My HS coach my freshman, sophomore and junior year was older, coached us in a state championship, and was just very father like, very wise. My senior year we got a young guy, too young, and even he’ll admit today that he did some dumb young things coaching what should have been a state championship team. He didn’t last long, the old coach came out of retirement and won another state championship six years later. Young coach became a helluva golf coach.

College ... I was the dumbass and deserved losing my chance. Loved my coach, HC and position coach ... HC died a few years ago. We got to be friends. He was a good guy.

My coach in Milano, Italy was hardcore old school. Mr. (Georgio ) Armani was the team owner and when he hired Coach T he was looking for someone who had experience in the college ranks and pro ranks in America. Back then the teams over there had to have X number of players born in Europe and only so many Americans. So there was a clash of cultures at times and Coach T would lose his mind. My position coach was a UGA guy and he would try to shelter us from a lot of the craziness but all we cared about was playing ball. We won a bunch of games but T was always handing out fines and holding late night or early morning practices and it took the fun outta the game.

I suffered a compression fracture in Naples but didn’t realize it at the time (one of those neck shoved down between your shoulder blades crown to crown hits on a draw play I’ll never forget - thought I had broken my neck even then) but I got up and played ... and the next week I went down with a bad stinger in Berlin and they sent me to a spine and neck specialist in Lyon ... and that was it. Said I was lucky I didn’t sheer away the vertebrae. I came home and went to BHam for surgery. Coach T flew all the way over to see me when I was in recovery. Brought me some bling from the All-Star game I missed ... jacket and stuff. He couldn’t have been nicer that day. But man was he a fricking bastard on the field.

He’s still alive and in his 90s. I’m friends with him on Facebook.