Blog Post 1: Pre departure

Since I was just a child, my grandmother always told me she loved to travel. I would listen to stories she would tell me about her experiences traveling the country from coast to coast in addition to her trips abroad to visit family or explore foreign countries. I was always very interested in hearing about her adventures, so I decided to follow in her footsteps.

I am leaving today to spend the semester in Cape Town, South Africa, where I will be studying at The University of Cape Town. I am going abroad through IES, a not-for-profit organization that offers abroad programs for college students. I will be blogging each week, or as often as possible, about my experiences abroad. I think this could be a great blog to follow for students who are considering studying abroad in Cape Town or anywhere. I realize this is a once in a lifetime opportunity, so I look forward to making the best of it.

The semester is going to be packed with trips and activities, starting from the very beginning. Here are some of the key parts of the semester:

•  I will be taking classes as a regular undergraduate student at The University of Cape Town and I will be volunteering locally. I will be living in a house with other international students.

• Early in the semester we will take a trip along the Garden Route of South Africa, which is located along the southern coast. This is one of the first adventures we have scheduled upon arrival.

• During spring break (it will be fall break there) we will be flying to Johannesburg in the northern part of South Africa, where we will then drive four hours to Kruger National Park. We will be staying in huts for the week and we will be going on two safaris. During this trip we are also scheduled to see Nelson Mandela’s former home in Soweto.

• During the semester our group will make a trip to historic Robben Island off the coast of Cape town, where Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison. We will be touring the old prison and we will be able to see Mandela’s old cell. I am especially looking forward to this trip, as I am reading Mandela’s autobiography now.

• I will be spending a weekend with a host family in a township located in rural South Africa. This will be exciting because I’ll be able to experience South African culture from a personal perspective.

• We will be visiting the site of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, which took place in Cape Town. This should be a fun trip and I am looking forward to it, especially since my major is Sport Media.

Those are just a few of the exciting things I have planned this semester. I am also hoping to visit the top of Table Mountain in Cape Town, among other things. As you can tell, I will have a great deal to write about, so make sure you check back in to see all the updates.

It will all begin later on today — when I will be arriving to JFK airport for my seven hour flight to Amsterdam followed by a twelve hour flight to Cape Town. It will be quite a trip, but totally worth it in the end — I’m already anticipating the beautiful weather.

I hope you enjoy following my adventures in Cape Town. Make sure you stay tuned as I provide all the details of what happens in South Africa. I’ll be back to update when I arrive.

The news had broke a couple days ago that Fisher was interested in becoming the next head coach of either the Rams or the Dolphins. Each team has a head coaching vacancy as they try to rebuild their teams.

The update last night was that Fisher had agreed to become the coach of the Rams, specifically because there was a disagreement between Fisher and the executives of the Dolphins regarding the breakdown of power in the team. Fisher wanted full control of the roster while the Dolphins still wanted their general manager to have a part in making decisions about the team’s roster.

While I do believe Fisher is one of the best coaches alive, I do believe he might be asking for too much power. To ask for control of the entire roster minimizes the role of the general manager and other executives. I know many teams have head coaches with quite a bit of control, such as Andy Reid in Philadelphia, but sometimes I think it is important to keep the powers separated a bit in case something goes wrong. I definitely think the coach should have more power than a manager does in baseball, and I believe that he should have some significant power in deciding the roster. But if a team starts losing, having the ability to adjust some of the power isn’t as difficult when there are some separation of powers.

If Fisher wants to become a general manager, he should go ahead and look for a general managing job — but he might be asking for a bit too much as a head coach. But if this is what the Rams are looking for, maybe it will be the answer.

I decided to make some picks for this weekend’s games, which you can see below:

Bengals at Texans

My pick: Bengals

This should be an exciting one, and it certainly fits the “Wild Card” label with two rookie quarterbacks at the helm. It could be a wild one, but in the end I have to go with the Bengals in this matchup. I attended the Bengals/Texans game last month in Cincinnati, and the Bengals definitely played like the better team. They had a lead until the very end when Texans backup quarterback T.J. Yates drove his offense down the field to score the game-winning touchdown at the very last second.

If the Texans had currently injured quarterback Matt Schaub starting, I would probably be choosing the Texans here — but T.J. Yates has only started a few games while Matt Dalton has been starting since the beginning of the season. The key for the Bengals will be to shut down both the Texans running game and the tight ends (particularly Owen Daniels) in the passing game.

