ON THE SHORE…. Perhaps it hasn’t really sunk in yet, but my father lost his battle to cancer, old age and other physical ailments this Friday morning past. It is sad but at the same time the last months of his time here were probably pretty miserable for him, Friday was a day of mercy. Since September and October we knew the day was drawing near. A year ago his doctors informed us it was time to halt his treatment regimen, that it was no longer having any effect. But still, he didn’t look like a person that was in desperate condition. He could still get around, his liquid and solid intake were still good.

He was even going to try out an experimental protocol whereby the patient would take 2 pills on a timed interval and that this would have the ability to knock out the cancer still in his body. The pills I believe, about $20K each, were shipped to him. When the day arrived and after weighing out the potential side effects and that it wasn’t etched in stone that they would achieve the desired effect, he opted not to go forward with it. That was late last spring, and his well being deteriorated from then on.

I used to make a point of calling him a couple of times a day no matter where I was, and chat. We would go over the sports and politics of the day and anything else that came up. The final two months it was getting harder to communicate with him, he either couldn’t hear me or his responses made no sense. He was heavily medicated against pain most of the time. And I would offer that his final two weeks were anything but death with dignity, especially the last 36 hours. I spent a fair amount of that time with him and it was agonizingly devastating to observe. I know death and human euthanasia are a very complex matter, but we need to talk about it and change for the better.

Coming from the Springfield area, his mothers grandparents were personal friends of President Lincoln. He was a US Army Sergeant, serving in the Korean war. And when I was one year of age, my mom, dad and I ended up in St. Paul, the result of a work transfer for him. He loved sports, especially basketball, baseball and the Kentucky Derby. Growing up closer to St. Lou then to Chicago he grew up a St. Louis Browns fan and Cardinals too. I remember seeing the original Sportsmen Park as a little kid on my first trip there to see family. I haven’t been to a Derby in person yet, but I can guarantee you that I haven’t missed one on TV since I saw my first one in the early sixties. When I offered to take him two years ago, (I had two $550 tickets lined up) he didn’t want me to spend money on him like that. I should have tied him up and threw him in the car, I sure the hell wanted to go.  

Living at the end of West 7th in St. Paul, we were minutes away from the old Met Stadium and when the Vikings and Twins arrived we were pretty excited about that. A couple of months before the Minnesota Vikings inaugural season legendary Vikes trainer Fred Zamberletti and his young family became neighbors. There was no way that sports weren’t going to become a major part of my life. We all lived a lot of life together and to say we were avid followers of the team would be a vast understatement. My dad took me out to my first MLB game, a Twins-Yankees tilt and it was magical. My first Vikes game was against the famed Baltimore Colts with Johnny Unitas.

He took me over to the ‘U’ for a Big Ten basketball game and I have been a Gopher hoops fan ever since. There were two guys there that night, Lou Hudson and Archie Clark, who would become two of the most famous Gopher hoopster’s of all time. We stopped at the St. Clair Broiler for a hamburger and chocolate shake before going home, two treats in one night! We went to Gopher football and hockey together, Twins, Vikes, NorthStars and he took me to my first pro hockey game ever, the St. Paul Rangers of the CHL. He begrudgingly took my brother, our buddies and I to AWA wrestling frequently, and we even talked him into taking us to indoor motorcycle races once at the old armory, exiting the building that night half asphyxiated from the fumes in a non vented building on a cold winter night.

In high school basketball in Central Illinois he was an outside shooting guard, apparently specializing in the long shot. Of course he was always trying to impress my brother Paul and I with that, but we never saw any proof. When we moved to the suburbs the old Columbia arena was close to home. And in the summer when our hockey was cut down to an hour or two for four or five days a week we filled in the extra time with neighborhood basketball or softball. At one point we got a new concrete basketball court and it was about a football field away from our home. One night while in the middle of a pickup game we looked up and there he was watching our game.

I can tell you for a fact that he probably hadn’t touched a basketball for a few years, since he and Fred were in a men’s league over in Highland Park. We stopped for a break and he asked for the ball. He went to the mid-court line and just stood there staring at the basket. After what must have been about three minutes of visual lockdown of some sort, he bounced the ball once, took an antique two handed set shot with a lot of arc, and as we stood there in amazement, swoosh! Nuthin’ but net! We were absolutely stunned! He looked at us and headed back home. Never took another shot and didn’t say a word….

Fred called Saturday to offer condolences and his son, my close friend Tom did too. In addition to my mother and Auntie Kay, my brother and his wife were there, my niece, my son (named after my dad) a nephew and great niece as well, and another nephew was waiting in St. Lou at the airport. Stories and jokes were told in abundance and we probably smiled more then cried. But soon that absence will be felt and we’ll have to deal with it. Fred would say don’t be sad, “Captain Willy” had a good life. Well, he did, yes he did…. PEACE

George Frederick (Bill) Elliott 1929-2015 RIP

Marc Elliott is a sports opinion writer who splits his time between his hometown in Illinois and Minnesota