of an edge and some energy into my tryout reads.

In the end, I achieved my goal because a large part of me didn't think I could.

Does that make sense? I'm not sure it does.

All I know is, mission accomplished. Long-hoped-for PA announcing milestone achieved.

And I couldn't be happier.

Stop yelling at sports officials (says the guy who used to yell at sports officials)

There is a story that comes up regularly in our family about the time my son Jared was playing high school soccer and got run over (like, literally run over) by a member of the opposing team.

Jared had fallen and was down on the field, and this kid – I want to say "this punk," but I'll restrain myself – just ran right up his back and stepped on his head as if Jared was part of the turf.

It was reckless, dangerous and blatantly unsportsmanlike, yet no foul was called on the play. The athletic trainer came out and tended to Jared, then escorted him off the field to rest and recover.

I was livid about the whole thing, especially about the fact that there would be no consequences for the kid's actions. So I started yelling some not-so-nice things at the officiating crew from my seat in the stands.

Just as I thought I had gotten it out of my system and started to sit back down, I quickly stood back up and aimed a very unkind remark at the center referee, who was somewhat heftier than soccer officials normally are.

(Because we're friends, I will tell you that my exact words to him were, "And lay off the donuts!" I will also tell you that I was immediately embarrassed and ashamed I said it, though it delighted our friends the Pugh family to no end. It still gets brought up whenever we see them.)

I mention that story to establish the fact that I am a hypocrite when I tell you we all need to stop yelling at officials, especially those working youth and high school games. I'm not in a position to make this demand of you.

Yet I'm doing it anyway because I hear people do it all the time when I'm working as a public address announcer at various local schools.

There was a game recently at my home school of Wickliffe involving an opponent whose fans are generally very nice and pleasant, but that always seems to have a contingent of screamers. That obnoxiously vocal minority was horrible to the three referees working our boys basketball game.

Just as I was embarrassed by my own comments years earlier, I was embarrassed for them. They set a bad example for the kids in the crowd, and they represented their school and community poorly.

They also cast themselves as a big part of the problem when it comes to why we have such a shortage of officials to work youth and scholastic sports in this country. Loudmouth parents/fans make it an entirely unappealing experience.

What people like me and like them fail to realize is that the job of a sports official is hard. It's insanely difficult to catch every infraction and to find the right balance between keeping athletes safe and making sure they as referees are not disrupting the flow of the game.

You wouldn't be good at it, no matter how highly you think of yourself.

So – and I say this as politely as possible and with no more conviction than when I said it to myself after the Jared soccer incident – you need to shut up. Seriously, don't make things worse. Just keep your mouth closed.

You won't change the call, but you almost certainly will be a shameful example for everyone around you. And you'll make it less likely that anyone with any common sense will ever want to become an official.

Thank you for understanding, and for restricting your comments only to those words that positively support your team.

And even if you're not a hefty soccer official, it's not a bad idea to lay off the donuts every once in a while, either.

In the bleak Ohio midwinter

It has been mentioned here (more than once) that my wife and I have lived in one city our whole lives.

We've traveled to many places, but we've never really wanted to live anywhere else.

Still, no place is perfect, and Northeast Ohio has its flaws. Like the weather, for instance.

More to the point, the weather in November through March (and some years October through April).

We live a few miles away from Lake Erie and are often recipients of the dreaded "lake-effect snow." Our town is right on the edge of the Snow Belt, meaning that if Downtown Cleveland gets 2 inches of snow, we are likely to get 6 or more.

And even when the snow isn't piling up, it's still unfailingly gray, dreary and cold this time of year.

Indeed, January is not Wickliffe, Ohio's best moment, and we're entering the heart of it. These coming few weeks are historically some of the worst our area has to offer, weather-wise.

So we collectively grit our teeth and get through it.

The reward is a beautiful late spring and summer that, to me anyway, is unlike anything you'll experience elsewhere. It's more than enough of a payoff for the unchanging bleakness of the winter months.

But we have a long way to go before that comes, so onward we push.

Not that it's all misery around here in January, February and March, mind you. Our basketball team is pretty good right now, as is our minor league hockey team.

And if you're into skiing or other outdoor winter sports, you could do worse than Northeast Ohio.

I just...well, the older I get, the less patience I have with Old Man Winter.

He needs to get his butt in gear and shuffle on out of here so that this "sunshine" we hear about from our friends to the south is once again less myth and more reality.

The old band uniforms in our living room are full of meaning

As recently as mid-November, these old band uniforms and hats were still sitting on a table in our living room.

Just before our local high school was torn down a year and a half ago, my wife heroically rescued a wealth of Wickliffe Swing Band artifacts that otherwise would have been destined for the dumpster.

