Anyone who knows me can vouch for my love of sports. Visiting the Madison area for the next year, as my significant other bestows upon the UW Health community her epic systems expertise, I have found myself, for the third time in a generation, witness to special occurrences in the local community's sports world.

Back in December of 1987 in Manhattan, Kansas, just months after Tonya and I were married, she was assigned to Fort Riley, Kansas with the U.S. Army. I had the fortune that cold winter of staying occupied with three Big Eight games per week during the college hoop season and I took a liking to Kansas State University, just a short walk from our apartment, as they were led by a junior college transfer named Mitch Richmond.

Better still, Oklahoma, the class of the conference, led by future NBA ballers Harvey Grant, Stacie King (later with the Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls where he was teamed not only with Jordan and Scottie Pippen, but also Harvey Grant's identical twin brother Horace), and Mookie Blaylock, was a team on a mission, as they ran and pressed their way passed opponents on the road to the NCAA finals where they would meet up with the Danny Manning-led Kansas Jayhawks.

Kansas would win the track meet, 83-79, and take home the NCAA crown. But, the interesting piece happened once I arrived back home in the San Francisco bay area in early March, right before the NCAA tournament got underway. I warned my friends that a serious brand of college basketball was being played on the prairie and March Madness verified my theory with three Big eight teams (Oklahoma, Kansas, and Kansas State) all advancing to the Sweet 16.

As luck would have it, Richmond was drafted by the Golden State Warriors, the bay area's NBA team, and he would become a member of the famous scoring trio "Run-TMC" along with Chris Mullin (now the GM for Warriors) and Tim Hardaway, Chicago native (he of the “killer cross-over”).

A year later, my wife was no longer in the military, but I enlisted in the Army and we moved to San Antonio, where I would be stationed for advanced training after boot camp in Missouri and before my permanent duty in northeast Alabama. At San Antonio's Fort Sam Houston I had the pleasure of discovering the base's high school, Cole High, and decided to attend a game after hearing the local hoop junkies discuss how Cole lost the '88 state 2A title game(5A is the large school classification in Texas) and finished 35-1.

Even more intriguing was the 7-foot-1 inch, 285 pound center on the team, Shaquille O'Neal. He was absolutely the largest person with whom I had ever come in contact. He was imposing, athletic, and had a great personality, as we would all find out in later years, and he was on a mission after the heartbreak of the state finals in March of '88. As one might guess, he did lead the Cole squad to a 36-0 mark and the '89 state championship.

By May '89, I was a food inspector in the Army while stationed in Alabama, and I naturally gravitated toward the local sports scene. Once the season rolled, the SEC, like the Big Eight, had as many as three games on during the week, so I was fortunate enough to follow Shaq since he was now at LSU, and was teamed with another seven-footer, Stanley Roberts out of South Carolina, and sharp-shooting Chris Jackson out of Gulfport, Mississippi. But, the most intriguing team for me was Alabama. They were led by a long-distance shooting center named Robert Horry (yep, "Big shot Bob" of the NBA) and a lock down defender in 6-foot-4 guard Latrell Spewell.

A Milwaukee native (yet another Wisconsin tie-in), Sprewell, like Mitch Richmond in Kansas, was a juco transfer and he could really defend. He would gain notoriety by holding high-scoring Todd Day of powerhouse Arkansas to 1-of-8 shooting in one SEC matchup.

As with Richmond, once out of the service in the fall of '90, I returned to the bay area and warned my hoop buddies about this Sprewell guy. Also like Richmond, Sprewell was drafted by the Warriors, and, despite his now infamous choking incident with Coach PJ Carlessimo, he did become an all-star with the Warriors.

My point to all of this?

Well, it is no perfect alignment of the stars, but the constant connection between my roots and local teams, my travels, and players making their way out west after I had the pleasure of watching in their earlier years, can't be denied. In fact, to take it a further still, I've been in the Madison area on a number of occasions over the last two years and this time the reverse is happening.

