The " A Book To Cherish" Story

The new Villanova Baseball History Book.

It was an ordinary day.  My son, Derek, just called telling me about a phone call he had just received from his college baseball coach, George Bennett.  George was the coach at Villanova University.  Villanova University is a private Catholic research University in Radnor Township, Pennsylvania.  It has a variety of sports teams, with baseball being one of those sports.  The school is considered a Division I school, thus participating in the top-level of competition.  Coach Bennett had placed the call to Derek to tell him he had just written a book about his years at Villanova and wanted to give him a copy of the book.  

A very nice note written to Derek from Coach George Bennett.
Click to enlarge.

Derek gave him his address and shortly the book arrived in the mail.  He has been busy reading the close to 600 page book and gave it to me a few days ago so I too could take a look at it.  Inside the front cover was a very nice note that the coach had written to Derek.  As a senior in high school, Derek was one of the top pitchers in the Lancaster-Lebanon, Pennsylvania area.  He led his team to the Regional playoffs when he was a senior.  He still is in the top 5 in many of the pitching categories in school history.  As a senior he decided to go to a State College and decided upon Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP) which is a Division II school.  That was until he pitched in the first round of Regional Playoffs and pitched a shut-out against the best team in the Philadelphia area.  Happened to be a game that Coach Bennett had attended, and was so impressed with his performance and that evening he called asking if Derek would like a scholarship to Villanova University to play Div. I baseball.  Didn't take long to say yes, and the rest is history, as they say.  Carol and I spent many a day driving to Philadelphia to watch him pitch over the next four years.  He received a call his senior year from the San Fransisco Giants organization telling him they were going to draft him high in the draft.  His call home was filled with the news and excitement of the upcoming draft.  But, a week or two later he injured his pitching arm and all that was lost. Wasn't the first time something like has happened to a great athlete, and won't be the last, but it was hard to take for quite a few years.  Then Derek got involved in his son's baseball career and his passion for the game returned.  As far as the book that he just received from Coach Bennett, well it is filled with page after page of pasted articles and stories of Bennett's years at Villanova.  He got to coach several players who were drafted, but missed out on one of the best he may have had.  It was fun reading the stories and looking at all the scoresheets from the 15 years that Coach Bennett was at Villanova.  Their baseball team has dropped in performance in the past few years and is usually not a contender in the Big East anymore.  But, Derek's time at Villanova (1989-1992) is recorded in history and part of the book which will give him many happy memories in the future.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.