Like someone pulling valuables out of a city about to be overrun by an invading army, Terry loaded up her car with old band photos, trophies, uniforms, recordings and other memorabilia.

The fact that the school didn't appear interested in making the effort to save most of it was somewhat despairing, but that's a different conversation for a different time.

The result was that, for many months, our basement and garage have been filled with band stuff. This has only been an inconvenience when I've had to haul around boxes of heavy old trophies and plaques from as far back as the 1950s. Those were the only times I complained.

Otherwise, I'm glad our house could serve as an impromptu storage facility for what I consider to be vital artifacts from our city's history.

Because all of these items mean something. They are reminders of generations of Wickliffe musicians and their directors, and of the hard work that went into countless halftime performances, Christmas concerts and jazz band performances.

They are not nuisance items to be swept aside in support of some vague notion of "progress." They are tangible remnants of an institution that has, for decades, been important to our community. They should be preserved. They should be with the people who care about them and about the band itself.

As I type this in mid-November, we still have most of these items in various places around our house. Terry was able to give away some of the uniforms to various alumni, and her plan is to give away as many of the other items as possible at some point soon (with an encouragement to make a donation to the band if you take something).

In the meantime, it's all still here. The trophy the band received for its participation in the 1981 Nordonia Festival of Bands, the plaque it was given for marching in the 1977 Fairview International Band Festival, the composite photo of band members from the 2001-02 school year, and countless other bits of nostalgia are strewn about our living room, our basement storage room, and our garage.

And I couldn't be more proud.

Any community or organization is the product of its own history. That history shapes us all. We really shouldn't be so quick to throw it away.

I simply cannot call my former teachers by their first names

I had forgotten the fact that virtually all of my male teachers in the 70s and 80s used to wear coats and ties to school every day.

Over the last couple of years, I've enjoyed writing a series of "Where Are They Now?" articles for my high school alumni association newsletter.

These pieces, as you might imagine, spotlight a retired teacher, administrator and/or coach who spent a significant number of years working within our school district.

I love connecting with these folks. Their stories are uniformly interesting to me, from the reasons they originally got into education to their favorite memories at Wickliffe to the things they've been doing since retirement.

I relish forming new and deeper connections with people who had such an impact on my life many years ago. I end up feeling much closer to them now than I ever could have as a student back in the 1980s.

That familiarity, however, only goes so far. More than once when I've gotten on the phone to interview them and said "Hello, Mrs. ______________!" I have been admonished to call them by their first names.

"You've been out of school for a long time now. Call me ___________________," is the type of thing they will say.

Each time, though, I politely refuse. I realize these former authority figures don't hold the same place in my life now as they did way back when, but I still admire each of them deeply. And to me, it will always be Mr./Mrs. Last Name and never, ever "Pat" or "Dan" or "Barbara" or "Bill" or whatever the case may be.

I just can't do it. I could no sooner be on a first-name basis with them as I could with the Pope.

I'll bet most people my age can identify with this feeling. I'm one to tell my kids' friends to call me by my first name, especially once they graduate, but there's a part of me that resists doing the same for my old teachers and coaches.

Call it deep respect, even reverence. I will always consider myself to be one or two notches lower than them in the hierarchy of adult relationships.

Which I think says something about the high esteem to which we should hold educators in our society.

What I didn't tell the kids I spoke to at football camp

Photo credit: Kathy Rypinski

Last month, I had the privilege of briefly addressing a group of young boys getting ready to participate in the Wickliffe Football Camp.

When I say "briefly addressing," I mean it. This was a collection of nearly 40 kids from kindergarten through 6th grade who just wanted to run around, learn a thing or two about football, and generally have fun. They couldn't have been especially interested in what some middle-aged guy who hadn't played the sport in nearly four decades had to say.

So I kept my remarks very brief, as you might imagine.

I talked about my own experiences playing in Wickliffe. I talked about the city's great football tradition. I talked about my role as an announcer for Blue Devil football games and how I couldn't wait to announce their names on Friday nights in just a few years.

That kind of thing.

I was looking to motivate them a little and get them even more excited for what they would be doing at camp.

What I didn't want to tell them was that they had chosen a fiercely difficult sport...one that could be frustrating and even dangerous at times.

I didn't tell them how, in the middle of my sophomore season, seeing no clear path to ever becoming a starter at the varsity level, I wanted to quit football.

I didn't tell them how my forearms, every year from August through October, were bruised various shades of purple and yellow from all of the blocking and hitting we did in practices and games.

I didn't tell them there were times I got hit so hard I saw stars.

Or about the practice when I took a handoff, got tackled low by one of my teammates, and found both knees swollen and full of fluid just an hour later.

