A memory of Skip Prosser

My work in the Sports Department at The Enquirer did not bring me in contact with former Xavier basketball coach Skip Prosser. The Wake Forest coach died today after he collapsed while jogging in North Carolina.

But as a features writer in The Enquirer's Tempo section in the late 1990s, I once wrote an appreciation of my boyhood hero, former Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder Roberto Clemente. I wrote about my captivation as a boy with Clemente's style of play. I was 9 when I saw Clemente play on TV during the 1971 World Series against Baltimore.

A little more than a year later, Clemente would die aboard an overloaded cargo plane flying relief supplies from his native Puerto Rico to earthquake-ravaged Nicaragua on New Year's Eve 1972.

I wrote how Clemente remained a hero through the lense of an adult, about my only one besides my father.

I received a hand-written note from Prosser after the story was published. He said he had grown up in Pittsburgh as a Clemente fan and also still admired the late outfielder and humanitarian.

In 23 years of daily newspaper work, I have received a ton of mail, a lot of it critical, some kind. Among the few notes I've saved is the one from Prosser.