More on Tony Severino, Former Euclid Resident, Athlete, Football Coach

I was able to locate a photo of Tony Severino, and he looks much like he did when he played baseball 50 years ago at Willow Playground/Mudville. Tony grew up on Briardale Avenue, just off E. 266 Street in Euclid, Ohio. I think his family might have emigrated from Italy. He had an older sister, who seemed a very traditional Italian, and a father who came to all his baseball games. Tony, his sister, and his brother Tom attended St. William's Grade School. He was a great baseball player on the sandlots of Euclid. After St. William's, Tony played football for Cathedral Latin High School in Cleveland. Then he won a football scholarship to Kansas State University. Since 1983 he has been the football coach for Rockhurst High School, a Jesuit school in Kansas City, Missouri (similar, I would guess, to St. Ignatius in Cleveland or St. Xavier in Cincinnati). His high school teams have won more than 200 games and 7 state championships during his career. He must be one of the greatest high school football coaches in Missouri history.

Mudville/Willow Playground --Euclid, Ohio (2)

I'll never remember all the guys who played ball--for hours a day, almost every day of the summer-- at Mudville/Willow Playground. I remember running down there early in the morning. Running home for lunch, then back to Mudville to play more ball. A short supper break, then back to Mudville to play baseball until dark. As I think about it, it doesn't seem possible. But what is certainly true is that we spent an incredible number of hours playing ball at Willow Playground. We became very at ease around baseballs, gloves, bats. Very skilled, very adept, very natural players.

More Players.

One of the greatest hitters I remember was Tony Severino, from Briardale Avenue. He once hit a ball over the fence, across Willow Drive, and on to the roof of one of the F&S homes. Tony could hit like this from a very young age. I thought sure he would become a great major league player. He did make a career in sports. After Cathedral Latin High School, Tony played football for Kansas State University. I believe he became a great football coach for a Jesuit Catholic high school in the Kansas City area. [I've found out some things about Tony: he is a teacher and football coach at Rockhurst High School, a Jesuit prep school in Kansas City, Mo. Tony has held that position since 1983 and is the winningest coach in school history. His teams have won many state championships (7, I think). As of 2007, his winning percentage was around 80%. He is in the Missouri Coaches Hall of Fame. In 2000 Tony was named USA Today's coach of the year. Pretty good career for a Euclid boy!].

There was another group of guys from Briardale Avenue: John George, Fred George, Frank Calabro Jr. (and his Dad at times), the Lynch brothers (Danny, Pat, John, et al.), and so many more.

Of course my brother Denny ("Little Cogs") was always part of the scene, as was Buster Zylowski and Kenny Zylowski. There were the Andrulis boys, the Paul and Bernard Bednar, even Mike Sikora at times (Mike was a bit older than we were). This neighborhood was a paradise for kids!

Joy in Mudville/Willow Playground

My old neighborhood in Euclid, Ohio was developed in 1951 by a builder named Marvin Helf. I would guess that the neighborhood was about 1/2 mile north to south and 1/2 mile east to west. On the north side it began at East 266 Street and Zeman Avenue and ran south to Elinore. East to west, at the widest point, it extended from E. 260th to E.272nd Street. The streets were in straight line grids and the lots were very small (my guess is 1/10th of an acre). The homes were built as 2-story bungalows, but the top floor was originally unfinished. Colored asbestos shingles covered the homes. There was no garage, no basement, one bathroom, 2 bedrooms, a utility room, a very small kitchen, and a dinette. The finished living space might have been 800 square feet. The homes were priced at $11,900 when they first went on the market in 1951. Down the road about 1/2 mile was another neighborhood of brick ranch homes, the "F & S Homes." These were originally priced even less than the Marvin Helf homes. Between these two neighborhoods about 10 acres were left for a playground. When I first started playing there around 1956 or '57, it was a muddy mess, our muddy mess, and everyone called it "Mudville," Since that time, the City of Euclid gave it an official name--"Willow Playground. It was there, at Mudville, that I spent almost every minute of my life as a kid.


Some People I Played Ball With at Mudville/Willow Playground.

I remember playing baseball with Clay Lutch from Farringdon Avenue and Dave Kaprosy from Shirley Avenue. Clay was a terrific shortstop and Dave had tremendous athletic skills. I remember the size of his hands--gigantic compared with my small hands. There was Gary Czyzynski, Jay Neidermeyer, and Jim Allsip (I think these guys were from Drakefield Avenue). Wayne Starkey (full name might have been Starkweather) came to Mudville from E. 266 and Shoreview. Pat Mueller sometimes played (he lived on Farringdon at E. 272). There are others I'll mention in another posting.

Thank God for Health Care Reform!

It has been so sad to see my U. S. Representative, Steve LaTourette, and my governor, John Kasich, and state attorney general, Mike DeWine, attack our nation's health care reform. I want to say clearly that these people do not represent my views. And I know they do not represent the view of millions of Ohioans. My guess is that they represent the wealthy funders of their election campaigns--but not ordinary working Ohioans.

Already the life of my 25-year-old daughter has been made better by the health care reform--at last she is covered under my own health care policy and she is now able to go to doctors for medical problems. This became a very serious issue for her and my whole family last year when she didn't go to a doctor when she was seriously ill--and endangered her very life. She felt she couldn't afford medical care and put off going for help until it was almost too late.

This issue also affects many other friends and family members. One old friend will at last not be excluded from health insurance because of her Type 1 diabetes. This could easily save her life.

