August 29, 2018Jack RidlCan We Know?

“I was a point guard, the last ninth grader to start on a varsity high school team in Pennsylvania until years later, when anyone could play a varsity sport. I was also a shortstop, good enough to play on a traveling All-Star team with the likes of Dick Allen. My father was the basketball coach at Westminster College where his team was ranked number one in the country in 1962 and toured South America. I, as an entering freshman, played on that team. In the mid-’60s, he became the head basketball coach at the University of Pittsburgh where he also invented what became known as The Amoeba Offense, a variation of which every team from third grade to the pros now use. The recipient of many coaching awards, my father was likely the greatest influence on my being a poet—not in choosing to be, but because he instilled in me a love (believe it or not) of practice and discipline. Working to get a line just right is a joy compared to dribbling for an hour with your left hand every day and fielding bad hop ground balls into a late evening.”