This kind of work ethic will almost always be followed by success, as long as the individual continues to work hard without waving the white flag.

Bengals Assistant Head Coach Paul Alexander possesses this kind of work ethic.

This is his story.

These days, 18-year veteran Bengals coach Paul Alexander studies film during the week in his enormous, classroom-sized office next door to head coach Marvin Lewis at Paul Brown Stadium in Cincinnati. On the weekends, he patrols the sidelines during Bengals games. In a way, this was always his plan — but in a way, it wasn’t.

——

Paul Alexander was only in sixth grade when he knew he wanted to be a football coach. He was a sports fan since day one, idolizing stars such as Pete Rose and OJ Simpson during his childhood. He was a die-hard Buffalo Bills fan, to the point where growing up in Western New York, he said, meant that one’s allegiance to the Bills came before family.

To begin paving the road to his anticipated coaching career, the foundation of Alexander’s success was formed in his college days at Cortland State. His mother was a guidance counselor, and she advised him that Cortland was one of the top schools to attend if he wanted to learn how to coach. He took her advice and went to Cortland, where he majored in Physical Education and played on the offensive line for the football team.

“I learned about sport science and I took coaching classes,” said Alexander. “Also, our football team wasn’t very good, which was a positive in a sense because I was able to learn from reasons why we were not playing well.”

Using his time in college wisely, he did everything he possibly could to educate himself about the game of football. In addition to taking classes on coaching, he would attend Bengals practices a few times a year and study the technique of the players and coaches. At this point in time, he said he saw himself coaching high school football or college football in the future.

——

Perseverance

By graduation day in spring of 1982, things changed a bit. Alexander decided he wanted to coach Division I college football. He spent spent hours, days, and weeks applying to coaching jobs all over the United States. Things didn’t exactly go his way in the beginning, as he watched almost all of his job applications return with rejections.

“I applied to just about every Division I college in the country,” he said. “I sent over 108 applications and I received over 100 rejections. I had a few follow up letters and then I’d just get another rejection.”

Still, Alexander didn’t slow down. He remained firm in his pursuit of a coaching gig in Division I. In the meantime, he applied and was accepted as a graduate student at Penn State, where he hoped to somehow get his foot in the door of the football program as a graduate assistant despite a job offer that would bring him back to his hometown.

“It was the spring of my first year there and I got a call from my high school principal,” said Alexander. “She wanted me to come back and teach biology.”

Considering the hours of work he put into his goal of becoming a college football coach, Alexander wasn’t about to accept a job to go back to high school. He didn’t seem to care that he was rejected at over a hundred schools – he was going to keep trying.

“Let me give Coach [Joe] Paterno one more call,” he told his high school principal.

With this, Alexander called Paterno’s secretary and identified himself as simply Paul Alexander. To Alexander’s complete surprise, the secretary acted as if Paterno had been expecting him all along. She told Alexander that Paterno was waiting for him to call him at home as soon as possible, so she gave him coach Paterno’s home phone number.

“I called Paterno at home and caught him off guard a bit,” Alexander recalled. “He kind of told me that I wasn’t permitted to call him at home and hung up on me.”

Feeling confused and discouraged, Alexander soon learned that the secretary had confused him with the captain of the football team, Roger Alexander, who Paterno was waiting to hear from. Regardless, the next day Alexander received a phone call from a Penn State coach telling him that they still would consider bringing him in and they asked him to come in for an interview.

“Obviously Paterno felt bad,” said Alexander. “So I went down and they put me in a room with projectors and film, and they instructed me to break down the film.”

This was exactly what Alexander hoped for and this was his moment to shine. He learned how to break down film in his coaching class and through his experience as a player at Cortland.  In the end, they were impressed and he was hired.

“I had my own little corner office where I broke film down and helped other coaches,” said Alexander. “I had no life other than that projector.”

——

The job at Penn State opened more doors for Alexander as he hoped to continue moving up the totem pole. He wanted to remain in Division I football, so he was back to the drawing board. He again turned down a job offer, this time the job was to be a Division II offensive coordinator. He was back to the application process, sending out applications to Michigan, UCLA, and other schools to remain as a graduate assistant as he preferred to stay in Division I. After getting called in for an interview at Michigan, the aspiring young coach immediately got in his car and drove to Michigan.

“It took all of about thirty seconds of meeting coach (Bo) Schembechler to realize that I would be a coach at Michigan,” he said.

