Today is my father’s birthday and I want to wish him the best day ever. He deserves it. My father is an educator, an athlete, a coach and a leader. He is the rare man who loves the White Sox and Puccini and I will never forget him going from sitting in front of the game on television to lying in the middle of the living room floor with his headphones on, listening to his favorite opera, La Boheme.
For much of his adult life he made a teacher’s wage. He was a high school history teacher, a football coach, an assistant principal and an athletic director. I used to beg my mother to stay up on Friday nights to watch him on Channel 50 ( a local NW Indiana station in the 70’s) to watch his high school sports commentary with his friend Les Milby. He looked so important in his orange Channel 50 jacket, discussing scores and plays. I was so proud thinking “That’s my dad.” Now that I shoot sports I think I needed to find a way to keep his passion for the sidelines alive.
Everyone seemed to know and like him. We couldn’t go anywhere without someone yelling “John! John Tennant!” Students, parents, business leaders, Northwest Indiana residents of all types would locate and shake my father’s hand no matter where we were. They still do. I’ll never forget being in a boat, in the middle of a lake and seeing a man on a pier at least 500 feet away yelling “John! John Tennant!” It made me realize what a good dad I had.
On his summer break, his love for history and travel took us to all corners of the country and despite my childhood boredom at too many battlefields to remember, I thank him for expanding my horizons with so little pay. Sometime in the late 70’s early 80’s I took the photo above of his hands driving us somewhere across the country. Sometimes he even let me grab the wheel for a moment. When I started to swerve away from the road, he gently guided me back. Those hands say everything to me. Loyalty, balance, and discipline. These are his mantras. Thank you dad for helping me to keep my hands on the wheel and eyes on the road. Have a very Happy Birthday, I love you.
Thank you for this posting. I was a student a Munster High School when he was assistant principal. There’s a facebook site for former WCAE-TV students and staff. Your father introduced me to WCAE-TV during his tenure at MHS. Though he tried to get me in as an “exchange student” from Munster, it never went through. I later got my First Class FCC license and became employed there as a Broadcast Engineer. Lots of memories as a lot of us are reminiscing of those days there.
I posted a couple of pix from the Munster High School year book there, as well as a link to this posting. Your father was a lot more than what most of us saw. I do thank him for my experience there at MHS, and for helping to guide me as it seemed it was he did best.
I hope he’s well these days; from what I find your father’s in his middle 70’s much like my own dad. Please feel free to stop by the WCAE Facebook site and post more of your dad, our “Friday Night Sports” commentator. We’re looking at getting together whatever we can!