I was fortunate enough to watch the Milwaukee Brewers advance to the MLB play-offs for the first time since the "Brew Crew" of '82 (aka "Harvey's Wallbangers") with Gorman Thomas, superstar MVP Robin Yount, steady Paul Molitor, and Ben Ogilvie made it to the World Series behind the pitching of C.C. Sabathia. Again, there is a local tie-in because Sabathia, is from Vallejo, Ca, a city of over 100,000 about 20 miles northeast of Oakland, and minutes from Richmond, CA where I was raised watching the '70s Oakland A's take three straight World Series.

My first time seeing Sabathia, or even hearing his name, was in '98 at the home of the Golden State Warriors, the Oracle Arena (known simply as the Oakland Coliseum Arena before all of the corporate sponsorship took hold of venue names). Sabathia was a senior power forward, standing 6-foot-7 as he still does, and coming in at about 270 pounds, on a 32-1 basketball team that had been Vallejo's finest in years. But, despite Sabathia, 6-foot-11 center Wesley Wilson, and 6-fot-5 lefty Brandon Armstrong, who starred at Pepperdine and spent three years in the NBA with the New Jersey Nets, the Apaches fell in the Northern California title game.

The buzz that day in the seats was not about Sabathia the basketball player, but C.C. the pitcher. After hearing a few guys talk about his feats on the diamond, I thought to myself, "wow, this guy, at his size, is coming from the left side of the mound, in high school, at kids with a fastball at over 90 miles an hour?"

Needless to say, he was one of the region's top prospects and has proven his worth in the major leagues. I would love to have an opportunity to speak with him, not only because of his accomplishments, but also to connect with a fellow Northern Californian now spending major time in one of the country's most beautiful areas. In addition, Sabathia was actually a neighbor, as we both lived in an area not far from Vallejo until I moved from that area recently.

You could be wondering if I'm a maniac just making up stories, or could I be another Forrest Gump? Hey, even my wife gets it and she is affected by this stuff. She remembers Richmond and Sprewell following us from Kansas and Alabama to the bay area, and our family following Larry Brown to Kansas, where he coached that '88 championship team, and to San Antonio, where he was the Spurs' coach during our stay in the Alamo city.

Okay, life is like a box of chocolates, and the hometown connection with the Brewers doesn't stop at Sabathia. Interim manager  Dale Sveum, who has pushed all of the right buttons while guiding the Brewers into the play-offs, is a product of Pinole Valley High School in Pinole, Calif. Pinole sits along Interstate 80 (as does Vallejo), 10 miles southwest of Vallejo and 12 miles northeast of Oakland.

I recall seeing Sveum as a 6-foot eighth grader playing basketball against a long-time friend of mine. He was pretty good and I was impressed to find out he was an overall great athlete. Sveum was two years behind me, but I had the opportunity to see him play often since Pinole Valley was in the same league as my first high school, El Cerrito.

Pinole was well-known for their solid baseball and football programs and he led both. Playing varsity baseball as a freshman, Sveum had an amazing arm. His throwing motion was effortless as he only flicked his wrist and he could throw a runner out from deep in the shortstop hole with ease. He also switch-hit in high school as he would do in the majors, but many of us who saw his prep career blossom thought he would make it big in football.

Standing as tall as he does now at 6-foot-3, Sveum was All-State and All-American from the QB spot and he could throw a football with little effort 65 yards in the air. In fact, in his sophomore year, my senior year (I graduated from neighboring Albany in '80), he led Pinole to the section play-offs at the Oakland Coliseum, home of the Raiders, where the Spartans won the title and Sveum was something like 6-of-8 for 229 yards passing. 

It was a given that Dale was going pro at one sport, and despite not assembling a Hall of Fame career, he did play 12 seasons in the majors. Also, Sabathia, one of the game's premiere pitchers, seems poised to put together a great career.

I must say, it is great to see guys from my hometown region make it big after being anointed the best thing since sliced bread when so many usually do not make it this far. Good luck to them both and who knows, the college football and basketball seasons might produce a player who makes his way to the San Francisco bay too.