Alexander remained at Michigan for two years before making his way to Central Michigan, where he landed his first job as a position coach when he was assigned to coach the offensive line. It was while he was at Central Michigan in 1991 when he received a very unexpected phone call.

——

Technological advantage

“I got a call from Jets head coach Bruce Coslet asking me if I wanted to coach,” said Alexander. “At first I thought this couldn’t be Bruce Coslet. Why would he call me?”

It turned out that the NFL was in the process of updating their technology at the time by phasing in computers, and they were specifically looking for a tight ends coach who had experience using computers. Then-Jets defensive coach Greg Robinson remembered that Alexander had interviewed for the graduate assistant position at UCLA some years before, and informed the Jets that Alexander was familiar with computer technology.

“They interviewed eight other people, and somehow I got the job.” He explained. “They started the interview by asking me about the inside zone, the outside zone and the counter play. After close to two hours, I had covered the inside zone and they told me I didn’t even need to finish covering the rest of them. I was hired.”

Alexander spent two seasons with the Jets before the team fired most of the coaching staff in 1994 — including coach Coslet — after the team watched their playoff hopes evaporate following a late-season collapse.

——

Cincinnati days

Photo Credit: NFL.com

“After we got fired in New York, Coslet came here to the Bengals as the offensive coordinator,” said Alexander, who was hired along with Coslet and has remained with the organization ever since.

One year after the Bengals hired Alexander as the tight ends coach, veteran offensive line coach Jim McNally left the organization. Alexander then made the switch from tight ends coach to offensive line coach in 1995, and in 2003, was promoted to Assistant Head Coach.

It should be noted that Alexander’s so far 18-year tenure with Cincinnati ranks as the fourth longest tenured coaching career in franchise history. The average tenure for a coach in the NFL is only a couple years, so Alexander has been extremely thankful that he has lasted as long as he has with the organization.

“I have no idea [how I have lasted this long],” he said. “I just work hard and I’ve been unbelievably blessed. My children have been able to live in the same house all along.”

——

Offensive Line: “The Ultimate Sacrifice in Sports”

Fans love to watch the quarterback make the throw on the run or see the running back dive over a pile of defensive players for a touchdown. Fans love to watch wide receivers make the big catch for a first down. These are the players that are making a difference on fantasy teams week in and week out. What the fans don’t always notice are the offensive linemen making the blocks that allow these plays to happen, and coach Alexander knows from coaching this position for decades that it is one of the most important positions in the game.

“Playing offensive line is the ultimate sacrifice in sports,” he says. “There is no glory, the only glory you get is through other people’s accomplishments.”

He mentioned that the position has changed over the years, particularly with how referees call penalties. He said an offensive lineman used to be able to take a defensive player and put them on their back.

“You can’t do that anymore,” he said. “They will call holding. They call anything that is even close to holding. I think in many ways it has led to more passive line of scrimmage, and I don’t like it to tell you the truth.”

He said he doesn’t even know how to advise his players not to hold anymore because the penalty is such a toss-up. There could be holding on any play, it just matters whether the referee notices it.

As the offensive line coach, Alexander also works with the team on preventing false start penalties. He helps train the quarterback on how to use his voice at the line of scrimmage, teaching him how to speak in short, crisp syllables in tones that carry.

“A number of false starts are just a lack of concentration,” he said. “But a lot of times they happen because you can’t hear. In a loud stadium, a lineman can hear a quarterback’s cadence one moment, and then it gets lost in the crowd the next.”

—— 

Maintaining sanity

Two decades coaching in the NFL will take its toll on any coach. In order to keep everything fresh, people need to find balance in their lives and Alexander has found that in the unlikely source of the piano.

A few years ago, his daughter helped him get back into music by playing the piano. He had an interest in it when he was a child and he minored in music when he was at Cortland, but his time in the NFL had sidetracked him. Since he has began playing the piano again, it has become a significant part of his life outside of football.

“To let off steam, he plays the piano for hours,” said his wife, Kathy. “At this point, if he doesn’t play then the kids say they can’t sleep without him playing the piano. It drives me nuts because I like to watch TV,” she joked.

Kathy also said Alexander has a special ability to leave everything at work, regardless of team performance or whether he is sad, happy, or angry after a day of work.

“He doesn’t bring anything home with him,” she said. “He’s not home much, maybe 20 minutes before the kids go to sleep. But when he comes home, he is just dad.”

Alexander has about a 30 minute drive home from work after the game, and Kathy says he is able to use that alone time to listen to the radio, make last minute phone calls, and finish everything up so he doesn’t need to bring it home.

