What do you get for the man who has everything? What do you do for the man who, like George Bailey in the movie "It's A Wonderful Life," is "the richest man in town."
Well, I didn't know what to do for the birthday of former state baseball coaching legend Jack Cook, so I took him to lunch. As it turns out, even that small gesture was enough. Our visit, which lasted almost four hours, felt like 15 minutes.
Cook turned 90 last week. He served both in World War II and Korea. He may be 90, but he does not look a day over 65. Cook was the high school baseball coach at Huntington High in the 1960s and coached the Pony Express to state championships in 1961, 1964 and 1966. He then coached the Marshall baseball team from 1967-89.
I had the privilege of working with or around Cook from 1972-86 and saw him have an impact on hundreds of young men, mostly from southern West Virginia. I have been around college athletics for almost 40 years and have been around many incredible coaches, but in all of that time I have never worked with a better man than Cook.
I still laugh long and hard at all the times he used to threaten to "send someone down to the salt and pepper league for a little more seasoning." He coached major leaguers like Jeff Montgomery and Rick Reed, but he also coached future surgeons, attorneys, bankers and church missionaries. He is certainly not wealthy, but he always seemed to find a way to help with financial support for his players involved in ministry.
At the end of our lunch last week, Cook offered this perspective:
"I was a one-man operation with Marshall baseball. I never had a full-time assistant coach, and that limited my ability to recruit. I never had a courtesy car. We never had our own field. We didn't have an indoor practice facility. We didn't even have an on-campus field. I taught a full teaching load of classes. I never made more than $33,000 while I was there, but I wouldn't change a thing and I have no regrets whatsoever. I loved the players and we had great kids."
Cook loved his players, and they loved him back. He didn't make a lot of money, but at 90 years of age, he may indeed be the richest man in the state.
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Earlier this week, Yahoo Sports had a list on its website of the top 25 high school football players of all-time.
It was an incredibly impressive list featuring some of the greatest names in the history of the sport, many of who are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Here's the list:
1. Peyton Manning; 2. Jim Brown; 3. Merlin Olsen; 4. Dick Butkus; 5. John Hannah; 6. Derrick Brooks; 7. Rod Woodson; 8. Emmitt Smith; 9. Ted Hendricks; 10. Earl Campbell; 11. Gayle Sayers; 12. Eric Dickerson; 13. Ronnie Lott; 14. Paul Hornung; 15. John Elway; 16. Thurman Thomas; 17. Marcus Allen; 18. Cris Carter; 19. Lee Roy Selmon; 20. Charles Woodson; 21. Orlando Pace; 22. Lynn Swann; 23. Tony Dorsett; 24. Randy Moss; 25. Julius Peppers.
I may be a homer for our guys from the Mountain State, but Moss is way too low on this list. He should, at least, be in the top 10, and probably in the top five. Heck, he really could be number one. I realize we are a small state and the caliber of high school play in our state is not the same as in other states, but greatness is still greatness. Moss has proven his greatness and will someday soon be enshrined in Canton, Ohio.
He is as good as any wide receiver who has ever played the game. Yes, even as good or better than Jerry Rice. Keep in mind that Rice had two Hall of Fame quarterbacks throwing to him, while Moss did not. Moss made his quarterbacks and other wide receivers look like Hall of Famers.
When he was first paired with an elite quarterback in Tom Brady in New England in 2007, he was almost unstoppable, setting an NFL record for touchdown passes caught in a single season and leading his team to an 18-0 record going into the Super Bowl.
This is the Pro Football Hall of Fame weekend in Canton. Soon, many fans from the Kanawha Valley will be making the trip north up Interstate 77 to watch Moss get enshrined.
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Next weekend is the Charleston High School all-class reunion at the Civic Center. Many former Mountain Lions are expected to be in attendance, including basketball stars Levi Phillips and Skip Mason as well as football stars Rick Hurt, Chuck Green, Ike Fauber and Grayson Proffitt.
However the most popular former member of the CHS athletic family expected to be in attendance is not a former player but a former coach, Keith Pritt. His former players can't wait to see Pritt, who was recently inducted into the Glenville State Athletic Hall of Fame.
Pritt was an assistant football coach on Charleston's Class AAA state championship teams of 1968, 1969 and 1970, and was also the head track coach. He led the Mountain Lions to AAA state track titles in 1968, 1971 and 1974.
Reach Frank Giardina at flg16@hotmail.com.