I didn't mention the fact that I opted not to lift weights in the offseason as so many guys did, and that this hurt my chances of getting more playing time (though I always thought this was fair...it was my decision, and there were rightful consequences for it).

I didn't bring up the time in a junior varsity game when I got speared in the groin and went down in intense pain, having to reveal to my coach that I stupidly wasn't wearing a cup because I thought it slowed me down.

I didn't talk about the sweat and pain of endless summer double session practices.

Yet maybe I should have brought up some or all of that. Because collectively, those experiences made playing football one of the best decisions of my life. I learned all of the cliched lessons about toughness, determination, persistence, teamwork, etc.

They were probably too young to realize how anything worth doing is probably going to come with some discomfort, and how there would be times they would question their decision to engage in it in the first place.

That will all come later. For now, they just needed to know that running, catching and throwing a football around is a heck of a lot of fun.

They'll learn the deeper lessons in time.

Be grateful for the ability and opportunity to do the things you love

It was a Friday evening about a month ago and I was dragging.

It was the end of a busy week and I was getting ready to head out for what would be my eighth sports PA announcing gig in as many nights.

I love announcing, just love it. But I was struggling to find the energy and enthusiasm I like to bring to the mic.

For one thing, my beloved Wickliffe Blue Devils boys basketball team was playing a powerful opponent in Crestwood that evening. Wickliffe had lost the first match-up of the two teams a few weeks earlier by 27 points, and there was no reason to think that night's result was going to be any different.

I try to be lively and professional in my announcing whether my teams are winning or losing, but going in knowing a loss was likely made it that much more difficult to get up for the game.

There are also the simple logistics of announcing. It's not hard work by any definition, but it does inevitably involve a certain level of time and effort if you're going to do it right.

Even when the gig is just down the hill at the Campus of Wickliffe, as it was that evening, I have to pack everything up, drive to the school, unload and bring it all into the building, set up, test everything, get my hands on rosters and officials' names, confirm pronunciations of all visiting players' names as well as the referees, and confer with the athletic director about any special events or announcements.

Then I sit at my assigned table near courtside practicing introductions and announcements to minimize flubs and, more importantly, make sure I'm adding to (and not detracting from) the experience for everyone in attendance.

Like I said, it's not ditch digging or roofing or anything, but it takes work, both physical and mental. And I had been doing it over and over again every night for more than a week. I was ready for a break.

It wasn't until I walked into the gym in the middle of the junior varsity game, with my announcing backpack over my shoulder and my rolling equipment case in tow behind me, that my attitude changed.

You couldn't help but notice people clapping and cheering. Kids were sitting with their friends in the stands having a good time. The cheerleaders and pep band were eagerly getting ready to perform. It was exactly the type of positive, wholesome atmosphere that has always attracted me to PA announcing in the first place.

It was at that moment I remembered this is something I get to do and not something I have to do.

I always say announcing – particularly at my alma mater – is a true privilege, but sometimes I don't treat it that way.

The instant I started seeing this assignment through eyes of gratitude, everything became that much more enjoyable, and I found myself with more energy than I knew what to do with.

All of which is to say that even in the midst of busy and stressful times, if you're blessed to do things you love doing, whatever they may be, never forget to be thankful.

Be thankful you're given the opportunity to do them and that you have the ability to do them.

Often when I'm out walking and running in the morning, I will say a prayer of thanks for the most basic elements of that 30-minute exercise period: the breaths I draw, the steps I take, and the moments I experience.

None of those things is guaranteed, and I'm entitled to exactly zero of them. Yet God gives them to me anyway.

Even when I'm tired, bored, or for whatever reason generally disengaged while doing something, that realization alone is enough to refocus my attention and heighten the experience.

By the way, Wickliffe lost the game that night by 36 points, but I still loved every minute of the gig. It was another chance to do what I enjoy doing and to realize there's no absolutely no guarantee I'll ever get to do it again.

By the end, it didn't feel like the eighth night of announcing in a row at all. I was actually kind of sad there wasn't another announcing date on the calendar the next evening.

In defense of marching band

Photo credit: Mrs. Terry Tennant

"This one time at band camp" jokes aside, there is much to be said for high school marching bands.

They create a special atmosphere at Friday night football games. They perform at halftime, play the fight song after touchdowns, and bring an air of excitement to the proceedings as they march into and out of the stadium.

Just as important, though, is what the band – as both a school organization and a social ethos – does for its members.

For many, band is their strongest and sometimes only real connection to the school. They don't necessarily fit elsewhere, but when they get together with their peers in the band room, they feel at home.

Band kids are their people.

I was and wasn't a band nerd. I played the saxophone, but I never marched a routine in my life. Because I also played football, I was excused from marching band and wouldn't pick up my instrument until November when football season ended and we started rehearsing Christmas music.