I believe that health care is a human right. That belief comes out of my basic beliefs about human beings and from my Catholic Christianity. Health Care is a human right.

Don't mess with health care reform. Don't repeal it. Don't take it away from us!

What Happened to the Catholics who Ate Meat on Fridays?

Some time around 1964, Gary Czyzynski and I drove over from St. Joe's High School to the new McDonald's across from Villa Angela Academy--right on Lakeshore Boulevard near Euclid Beach in Cleveland. I ordered a fish fillet sandwich, and Gary ordered a cheeseburger. I was astonished. I couldn't believe that my Catholic friend ate a hamburger on a Friday. It was the first time that I ever saw a Catholic eat meat on Friday. I wondered about this sin, about how Gary would pay for it.

Of course the prohibition on eating meat on Friday simply faded away in the mid to late 1960s. And we who had been brought up with an intense sense of sin wondered what God would do with the fallen Catholics roasting in hell because they violated the Friday meat ban.

I had a friend years ago, Chuck Matthei, who fasted totally on Fridays. Chuck was not a Catholic and I never quite understood the roots of his fasting. He did tell me once that he fasted to be in solidarity with the poor and hungry of the world.

Chuck was such an amazing guy that I have no doubt he was telling me the truth. Chuck lived his rather short life in solidarity with the poor, with the oppressed, and those suffering from violence and war. His motivations for fasting were certainly better than mine back in 1964.

As for Gary Czyzynski, I don't know what happened to him. I don't think he will roast in hell for his "sin" of eating meat on a Friday.

The Mystery of Suffering

One of my daughters is suffering from some sort of throat illness--tonsillitis, laryngitis, some sort of painful throat distress that seems to go on and on. I had the same problem growing up--frequent painful sore throats. At times my throat and tonsils were so infected I couldn't swallow. The lymph nodes on my neck would be totally swollen. I'd be so sick I couldn't talk, couldn't think, couldn't function in school--all I could do was suffer.

Sometimes, when I got sick enough and desperate enough, my dad would take me to his doctor, Dr. Landsman, on Euclid Avenue near E. 260th in Euclid, Ohio. Dr. Landsman was one tough son-of-a-gun. I remember feeling so sick and so sorry for myself--and Dr. Landsman would sort of kick me in the rear into one of his patient rooms. I was so stunned that I started to smile and laugh--for the first time in a week. When he saw my swollen tonsils, he knew exactly what to do. One time it involved two shots of penicillin, one in each cheek. And then he'd advise me to gargle with salt water many times a day. And then I would recover, usually within about 3 or 4 days. Dr. Landsman, who had seen people blown apart on the battlefield, knew that I wasn't going to die from tonsillitis. But he did appreciate my suffering--and did what he could to alleviate it (and what he did almost always helped). Dr. Landsman was a great doctor even if his treatments were normally pretty basic. This reminds me of what Dr.Tom Dooley said about his medical practice in Southeast Asia--he practiced 19th Century medicine, but in a medieval society where 19th Century medicine was a great advance. If you think about it, our Moms all practiced the most ancient art of medicine--and it almost always worked!

As a Catholic I grew up immersed in the idea that we all suffer, that suffering was part of life, and that suffering could be redemptive. We were told to offer it up for "the poor souls in purgatory." I don't do that anymore, but I still strongly believe that suffering is redemptive. And I try to bring my spirit into solidarity with the suffering of the world, and remind myself how puny my own suffering compares to that experienced by so many people.

We Catholic Christians, when we suffer, think about Jesus on the Cross. We can't escape from suffering. But it always comes to an end, and it makes us better people because it teaches sympathy and love for others.

"The sweep of easy wind and downy flake" (Robert Frost)

This winter I have gone cross country skiing about 7 or 8 times. Often I go to Chapin Forest, a Lake Metropark in Kirtland, Ohio, following the Arbor Trail to Luckystone Loop, climbing up what we used to call as kids "Gildersleeve Mountain." At the top of the "mountain" there is a bluff over an old luckystone (milky quartz) quarry. And from there, on a clear day, you can see Lake Erie and the taller buildings on the Lake in Eastlake, Willowick, Euclid, Bratenahl--and even Cleveland. You can see the skyscrapers of Cleveland, some 18 miles away. The valley underneath Gildersleeve Mountain looks like a vast forested wilderness in the summer. But that is an illusion because hundreds of thousands of people live on the East Side of Greater Cleveland. Still, you start to understand why Cleveland was once called the "Forest City." So Chapin Forest is one of my favorite skiing venues.

I also like to ski at the Holden Arboretum in Kirtland, one of the world's greatest arboreta. There are miles of trails through deep woods, through prairie and plantings, around ponds and Corning Lake.

Today I skied at the Mentor Lagoons, another of Lake County's treasures--with hundreds of acres of lagoons, forest, marshland, and a mile of untouched lake shore. I took the lake trail, and as it emerged from the deep woods, I could see a completely frozen Lake Erie--solid ice as far as the eye can see. And at this time of the year, a kind of silent dessert, awesomely beautiful. I stood there on my skis thinking of Robert Frost's great poem, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening." I especially thought of the lines, "He gives his harness bells a shake/ To ask if there is some mistake. / The only other sound's the sweep / Of easy wind and downy flake." That's exactly what I heard--nothing but the sweep of easy wind. This wonderful music and this wonderful silence!

[There is a fantastic Wikipedia article on Gildersleeve Mountain at this site:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gildersleeve_Mountain]