I am ten years old, sitting in the metal bleachers at CAYL with my dad. The early spring air is cool enough that I tuck my hands into my sleeves. Only a handful of die-hard families are scattered around the field, shaking off the rust before the season starts.
On the field, Todd McClure—chubby, uninterested, half-hidden beneath his catcher’s gear—is going through drills with his dad and brother. He doesn’t look like an athlete. He doesn’t even look like he wants to be there. And Leo, his father, is running out of patience.
“If you don’t focus and take this seriously,” Leo growls, “I’m going to kick your ass down the baseline.”
My dad and I laugh. We’re entertained, because we see what’s happening. A boy is testing the limits. A father is trying to hold the line. Todd slouches further into his gear, dragging through the motions with the energy of a wet rag. Then, in the grand tradition of fathers and sons, Leo snaps.
Todd botches the drill—maybe on purpose, maybe not—and Leo launches forward. We watch, in stunned amusement, as a grown man chases his own son down the first base line and literally kicks him in the ass. Todd stumbles forward, then keeps running. I stare, slack-jawed.
That kid—the one being kicked in the ass by his dad—would one day play 13 years in the NFL for the Atlanta Falcons. He would make the Ring of Honor. He would become a legend.
Nineteen years later, I am on my kitchen floor. The porcelain tile is cold against our knees, but I barely notice. Todd’s brother, Tanna, is gripping my mother on his knees, tears shaking his body, because we are mourning the death of my brother, Matthew. I am watching Tanna crumble as he is in pain suffering too from the passing of one of his best childhood friends, and all I can do is hold on and let the grief swallow us both.
Hours later, Tanna’s older brother, Trey, tells a story about the time he cursed Skip Bertman at LSU, and my dad and I laugh—loud, unfiltered laughter that carves space between the pain. The weight in my chest eases, just a little. Because stories do that. They give us a moment to breathe when we don’t think we can.
Sports connect us. Athletics give us the substance of story. And stories—well, stories are everything.
Thirty-eight years after I watched Leo McClure kick Todd McClure’s ass down the first base line, Tanna and I are uniting to bring the stories of Central Athletics to you. To connect. To teach. To entertain. To carve meaning out of the noise of the world. Because in the end, what are we, if not the stories we share?