So I never experienced the family atmosphere that is perhaps unique to marching ensembles.

It took having five kids (all of whom spent at least some time in marching band), a heavily involved wife and a now-10-year stint as the Wickliffe Swing Band announcer for me to really understand it all.

Every high school band endures its share of derision from other students, but that is perhaps less true at Wickliffe. The Swing Band is well regarded within the school and around our community, so its members are maybe a notch or two higher on the social scale than they would be in other places.

Still, in the end, a band geek is a band geek. Most of them gladly wear the title and wouldn't trade their high school band experience for anything.

For more kids than you may realize, band is the one thing that gets them through four otherwise miserable years of high school.

So go ahead and make fun of their weird hats, the corny songs they play and the faux military discipline on display at every performance. Call them whatever you want.

They're too busy playing loudly and proudly to even hear you.

I recently had my second bout with Covid...still zero stars, do not recommend

Terry and I both contracted Covid back in January 2021 and were down and out for a solid week. I was kind of hoping that would be my one and only experience with it.

But the virus was nice enough to mutate and hit me again last month. And once again, it took a solid week (and then some) for me to come back. This time, for good measure, I also experienced the loss of taste and smell I had somehow avoided with the first go-round.

Everyone who gets Covid seems to have somewhat different experiences. For me, both times it has been a combination of a nasty head cold with flu-like symptoms that have included fever/chills and a general feeling of extreme "blah," if you know what I mean.

Sickness of any type tries my patience. I simply don't have time for illness, which is why, by day #3 of Covid the Sequel, I was antsy and annoyed. I had work to do. I was missing PA announcing gigs and the income that goes with them. I got tired just cleaning a single toilet, let alone an entire bathroom.

When I get sick, I don't become self-pitying so much as bitter and angry. I HAVE NO TIME FOR THIS.

Speaking of PA announcing, the previous weekend's assignments are likely where I picked up this latest round of Covid. That Friday I had announced a Wickliffe football game, and the next day I did both college volleyball at Cleveland State University and a band festival in the nearby town of Solon.

At some point during one of those events, some attendee unknowingly shared the virus with me. I'm all for sharing, but you can keep this particular gift to yourself, Patient Zero.

I will go way out on a limb to give you this expert medical opinion: Covid sucks. Do not get it.

More than half a century later, we still live in our hometown

My opinion of Wickliffe, Ohio, is not to be trusted.

No matter what aspect of the city you're talking about, I'm going to paint the rosiest picture possible. I will ignore the issues and tout the traditions. I will gloss over population loss and economic blight and instead draw your attention to our wonderful high school Swing Band and the fact that we have seven beautiful parks in just four square miles.

Five minutes with me and you'll be convinced Wickliffe is paradise on earth.

I know this about myself. I know I am incapable of looking at this city – the place I've lived for all of my 53 years – with anything resembling objectivity.

It's one reason why, when friends have suggested I run for school board or city government, I have declined. I would be incapable of addressing the problems our community and our schools face simply because I often refuse to admit there are any problems.

Well, there's that and the fact I really don't want to get 10:30pm phone calls from residents complaining their trash hasn't been picked up or the guy next door is playing his Metallica records too loud.

It should be noted that while I've lived in just three houses my entire life (each within two miles or so of the others), I am not sheltered or insulated. I have traveled somewhat extensively, both within the U.S. and internationally, for business and pleasure.

I've visited many places. I've met many people. I've experienced dozens of cultures.

And yet my wife and I are Wickliffe lifers. More importantly, we're intentional lifers. We are blessed to be in a financial position that allows us to live in a wide range of places. We have options.

What we have chosen, however, is to remain in the 44092.

Why? Why stay in a city that has lost 40% of its people since 1970? Why remain in a town that has seen so many of its anchor businesses pack up and leave, has no grocery store, and according to some, is slipping into the abyss in a hundred other ways?

Those are legitimate questions, not all of which I can answer convincingly. But I'll give you five reasons why we've stayed, and why we're likely to be here at least a while longer, if not forever. Take these for what they're worth.

#1: I believe in the current administration
Mayor Joe Sakacs, who took office 15 months ago, is a bundle of energy and enthusiasm. He has grabbed the easy wins while still taking on the bigger economic development challenges that have stymied past city leaders. He communicates well, seems to work closely with his council and staff, and has a vision for what the city can be. Never underestimate the power of a well-crafted vision.

#2: I believe that what once was can be again
One of the criticisms leveled at this community (and rightfully so) is that the city and the schools are bound by tradition. We stick to ways of doing things because that's the way we've always done them. I'm always one to seek new and better approaches, but understand this: Much of what is labeled "tradition" is simply a recognition that, in many respects, we were a better Wickliffe at some point in the not-too-distant past. We were closer to our neighbors. We were optimistic. We had a solid tax base and a school system that produced alumni who went on to do great things. We still have elements of that, but at some point we drifted into mediocrity. It doesn't have to be that way.

