Not technically, he grew up in Cincinnati, which of course had a wealth a talent when he grew up as well.

Your old coach and AD was friends with Portsmouth Legend Dick Hopkins who coached at Grandview Heights until 1970. Hopkins won the State Title at Portsmouth in 1978 with two Miami Redskins, Jeff Lisath and Craig Tubbs.

Well, let’s keep in mind, back in the 50’s and 60’s Portsmouth was a thriving blue collar working class town with tons of industry, a 40k population and attitude. Back then they competed at the AAA level and the pud in their league every year was Upper Arlington.

And yes Coach Larson, great guy!

What year did Athens stop hosting the state legion tournament in those days? Our team went to the state tourney in 1971 but it was in Ashland.

Did some research on Larry Price. He was inducted into the Southern Hall of Fame two years ago. Was drafted by the Washington Senators but decided to play for Don Schaly at Marietta College, where he received four letters and led the nation in ERA for most of his sophomore season. I would think he was the guy you remember. He spent most of his years of teaching with Butler Tech in Hamilton, Ohio. Was the baseball coach at Lebanon High School at the time of his induction.

Not sure the exact date. It must have been sometime between 1967 and 1970. I remember that it was a big deal in the summer when I was in high school and college.

I do remember he had tons of Ks in that game we broadcast, but unlike the tournament games that I covered for the Messenger I don’t have a scorecard that I’ve kept, so I can’t tell you how many, but I do think he struck out the side a few times in that game. I was quite impressed with him and thought he had major league potential. Looks like the Senators did, too, though one could dispute whether they played major league ball back then. (Joke) You do remember the old ditty: “Washington — First War, First in Peace, and Last in the American League!”

That 1978 Lisath/Tubbs team....I vividly remember watching every game of their district and regional runs in the Convo. I know they were in the regional, and I'm pretty sure the district, too. That was my first exposure to the Convo HS tournaments.....spoiled me. That definitely was one of the best HS teams to play in the Convo.

They Did not play their district in the Convo then. Beat a very very good Burg team by 2, then an excellent Washington Court House team by one in OT. That’s also a team that entered the tournament at 11-7. With Tubbs and Lisath missing large chunks of the season. Their Final win over heavily favored Latin was a dandy.

The city did nothing to help. I know in my event, the city, as important the event is to them they do absolutely zero to either influence, give support in spoken, written or financial terms. Heck we couldn’t even get the Convention and Visitors Bureau to return our calls. Don’t put everything on the University, the city has leverage, they just choose not to use it and allow millions to leave the city on the regular.

If I take $250k at POS, what is spent along Richland, E. state, Uptown? Especially when we are running a 4-6 game Saturday/Sunday.

I was the convention and visitor bureau director from 82 to 89. During that time a group of business leader tried to get a summer minor league farm team to Athens. (we now have the Copperheads, though coronavirus has hampered things). I lent my office's support and sat in on organizational meetings. Once a business plan was formulated, we approached the city of Athens. Sarah Hendricker was mayor and when we put our proposal to her and the safety director, she literally laughed in our face and made disparaging remarks about baseball and how silly the game was.

I also worked with Ohio University during my time to get conventions here. The office I worked with and I attended a youth convention conference where several hundred meeting planners were looking for sites for their groups. It was anywhere from church groups, educational seminars, social youth groups. Numbers were anywhere from a couple hundred to several thousands. Many of them used college campuses in the summer. We had a booth there and in the three days we were there we had almost 8, what we would call good leads, on groups that were very interested in coming to Ohio University. I might add, the groups were regional to national in scope.

I got back and the office I worked with and I prepared a report listing all the details of each group. I was very excited as, in many cases, the kids would stay in the dorms while the adults would occupy local hotels. Restaurants and shopping would benefit as well and since summer was a slow time, I thought it was a win/win for all.
The Ohio U. office sent their report up to Cutler and imagine my surprise when I found that Ohio U. had decided to not try to bring additional groups to campus. I have no idea why that was so but the office I was working in was disappointed, to say the least. It sounded like a typical case of right hand not knowing what the left hand was doing. A few years later, when Sarah Hendricker said in a council meeting that 'The tourism bureau has not brought any big groups to Athens", I wanted to point out that it was a group effort on everyone's part to make it so, especially back then when we had limited hotels in Athens.
Sorry if this sounds like a rant, but it left me with a sour taste when I saw the town's largest institution without a clear cut vision and the city allowing personalities to dictate policy.

The University has just created a visitors bureau in house who is charged with bringing groups on to campus and negotiating price reductions for services. Great idea! Will there be buy in from the groups needed?