 ——

 Outlook

 The Bengals are in the playoff race this season and their offense is loaded with young talent. Rookie quarterback Andy Dalton and rookie wide receiver A.J. Green are having two of the best seasons among rookies in the league this year, and the team looks forward to the development of their young stars in the future.

“This season has been surprising, really,” said Alexander. “They have exceeded expectations unbelievably. It has been a fun year, it really has.”

Coach Alexander signed a three-year deal last year to keep him in the organization for at least a few more years. Two decades with the same NFL team is an impressive feat that wouldn’t have been possible without his dedication to coaching dating back to his younger days. While many coaches play in the NFL and easily find a coaching job after their playing days, Alexander had to climb the ladder the hard way.

“Believe it or not, very few NFL coaches plan to be coaches,” he said.

Alexander didn’t just plan to be a coach. He knew he would be a coach.

That’s the difference.

——

**As part of a Sport Publications class assignment, I traveled to Cincinnati to complete this story. This story is scheduled to appear on the Ithaca College Sport Management and Media department blog**

The 2011 Giants are now down to one of those backs in Brandon Jacobs, while Ahmad Bradshaw recovers from an injury and a pair of little-known speedy backs try to fill the gaps. The 2011 Giants rank 31st in the league in rushing, after finishing sixth in the league last year. Additionally, the offensive line has been totally shaken up, as we’ve seen Ivy League Cornell grad Kevin Boothe handle many snaps at center and elsewhere on the offensive line while pro bowler Shaun O’Hara is no longer with the team. Boothe was a backup on the ’07 squad and has struggled at times this season, especially with easy things like snapping the ball.

Another problem is Giants offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride. I find myself back and forth with praise and disappointment with Gilbride, but this season I’ve been seriously wondering what he is doing. Throughout his tenure as OC of the Giants, I’ve seen him call his fair share of ridiculous shotgun draws at the weirdest times in the game. This year is no different and Gilbride continues to drill this shotgun draw into the ground. It simply doesn’t work, it never has, and I have no clue why he keeps doing it.

The Giants desperately need a healthy Bradshaw to offset the power back in Jacobs. The Giants had been known to be a team that knows how to mix it up at the running back position, keeping defenses on their toes or off guard. Lately, this hasn’t been the case with the absence of Bradshaw as the Giants have dropped two straight after starting the season with a commanding 6-2 record.

The Giants, who are tied with Dallas for the NFC East division lead, have one of the toughest schedules remaining this season as they have to face New Orleans and Green Bay in the next couple weeks — and they haven’t even faced Dallas yet. In order to win the division, they will need to win some difficult games, and especially the games within the division.

Rex Ryan isn't smiling now

Some people fall into controversial hot waters. Rex Ryan dives into controversial hot waters.

I have always believed that the Jets head coach is far too loud of a coach to last in New York, which also happens to be known as the media capital of the world. Time and time again, Ryan has gone out of his way to put himself in the middle of the most controversial situations possible. He has almost never backed up anything he has said and he finds a way to make a fool out of himself every single week. He definitely won’t last long in New York once the Jets begin struggling, because when the dominoes start falling, you know they never stop.

• I’ve lost count how many times he’s guaranteed something that never did happen. Has anyone realized how quickly this gets old? The worst part is that he declared his team eliminated from the playoffs two years ago, only to see them come back and make the playoffs. When a coach says his team is done, he should get no credit for anything that they win after he says that. And when you keep failing to achieve what you guaranteed, the whole point of guaranteeing is diminished. You basically only get one chance to guarantee something, and if you fail then it becomes pointless to bother with anymore. His teams have come close to the Super Bowl the last two seasons, but in the end they went home with nothing. No division title, no conference title, and obviously no Super Bowl title. On paper, they were just a wild card team two consecutive seasons.

Despite becoming the first sophomore to win the Heisman Trophy and winning two National Championships with Florida, experts did not (and still do not) have very much faith in Tebow’s abilities to succeed at the NFL level. Renowned NFL draft expert Mel Kiper, Jr. expected Tebow to be drafted in the third round of the NFL draft. Some experts even expected him to sink in the draft even further, citing his throwing motion as a reason for why they believed he would fail at the next level.

When he finished his career at Florida, Tebow worked tirelessly to prepare for the NFL draft. Having already been established as one of the most popular NFL prospects in years despite the low expectations, Tebow was featured on ESPN as they followed his workout routine in the time leading up to the draft.