#3: I believe in my neighbors
People from surrounding communities will often comment on the closeness of Wickliffe-ites. "You all know each other," they say, or "You all talk the same." In some cases, we have been – nicely, I think – labeled "a cult." However you characterize it, there is a bond from having grown up and/or lived here. As my football coach always said, "Wickliffe kids are never the biggest, and maybe they're not the fastest, but they always turn out to be the toughest." Calling it a "can-do" attitude is probably cliché, but people in this city band together and get stuff done.

#4 I believe in the power of a good school system
In a few months, the schools I attended will all be gone. My elementary school was demolished years ago, but now the middle and high schools will be razed as our students move into a beautiful new K-12 campus. In terms of how the state measures school performance – standardized testing, graduation rates, etc. – Wickliffe schools have never really been "bad," but they have been the very definition of "so so" for many years. The rapid advance of technology is changing the way we need to educate our children in the 21st century, and my hope is that the new building will facilitate this change. If we play our cards right, this can be a "destination district" where families want their kids to attend school. I believe that can happen, and that it will have an overwhelmingly positive effect on the community in the next decade and beyond.

#5 - I believe in the value of identity
I had the wholly undeserved honor of being inducted into the Wickliffe Schools Alumni Association Athletic Achievement Hall of Fame last September. In my acceptance speech I said this: "Each of us identifies ourselves in a variety of ways. We are husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles. We define ourselves by the jobs we work, by the hobbies we pursue, by the sports teams for which we root, and by the political views we hold. I'm certainly no different. First and foremost, I am husband and father. But not far behind on my personal list has always been 'Wickliffe Blue Devil.'" People who know me know I'm a "Wickliffe guy." And in that, I believe, is power. Positive change often comes about simply because a group of people with a shared identity and shared goals make it so. I think that can and will happen.

And so we stay. So far, it feels like the right choice.

The last go-round

 

The bandana'ed trumpet player pictured above is my son Jack. He is 16 1/2 years old (just had his "half birthday") and on the verge of his senior year in high school.

School doesn't officially start for another two weeks, but parents of kids who do fall extracurriculars know how this works. Jack is in band and runs cross country, both of which have been practicing for a month. His senior year started in earnest four weeks ago.

Terry and I have of course known this was coming for a long time. We've been through the senior experience with our four oldest kids and loved all of it. And we figured we would love it when Jack got to this milestone.

We'll do that, of course, but this time it's different. Jack is our youngest. Just as everything with Elissa was a "first" so many years ago, everything with Jack is a "last." Last cross country and track season, last marching band season, last first day of school, etc.

There is every reason to celebrate what is sure to be a fun 12th-grade year for a kid who does so well in school, plays the heck out of his trumpet, is serving as co-drum major and band president as well as a class officer, and is generally one of the funniest and fun-to-talk-with people I know.

It is, as they say, all good.

Yet there's something about the finality of it that is only just now starting to hit me. For a long time there was always more to come. A Tennant kid graduates? Yay! We'll do it again with the next one. Year after year, we had kids in Wickliffe sports and band.

But this is the final lap. And it's starting to smack me right in the feels.

We've had kids in Wickliffe Schools continuously since 1999. Before that, Terry and I were Wickliffe students ourselves. And before us, our siblings were also Blue Devils, stretching all the way back to 1963 in my family's case.

When Jack walks across that stage and picks up his diploma next May, it all comes to an end. It's not a tragedy or anything, of course, but it is bittersweet.

And I didn't necessarily expect that.

Terry and I are enjoying the semi-empty-nest life, believe me. We've put in much time and effort over the years ensuring that our kids' various activities provided the best experience possible, and that they themselves learned what they needed to learn to become independent, accomplished adults. You never "stop" being a parent, but the idea of moving into the next phase of our lives is alluring.

Yet...as I said, there are seriously mixed feelings.

If I were someone trying to make me feel better about this whole thing, I would say something like, "Hey, you have to enjoy it! No need dwelling on the negative side. Celebrate it! Live in the moment!" Which is spot on, though it doesn't remove the specter of every event, every accomplishment and every experience being the last of its kind for our family.

It's all about attitude, I suppose. And I'm going to do my best to embrace individual moments as they come. "The end" is really more a transition than a full stop. It's inevitable, and it doesn't have to be a bad thing.

It just got here a little faster than I anticipated, is all.

Please, please, please make sure you back up your home computer

We recently upgraded our personal computer. By my estimate, it now runs about a gajillion times faster than it did before.

