The story of 50 years spent around sporting events has zig zagged around the country up until the new millenia, but now it will take a much more narrow path as we shift the focus to Page County and Carroll County, Virginia.

At the beginning of the book, you read a dedication to Roy Cardin and Jeff Tobler, and now you will start to learn about two local legands that left a grand canyon sized impression on the communities that they called home.

There was a scene in the classic movie, Field of Dreams, in which James Earl Jones and Kevin Costner listened to a woman reading about Archibald Graham. The comment was made that every town has a larger than life person who runs behind the scenes, quietly making the world a better place.

That could very well be the case, and if it is, we should create a new National Holiday to celebrate them. We can call it National Good Person Day !

Up until this point, the journey has been about how the road twisted and turned for me. Every story along the way was picked by design in hopes of showing how my particular skill set came about and the conscious decision to use it for good.

You find out who your friends are when you go outside of the box to create a book. The goal was never hidden. It was to write a collection of books about subjects that were near and dear to my heart until it was time for the seventh one.

As we finish working on this one, number six, the goal was always the same. The inclusion of everyone who wanted to tell their part of the story as we worked our way up to number seven, which is a non-functional story about the Power of God if you are willing to humble yourself.

Alan Knight graduated from Page County High School back in the late 1970s and went on to college in Harrisonburg at Eastern Mennonite College. The school continues to grow decades later and is now called Eastern Mennonite University.

Knight earned his second piece of paper and then bolted straight back across Massanutten mountain to PCHS. He instantly inherited both a softball program and volleyball program. The softball program had been successful, but it lacked one rather big thing, a home field.

Another one of the main characters in the main story is the very definition of a hard-working, Southern gentleman named Rick Nester. The schools sit 198 miles apart, separated by some very scenic lands that are rich in our countries history. Both stories include a number of people, with each head coach having attended the funeral of a beloved member of their program.

There are only a few people who have cross-over roles in this story. Kris Richardson and Marion Harris have both spent time in Page County, while Coach Knight has a long history with Carroll County Volleyball coach Cindy Edwards and naturally myself. We have been working on projects and fun for nearly a quarter of a century now.

Both programs had long-time journalists in the mix. PCHS had our long-time friend, Bill ” Pappy ” Meade, while CCHS was blessed to have the non-related Worrell’s, Allen at The Carroll News and Craig at the Galax Gazette. Community newspapers, which allows journalists to be HOMERS in the purest form.

The story from here has one very distinct Red-Letter Day. Just like Doc Brown and Marty McFly in back to the future, the date happened on a hot, muggy day in June of 2015, and amazingly, I was not in either ballpark. That is a story for Book Seven, as thankfully there were plenty of people who were in one town or another.

Just as the case with who really discovered America, I was not the resident from Page County who discovered Carroll County. Frank Comer is as respected of an umpire / official as there is in the business, and he shared a work space with Knight for decades.

I wasn’t the only person in Alan’s circle who couldn’t attend his latest big day as Comer packed up his gear and headed down to Lynchburg to call balls and strikes in a game involving Carroll County High School. The Cavaliers had opened their doors back in 1969 and were still searching for their ( now our ) first State Championship in any sport.

CCHS was playing in Class 4 at the time and they were playing the High School version of a dynasty. Woodbridge made the New England Patriots look like a pedestrian team. The team adding its latest trophy to the case was such a formality that their fans didn’t make the trip south.

But Carroll County fans made the 127-mile trek in groves. While there is no official count, the stories have said it was north of 600.

Frank returned to Page County with stories about the game and the sneaky way that some guy named Rick Nester pulled off a trick play that led his team to victory. Frank was so impressed with Nester that he took the lineup card out of his pocket at home, penned a letter to Nester, and mailed it out.

That letter is relevant for a few reasons, and here they are. It shows the character of Frank Comer, and it made me say outloud, where is Carroll County located? Fast forward to one of my initial conversations with Rick Nester, in which he pulled out the letter I just described.

For the past six years, Lin and I have called Eastern Carroll County home. Earlier, we spent 12 years in Page County and still have serious ties to the place. One of our five children, his bride, and four of our nine grandchildren are thrilled to call Page County home.

Everything in this book before this point was designed to accomplish two things. First, to make people smile and second, to show where both the understanding and skill set to paint a picture came from.

From here to the end of the timeline of the 2026 CCHS Alumni Day celebration, the entire story will be about two softball programs located in two different parts of The Old Dominion. The goal is not to compare the programs, the schools, the people, or the players. That is an Apple and Oranges thing. There won’t be any ranking of players or hot takes in this story because that is the opposite of what we believe.

There will be no comparison between the two facilities, just as many stories about how they came to be. We won’t look to rewrite history because that day, the Red-Letter Day, was covered incredibly well. But there will be side stories from all three of the ” Beat Writers ” mentioned above.

The stories are not designed to be placed in chronological order, just fun takes from the folks who chose to share their thoughts with me about relationships and bonds that were created through the softball.

One great example comes from a lady that for two years I only knew as Addie Greene’s grandmother. It turns out that Tammy is many, many things, including the wife of the pitching coach at the time, Dave Quesenberry. Tammy tells me that there was a groundhog or three that lived under the Porta Potty that was the only form of restroom available at Cavalier Park, pre-2015.

The danger in needing to use the rest room mid-game and having it shake wildly because you startled its main Tennant. Wow, if anyone has a photo of said critters. It is safe to say that the modern day Cavalier Park is one of the most well-rounded facilities in the state of Virginia.

Yes, Lin and I added some of the finishing touches with the scoreboard and stadium seats being the bigger two, but to tell a story correctly, it needs to include as many names and details as possible.

There will be a number of my own stories, some of which were written at the time they happened. But this part of the journey ran a flush 20 years, so some of them will need to be brushed off a bit.

Alan started with just a backstop and no home field, and Rick made the transition from being like John Cena or The Rock to coaching girls’ softball.

There is a cast of people who touched thousands of lives, and sadly, two of them passed away, but both were mourned in a manner that is normally reserved for British royalty.

I hope that you have been entertained by the long lead in that I covered the 30+ years that led to this part of the journey. Going forward from here, you will be reading equal parts, me and a cast of many that all played a role in both parks / programs!