Fast forward to the day of the draft, Tebow was drafted in the first round by the Denver Broncos — proving Kiper, Jr. and many others wrong. In his 2010 rookie campaign in Denver, he contributed in any way he was asked and saw some action at random times, similar to how he was used his freshman year in college when Florida State won it all. He made three starts last season and even had a big game against a divisional opponent, quietly making his case to be considered as a potentially decent NFL quarterback someday.

In 2011, Tebow was behind starting quarterback Kyle Orton at the beginning of the season, and he also had to compete with Brady Quinn for the backup spot. By week 5, Orton had been struggling and new coach John Fox decided it was time to make a change. Fox made the bold decision to bench Orton late in the game in favor of Tebow, who ended up throwing for a touchdown and rushing for another in the 29-21 loss to the San Diego Chargers. Tebow’s performance prompted chants of “Tebow! Tebow! Tebow!” from the Denver fans, even in losing fashion.

A few days later, coach Fox took his support for Tebow one step further by officially naming him the starting quarterback. Without a doubt, it is a shocking turn of events considering Tebow was written off before he even graduated from college.

I find it really surprising to see so many people dismiss Tebow’s abilities. Tom Brady and Kurt Warner are quarterbacks that were totally irrelevant prior to their days in the NFL, and both have Super Bowl MVP trophies. With this in mind, common sense would say that the general public would have high expectations for someone like Tebow, who was obviously much more relevant as he entered the NFL and had a much better resume to show for with his national titles and Heisman Trophy.

With this, let’s look at some of those arguments against Tebow.

1.Greg Doyel at CBS Sports  tried arguing that Tebow was only successful in college because he fit into then-coach Urban Meyer’s offensive system. Nice try. The funny thing is that Tebow has now worked his way up the ranks to becoming a starting quarterback in the NFL, so if Tebow is compatible with another team at a higher level then obviously Doyel was wrong.

2. ESPN NFL analyst Merril Hoge (who predicted that Kellen Clemens was the best quarterback of his draft class and that Percy Harvin would be the biggest draft bust of 2009) has always hated Tebow with a passion. Hoge probably didn’t expect Tebow to be drafted, so when Tebow made a few appearances in the 2010 season, Hoge blew a gasket.

After watching three (yes, only three) of Tebow’s games from last year, Hoge concluded that Tebow’s performances were “embarrassing” and went on to criticize Tebow’s throwing motion.

What is he talking about? If anything, Tebow’s inaccurate throws last year were no different than any other raw rookie quarterback trying to get a feel for the NFL. Let’s not forget that Peyton Manning broke the record for interceptions his rookie year and now he will go down as one of the best quarterbacks ever to play the game.

I find it ridiculous that Hoge or anybody else would bother to criticize Tebow’s throwing motion. I don’t see how an unusual throwing motion could be a bad thing if a quarterback can still get the job done. Many experts thought that Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers’ odd throwing motion would prevent him from succeeding in the NFL. Meanwhile, Rivers has had a solid NFL career with three pro bowl selections and has led his team to several division titles and playoff appearances.

Off the Field

Tim Tebow does not help himself at all with his activity off the field. Tebow’s  strong religious and political views have painted a very controversial picture of him in the minds of sports fans around the country and he runs the risk of damaging his reputation. He should have kept his views to himself in order to avoid negative publicity — but instead he used Super Bowl commercials as a platform to spread his views to millions of viewers around the world. His Super Bowl commercial with homophobic group “Focus on the Family” resulted in Tebow losing endorsement deals.

While I don’t agree with Tebow’s political stances in the slightest, I personally look beyond his off-the-field activity and focus on his performance on the field for the Denver Broncos. And while I am not exactly a fan of Tebow, I think the critics are way in over their head and should realize that Tebow isn’t nearly as bad as they think. I would like to see Tebow succeed just to prove them wrong — notice the title of this piece has me intentionally mentioning that Tebow has become what nobody thought he would be: an NFL quarterback.

Merril Hoge and the rest of his critics will be watching closely next weekend when Tebow’s Broncos take on the Miami Dolphins, and I’m sure they will be hoping for the worst.

I’m hoping for the best.

Pete Rose sat back comfortably in his chair, donning his Cincinnati Reds hat while he sipped his beverage on a warm day in what is quite certainly the most ironic place he could be — Cooperstown, New York.

