Sitting down on Monday with Mr Alvin Davidson was such an uplifting experience that even a wordsmith like myself will have trouble explaining but I will give it my best shot.

My ties to Cavalier Park are only five years deep and I’m in the middle of trying hard to create a time-line story in regards to just how the jewel of a place came about. Cause and Effect is going to be the title for the third of the Book, Diamonds 💎 are a Girls Best Friend.

Because Mr Donaldson had two daughters that wore the Lady Cavaliers jersey back to back, Alvin is qualified to take the torch 🔦 for an eight year span (2009-2016).

Our conversation started at 11am and wrapped up a bit before 2pm so its safe to say that we covered a tremendous amount of ground. When I asked Alvin how I should describe him, his answer was ” A Softball Dad 👨 who loves the Game.”

Older daughter Lindsey and little Sister Gracie gave Dad a reason to be front and center at Cavalier Park for eight years but that was just the tip of the iceberg for the Donaldson Family 👪. The amount of stories about the Travel teams were priceless, especially the ones about little Gracie being a part of Lindsey’s group when she was just five or six years old.

Alvin Davidson is a 1983 graduate 🎓 of Carroll County High School 🏫, a very good year as it included fellow Senior, Tammy Quesenberry. His ties to this community run deep and include a position on the current School Board

Two names that came up in our conversation about The Park were Brad Nester and Gene Kimball. While I have never had the pleasure of meeting either one of these two gentlemen, I would welcome the opportunity.

Kimball worked on the playing field religiously and his daughter Lilly played. Brad Nester is Sydney’s Dad and was instrumental in a number of improvements during her time on The Hill.

  The goal here is to magnify every single step along the journey that led to the Park that now sparkles south of The Boulevard. Passing of the baton or next person up if you will, is how something like this gets created.

If this goes as planned, Alvin will be able to fill a chapter of the book 📖 and then some !

Another name that came up was 2023 Graduate 🎓, Macie Adkins. It turns out that Macie was a student at Laurel while Davidson was Principal

Macie Adkins is another version of a role model for younger Lady Cavaliers, the ones that are currently working on their game in hopes of representing the program in years to come. Adkins just wrapped up her two year playing career at Southwest Virginia Community College where she doubled up as Team MVP and Dean’s List Student. The impressive young Lady is part of our Game Day experience at Cavalier Park when she is in town.

  Because I envision Alvin filling out a large portion of the story, I will refrain from borrowing his material in this Nugget, minus ➖ one exception.

When the topic turned to Cheyenne Strickland and her mad skills, both Athletic and Academic, Davidson shared a story about a play that occurred in a game versus Floyd County.

Gracie was in the circle 🔵 and there was a runner 🏃‍♂️ on second base. The batter sent a shot headed towards left center until Strickland climbed the ladder, gloved the line drive and in the same motion returned to earth 🌎, applying the tag to the base runner trying to get back to second base.

The Art to telling a story is a combination of passion and knowledge. Alvin Davidson is that kinda of a person who I’m looking forward to working with!

One of the greatest arms to be from the Commonwealth !

Verlander becomes 10th pitcher in MLB history with 3,500 strikeouts 👏 https://thescore.com/s/32028313

Justin has a little brother who could throw the ball as well and both attended Goochland High School 🏫.

The head Baseball ⚾️ Coach back then had quite the sense of humor in regards to just how much he had to do with the future career of the talented right hander.

Ben Verlander went from Goochland to Old Dominion University, making a stop ✋in the Valley Baseball League along the way. Ben spent five years in the Detroit Tigers 🐯 organization and currently works for Fox as an analyst.

Big Brother is still hard at it and just became the tenth pitcher in the history of Baseball ⚾️ to strike out 3,500 batters.

Not bad for a couple of Pitchers from a small school in Virginia !

The conversation with their Head Coach at Goochland High took place in the press box during coverage of a High School Football 🏈 playoff game between Goochland and one of our teams from the Northern Virginia Daily.

I would think that one has to have a sense of humor when you have coached on of the Greatest of All-Time.

When you first take a look see 👀 at the beautiful home 🏡 of the Lady 👩 Cavaliers Softball program, it is the trees just beyond the outfield fence that truly ties Cavalier Park together. They even make the banners pop, especially the five out in right centerfield that celebrate the run by the group that captured quite possibly the only Class 4 State Championship in the schools history.

We cannot rule out that the County could see a spike in enrollment that would return CCHS into Class 4 once again but for the time being, its a stand alone title.

Back to the trees 🌳 and the easy on the eyes 👀 appeal that they have. The story has it that other trees were planted around The Hill at the same time but didn’t take quite like the ones at Cavalier Park.

Inquiring minds would like to hear the explanation. Who gets the credit for planting the trees and then who kept them so perfectly maintained over the years ?

We know that Rick and Paul Nester have a History with Christmas 🎄 trees out in Laurel Fork, could that tie to the success?

Going back to the 1980’s when Nike first launched the Air Jordan shoes and Spike Lee was always saying, ” Mikey, it’s got to be the shoes, gotta be the shoes.”

At Cavalier Park, it has to be The Trees !

The day that Head Coach Rick Nester made me aware of Tiffanie Moore took place at her Carroll County High School Hall of Fame induction. Standing next to Principal Chuck Thompson, Moore was holding her plaque and it continued a nice photo 📷 of the former Lady Cavalier making a diving catch.

Fast Forward to understanding that a catch was actually ” The Catch “, one that came in the State Championship  versus Woodgrove with runners on base. If the ball doesn’t land in the glove of the tough as nails Senior, we are working on a different story all together.

Being fortunate enough to have spent an afternoon with both Tiffanie and her Father out at the family house out in Dugspur shortly after the Ceremony gave me insight into just how determined that Moore was and I imagine, will be for the rest of her life.

We will have plenty more about Moore and her catch as the story unfolds. One thing I need to do for sure is figure out who’s camera captured ” The Catch “.