That's great, but the big takeaway from the process for me was not "get yourself some fancy new hardware." It was the importance of maintaining a regular back-up schedule for your files.

We have so much valuable stuff on our desktop computer, from photos to financial information, that I don't even want to think about the consequences of losing it.

Still, for a day or so, we feared a good chunk of our stuff had gone to that great cyberspace trash bin in the sky. It was nerve-wracking.

We were working with local computer expert Tommy Otwell, a native Georgian who now lives in Wickliffe and knows more about hardware and software than I could ever possibly hope to learn.

Tommy rebuilds and sells computers and plays tech doctor for those in need. His rates are very low (to the point that I'm worried the man isn't making any money off of this), but he clearly knows his stuff inside and out.

I saw that Tommy was selling refurbished desktops and reached out to him about buying one. He looked at our current system specs and determined he could make our existing computer feel like new with only a few changes.

And, just as advertised, the system was screaming fast when he brought it back to us. It really was like having a new computer.

However, our precious and oft-used documents folder was missing dozens of subfolders and hundreds of files that had been there previously. These were files we used all of the time. I honestly panicked.

Thankfully, though, without getting into too much detail, Tommy recovered everything for us. It was a case of all's well that ends well when dealing with an old mechanical hard drive that was getting ready to fail.

Tommy rightfully scolded me for the fact that the most recent back-up I had of our documents was a year old. I thought I had done one more recently, but apparently not.

On Tommy's advice, I purchased a subscription to Carbonite, a service that automatically backs up your files on a regular basis and stores them on the mysterious Internet "cloud." Should something happen to our computer at any point, a very recent version of our stuff will be out there, just waiting to be restored.

I promised Tommy I would regularly check to ensure Carbonite is doing its job. I also promised him I would, every few months, use a can of compressed air to blow out the dust and cat hair that had accumulated in and around the CPU.

Seriously, you could have knitted a sweater with the stuff that was trapped in the cooling fan.

The point, ladies and gentlemen, is that your computer serves you well. Make sure you return the favor by treating it to some much-needed maintenance every once in a while.

As hobbies go, sports PA announcing is a strange but fun one

The high school sports season has kicked off here in Northeast Ohio, though I generally refer to it as "announcing season."

I have picked up a variety of public address announcing gigs these last few years, mostly through Wickliffe High School. It all started with the Wickliffe Swing Band, whose announcer I became back in 2014 (making this the start of my eighth season on the mic for this great institution). In subsequent years I've taken on Blue Devil boys and girls soccer, volleyball, and boys and girls basketball.

All of that, in turn, has led to separate engagements announcing for the Mentor Ice Breakers hockey team; Lake Erie College; University School; Perry, Mayfield, and Riverside high schools; and even a Division I men's college basketball game for Cleveland State University.

I've often said that PA announcers are much like football linemen: In ideal circumstances, you don't even realize they're there. Our job as announcers is to enhance the experience for both fans and players, all while staying out of the way and melting into the background.

The kids are and always will be the show. Just as no one comes to the ballpark to watch an umpire call balls and strikes, no one buys a ticket to hear the guy talking over the public address system.

That doesn't mean we don't do our jobs without enthusiasm. These kids who work so hard on their chosen sports deserve robust introductions and verbal recognition of their achievements. The trick is to balance energy with restraint.

The best I've ever seen and heard doing that was the late Ray Milavec, who taught, coached, and announced at Wickliffe for decades before passing away in 2016. He was a master at the craft, if you want to call it that.

Between now and mid-October, if all goes as planned, I will have announced something on the order of 40 total volleyball matches and soccer games, not to mention halftime band performances and miscellaneous band festivals. I also run the scoreboard for girls soccer.

And I can't tell you what a privilege it is to do all of it. I get a little sad when fall sports end, but six or so weeks later I'm back at it doing basketball, which makes for a very fun winter.

Some people collect stamps. I strive to pronounce kids' names correctly into a microphone. To each his own.

We once took a (failed) excursion through the woods to meet Cleveland Indians second basemen Duane Kuiper

I recently had coffee with my buddy Ann Marie. She was the one who forwarded the initial email that led to me interviewing for and accepting my new position at Goodyear. I start there in two short days and will be forever grateful to her for sending me the opportunity (the coffee I bought her doesn't even begin to repay her adequately).

Ann Marie lives in the Big Turtle condominium complex in Willoughby. When many of those condos were being built in the late 70s, my friends and I used to play in and around the semi-constructed buildings all the time.

As I related to Ann Marie, the most famous Big Turtle resident back then was a man by the name of Duane Kuiper, who played second base for my beloved Cleveland Indians. For decades, most pro athletes in Cleveland have lived on the west side of town, so it was exciting that at least one of them chose to live out in our area.

