People

John

I think it was 1970 or ’71 when our boys decided they wanted to start playing baseball at the park a few blocks from our house. That’s when I got involved with Little League baseball, coaching a group of the younger boys playing in the minor leagues, not old enough yet to play in the regular Little League. The Lakewood Little League was very active with around 250 to 300 boys ages 6 to 12 playing on 20 teams. Most of these boys were beginning their very first season in organized baseball, some of them just learning the game, and some were only there at the urging of a parent. Most were good kids with good parents with whom I developed some lasting relationships.

Our second year in Little League began with the resignation of our league director. He had remained as the director for several years simply because there had not been any willing volunteer to accept the job. The first meeting of the volunteers that year would be his last as the director, and he started the meeting by announcing his resignation, and then ‘nominating’ me to be the next director. I preferred to remain as a coach, but there was no one else who would take the job. Reluctantly, I accepted the assignment, and stayed with it for the next four years.

Every detail of the program went through the director: city relations-paperwork, league paperwork, recruiting and assignment of coaches, the try-outs, parent relationships, birth certificates, scheduling practices and games, settling disputes, field maintenance, sponsors, uniforms, equipment, budgets (finances), new players, coaching changes, concession stand management, hiring umpires, etc., etc.

One of the unpleasant tasks was dealing with disgruntled coaches, and unruly parents, particularly those who were consistently unhappy with the game umpires. There was a long-standing practice of hiring teenage boys to umpire the games, usually high school kids who had played Little League, and sometimes played in school. There were two umpires for each game, one behind home plate, and one to call plays on the bases and in the field. There was no shortage of kids wanting to umpire games as the job paid $5.00 per game for each umpire, and there were usually three games each evening. That $15.00 per night looked pretty good when the price of a gallon of gas was about fifty cents.

In the summer of 1973 I was told that a couple of football players at Alabama A & M University were looking for summer jobs and would like to do some umpiring at Lakewood. They had heard about a job paying an easy $15 for about three hours umpiring some kids’ baseball games.

That’s when I met John and Ronnie. They had finished three years of college football, and were spending their summer working out and getting ready for their senior year. They were scholarship players but they needed to earn a little spending money in those days. These fellows were finely tuned athletes, each one a physical specimen wrapped in layers of muscles, both men ready to take on some 9-to-12-year-olds. They both knew plenty about baseball, not so much about umpiring. I explained to them what their jobs would be, John thought he would prefer to call behind the plate, Ronnie said he would take the field. They would have no problem with the kids, but what they still had to learn were the parents. I did not go into detail to explain the parents.

Very soon after the introductions and the National Anthem, John’s first stint as a Little League umpire calling balls and strikes was greeted with mixed reactions. For some of his calls at the plate he heard cheers, for some he heard jeers, and some things he heard were a bit insulting. Most of the parents in the crowd did not know these ‘umpires’ were being watched on Saturdays by professional football scouts. Mid-way through the evening some of their team mates at the college showed up to the Lakewood field to watch them umpire. Some of the parents heard one of them say that John might come back someday signing autographs on hundred-dollar bills.

John and Ronnie were very different personalities, but they would both become professional athletes in the National Football League. John was extremely shy, quiet, not talking much, and Ronnie was very out-going. At one point during a late game there was a disturbance outside the center-field fence. A couple of older boys had started fighting and a noisy crowd of teenagers were distracting the players on the field. Ronnie saw what was happening, called for time out, sprinted toward center field, cleared the four-foot fence like a coiled spring, grabbed both the fighters by their shirt collars, and held them up, one in each hand, without hurting them, except their pride. After the game he said he told them to take their fighting away from the ball park. I’m not sure what else he said to them, but they left the area on a dead run.

Both of these ‘umpires’ would have great college careers, and both would be signed to professional football contracts. A couple of years later on a TV broadcast of Monday Night Football, Ronnie Coleman would garner special accolades from Howard Cosell as the football rookie carried the ball into the end zone for the Houston Oilers. He would go on to have seven good years in the NFL. John would likewise have a great career in the NFL. From humble roots in Alabama, both of these men went on to exemplify the best in character and excellence in achievement.

In the Spring of 1975, I received a call from a builder friend of mine who had graduated from college with those guys. He said John was moving back to our area and was planning to build a home, and he wanted us to set up a meeting with John to discuss his plans for the design of his new home. John had just finished his rookie year in the NFL in which the Steelers had won the Super Bowl, John being one of the stars. They came to my office for the meeting and I tried to get John to talk about the Super Bowl, but he was his usual reticent self. He didn’t say much, but he had some pictures of the kind of house he and his new wife wanted to build. It would be an English Tudor style, 2-stories, about 4,000 square feet.

Over the next few years, I had the privilege of designing several investment properties for John and my builder friend, primarily apartment complexes. Near the end of his time in pro football John founded a research company catering to the defense procurement industry, eventually expanding the enterprise into 15 offices in as many states with several hundred employees. John would later sell the business to a defense contractor for sixty-nine million dollars. These days John stays busy giving motivational talks to young people, and looking after his charitable foundation which awards scholarships to students who attend colleges in his home state.

One time I was talking with John about his umpiring experience in 1973. He didn’t say much, but the thing he remembered most was the angry yelling coming from some vocal parents, complaining about the balls and strikes he was missing at the plate. Of course, at that time they did not know John but they would later learn that he:  graduated from college with an MBA degree, was drafted by the Pittsburg Steelers into the National Football League, won his first of four Super Bowl rings, set Super Bowl records, won his first MVP award, spent 14 seasons as a wide receiver in the NFL, was voted into the NFL Hall of Fame, became one of the owners of the Pittsburg Steelers.

But in a Little League baseball game in the summer of 1973, John Stallworth was just another umpire to be yelled at.