“It’s a great village,” said Rose during my sit-down interview with him just a few buildings down from the National Baseball Hall of Fame. “I’ve been in Cooperstown many times before, and every time I come here it is very nice.”

Known as the “Hit King,” Rose is arguably the best hitter in baseball history. His 4,256 hits are the most all-time, and he also holds the record for the most games played (3,562), at-bats, (14,053), and outs (10,328). He won three World Series titles, three batting titles, the 1973 NL MVP award, and made 17 appearances in the All-Star game.

Although these numbers are reminiscent of a hall-of-famer, Rose has yet to find himself in the hall. That said, he enjoys returning to Cooperstown for the annual induction weekend festivities around the town. This year’s class included Roberto Alomar, Pat Gillick, and Bert Blyleven.

“It’s a baseball weekend,” Rose said of the Induction weekend. “It’s a lot of fun.”

Because his playing and managing days are now becoming more of a distant memory with each passing day, the 70-year old Rose has been returning to Cooperstown more often. He played his last game in 1986 and most people will tell you that plenty of things have changed in the game of baseball in the last 25 years. Rose would disagree.

“I don’t think the game has changed,” he said, besides a higher emphasis on home runs. “The press is the one thing that has changed. You can find out everything that happened in a game that same night, and now I don’t want to read about it tomorrow morning. There is so much media going on today that everyone goes for the controversial stories.”

Rose brought up that he also has no issues with the way that salaries have changed for players since he was in the game and he believes players have every right to fight for their salary. According to the Major League Baseball Players’ Association, the average salary for players in 1986 when Rose retired was $412,000. The average salary for a player in 2010 was $3,014,572.

“That’s fine,” he said of the salary differential. “You’re as good as you negotiate, that’s how good you are.”

I also had the chance to ask Rose about his playing days and his accomplishments. Besides his records for hits and games played, he feels that his next biggest accomplishment was being a part of six world series teams. He also felt that it was all or nothing, and if his team didn’t compete in the world series then it didn’t mean much.

“In my 24 years, six included World Series competition,” he said. “That’s 18 years that were wasted, but the reason why you play the game is to win.”

Rose spent the bulk of his career with the Reds before he went to the Phillies and Expos. He eventually wound back up in Cincinnati when he was traded from the Expos in 1984. Upon his return to the Reds, Rose was named player-manager and remained in that position until November of 1986 when he retired as a player but continued as manager. I asked Rose what it was like to be a player-manager considering most people of today’s generation have never witnessed such a thing.

“When I was player-manager, there were certain things I had to do,” said Rose, tapping each finger with his hand to count how many things he had to do. “I had to keep my skills honed by practicing every day, I had to give time to the press, and I had to give time to the players. Otherwise, something will mess up. I couldn’t take less time with the press and I couldn’t take time from the players, so I didn’t have time to practice and that’s why I retired. I just ran out of hours in the day to do what I had to do”

“There’s too much going on to be a player manager today,” he concluded.

To begin wrapping up the interview, I decided to ask Rose a question he has probably been asked several times before. I asked what he thought was the most memorable moment of his career. He listed his three favorite moments as if he had memorized the answer to that question long ago, and he said he did not have one favorite moment but instead several.

“First at-bat.”

“First World Series.”

“Last at-bat.”

Finally, as a follow-up question considering Rose had such a long career and had an emphasis on his first and last at-bat as his most memorable moments, I concluded the interview by asking him what the difference was between his first and last at-bat in the big leagues. While I didn’t expect him to go into great detail, I assumed he might have a few things to say considering he had such a long career.

“24 years,” he said, nodding his head.

With that simple answer, Rose and I shook hands and he continued on with his special weekend in historic downtown Cooperstown.

I was in Cooperstown in mid June with my father to watch the Hall of Fame Classic, also known as the Old-Timers game and similar to the one that takes place at Yankee Stadium. The event in Cooperstown brings together former major league players, most of them being Hall of Famers, to play in a game at Doubleday Field.

This year, Williams managed both teams that played in the game, making several trips since he had to make the necessary substitutions for both teams.

I am thankful that I had the chance to meet him, especially considering I had no idea that my time was running out on that chance, as he died last week of a brain aneurysm at the age of 82. Williams began his professional baseball career first as a player, and most notably as a manager. As a 21-year manager of the Red Sox, Athletics, Expos, Angels, Padres, and Mariners, Williams became one of only two managers to ever lead four teams to four 90 win seasons. He led teams to three AL pennants, and NL pennant, and two World Series victories.

Williams was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2008.