Kuiper played for the Tribe through the 1981 season, so I'm guessing it was probably 1979 or 1980 when my friends and I got it in our heads that we were going to walk to the Big Turtle condos and meet him.

To get there, you had to go through Douglas Woods, a several-acre plot of trees and trails where we hung out quite a bit, and which sadly no longer exists. At some point when you walked through the woods, you crossed the border from Wickliffe into Willoughby.

I remember emerging from the woods on the Willoughby side next to the western-most Big Turtle condos, and only then did it occur to us that:

(a) We had no idea exactly where Duane Kuiper lived. There were/are two large Big Turtle complexes, and we lacked even the first clue where his condo was located.

(b) We also had no idea what we were going to do once we got there. Knock on the door? Throw stones at his window until he came out? And would he even be home?

We simply hadn't considered any of this in our feeble 10-year-old minds until we actually got to our destination.

Our solution was simply to give up, play in the woods, and throw rocks at each other, which we used to do all the time.

We never did meet Duane Kuiper, but I'm guessing we had more fun in the woods that day anyway.

Remembering Dave Sasek on the Fourth of July

This is Dave.

Earlier this year a childhood friend of mine named Dave Sasek passed away in a car accident. I hadn't spoken to Dave in a number of years, but like many who graduated from Wickliffe in the late 80s/early 90s, the tragedy of it really knocked me for a loop.

The years in which I hung around with Dave were relatively short, starting maybe in sixth grade and lasting into the early part of high school. He lived on the next street over from me and we played football together.

I'm thinking of Dave today in particular because of an episode that happened on this day in (I want to say) 1984 or so. Dave and I, along with our friends Matt and Kevin, attended the Wickliffe fireworks and were walking home afterward, since none of us could yet drive.

We passed a yard in which some little kids were playing with sparklers. Dave paused, looked at them, and said very matter of factly, "You'd better stop that, or the police are going to come and set you on fire."

It was stupid, obnoxious, and utterly perplexing. And I couldn't stop laughing. When you're a 14-year-old boy, trust me when I say you laugh at dumb things like this constantly.

Yet it was right in line with Dave's twisted-but-intelligent sense of humor. He did stuff like that all the time, and he was one of the few people who could make me laugh on cue.

Dave also turned me on to the music of The Doors, and we played quite a few hours of Atari in his basement together. That was where we found the secret dot in the Atari game "Adventure" and discovered the message hidden in the game by the designer...quite the find at the time.

Anyway, as  I said, we lost track of each other post-graduation, but I was incredibly sorry to hear what happened to him. I just may light a sparkler in his memory tonight (and believe me when I say I'll be giggling in his honor the whole time).

Your local city government is probably way more complex than you think it is

A typical city records commission meeting looks like this. The woman on the left appears to be enjoying herself, but note the glazed expressions of the other three commission members.

The only time most of us give much thought to the people and systems that govern the individual towns and cities in which we live is when something goes wrong.

Garbage didn't get picked up? Call your councilperson.

City pools not opening on time or to your satisfaction? Rail against the mayor.

Fail the sewer dye test when you're trying to move? The local ordinances are too restrictive.

I'm not saying this is good or bad, it just is. Much like offensive linemen in football, city officials only get noticed when something isn't running smoothly.

I recently got a small glimpse into a tiny corner of our local government when I agreed to serve as the resident representative on the Wickliffe Records Commission. This small body is so obscure that even one of our local councilpersons had to ask me exactly what it does (and I don't blame them...trust me, it's pretty low-profile).

The Records Commission deals with public information requests. City governments have to make a reasonable effort to comply when someone asks to see copies of public documents. This could include everything from city employee records to lists of vacant properties to copies of various permits.

The Records Commission meets twice a year and is charged with ensuring these public records requests are properly responded to, filed with the State of Ohio, and then shredded/destroyed after an established period of time. In addition to the resident rep, the Commission also includes our mayor, law director, finance director, and clerk of council.

The Commission isn't even the body that actually makes copies and fulfills these requests. We just review the most recent requests and ensure the process is functioning as it's supposed to. My first in-person meeting lasted all of about 20 minutes (and could have finished in about five).

Some may see this as a waste of time, but it's a required part of the process, and in my mind it helps to ensure the city is being as transparent as possible with its business.

So if you've ever wondered what your city officials are doing in exchange for the (meager) salary or stipend they receive for their service, the answer is quite often sitting in meetings trying to understand why someone has requested a list of every licensed dog in town and the names and addresses of their owners.

They're tearing down my high school, but I was more sad when they got rid of my elementary school

 

Rendering of the new Wickliffe Schools campus

One of the biggest things going on right now in my little hometown of Wickliffe, Ohio, is the building of a new PK-12 school campus. It's a long, long, long overdue project, and it's going to bring our educational facilities out of the early to mid-20th century and into the 21st.

One result is that our three current school buildings will all be torn down. I attended two of those (the middle and high schools) and have plenty of memories wrapped up in both.

Still, I'm completely fine with it, given the expense of operating those ancient structures and the  opportunities afforded to our students at the new campus.

What I haven't gotten over, though, is the demolition of good old Mapledale Elementary, the school that stood at the end of my street where I attended kindergarten through sixth grade. That one hurt.

I spent more than half of my public school career there. I developed a love of reading, of sports, and of music there. In many ways I grew up at Mapledale.

And now it's gone, replaced by nice little houses for somewhat older folks without children, as I understand it.

Wickliffe students nowadays are dumbfounded when I tell them our city used to have three separate elementary schools. Those schools shaped so many lives, but they've faded into distant memory.

That's progress for you. On balance it's a good thing, but the older you get, the sadder it is when vestiges of your childhood fall victim to the bulldozer.

I'm glad we learned French in grade school in my town

I've mentioned this before, but I grew up in a school district where everyone took French from the time they were in first grade.

I actually studied the language nonstop from the age of 6 through my third year of college. I am not fluent in it because I was never in a situation where I was forced to speak it in order to survive, but I can read it fairly well, and my vocabulary is still pretty expansive.

The advantages of having taken French at such a young age were not limited to a better understanding of the French language and Franophone culture in general. It also gave me a better command of English. I've always said the French composition class I took at John Carroll advanced my writing skills more than any English composition class could have.

It also helped that I enjoyed all of the French teachers I had (all of whom, with one exception in college, were female, by the way). There was old Madame McCoy in the early grades. She would push her little cart of French books and flash cards from classroom to classroom and try her best to get us to learn the most basic French words.

Later it was Mademoiselles Chader and Gagliano, then Mesdames Rees and Whitehorn. They were all excellent teachers, and each left an indelible impression on me.

Mlle. Gagliano later became Madame Pumphrey, and we remain Facebook friends to this day. In sixth grade I remember her having us do a project that resulted in me writing a one-man play that I acted out in class, all in terrible, terrible French. But it was such a beneficial exercise because it forced me to make good use of my French-English dictionary, and it gave me a better understanding of verb conjugation and tenses, which were the major focus of instruction in Madame Rees' class the following year.

Wickliffe, like most public school districts of which I know, has long since abandoned the practice of elementary-school language instruction, which is too bad. I assume it's a matter of resources and the effects of state testing, but I feel it's a huge loss. If nothing else, taking a language when you're very young works so well because you're such a sponge for picking up new words at that age.

Of course, it wasn't too hard to remember the French words for "weekend" and "hot dog," which as I recall were "le weekend" and "l'hot dog." I think I aced the quiz the week those were on the vocabulary list.

At some point, often in your 40s or 50s, you have to decide how the rest of your life might look

Life expectancy for American men these days is right around 78 years. My plan is to exceed that, and exceed it by a wide margin if I can.

Assuming things work out that way (and let's face it, there's always the chance they won't), I still at best have reached the halftime of my life, or more likely am somewhere early in the third quarter of play.

When you get to this point, you stop for a second to look back at where you've been and, more importantly, try and figure out where you're going.

This is especially true in my case. Professionally, I find myself in an unplanned mid-career pause. Personally, I've now lost both of my parents and am fast approaching a life that, sometime in the next decade, will see Terry and me living on our own again, sans children for the first time since 1993.

While I am very much a planner, I'm not much of a long-range planner. I've never had a roadmap for my career, and things have been so chaotic around our house for so long that I don't even think much about next week, let alone next year.

Retirement? At some point our financial guy asked me when I wanted to stop working full-time. I told him 67, which was honestly about as arbitrary an age as I could possibly have come up with. Yet our entire portfolio is now structured to get me out of the full-time workforce when I reach that age in 16 years.

Where will we live? Will we stay in Wickliffe? Will we even stay in Ohio? We've had conversations in both directions. I don't yet know the answer.

What do the last 16 years of my career look like? Will I stay in corporate communications? I assume so, but I'll admit I don't know. Life is funny that way...the whole "man plans, God laughs" thing. If nothing else, I've learned that things change in the most unexpected ways, and the best you can do is chuckle with the universe and roll with it.

What about my health? I don't like where I am physically right now. I was in great shape five years ago, but I've lapsed back into old habits that aren't conducive to beating that life expectancy target. That all needs to change immediately.

So many things to consider, so many variables, so many possibilities. One way or another, we all wrestle with these questions on our journey. And to be sure, I have more questions than answers right now.

Including whether the Browns will win a Super Bowl in my lifetime. That one is killing me.