Robby was 86 and Butkus was a few weeks shy of his 81st birthday.

Brooks Robinson, a native of Little Rock, Ark., embraced the city of Baltimore. Dick Butkus was a native of Chicago and he embodied his hometown with a strength and presence that would have Bad, Bad Leroy Brown shaking in his shoes. Both players helped define their sport and position to my generation of Baby Boomers.

I admired Brooks Robinson to the point that I shed tears over his death. I had a chuckle at the thought of Dick Butkus dying and it wasn’t a lack of respect to a player I so admired.

Dick Butkus was as much a part of my Halloween as he was my NFL. For several years as a scrawny little kid, I’d take a black magic marker and make a big 51 on the front of a white sweatshirt.

You see, Butkus was number 51 and I could think of no greater tribute than to intimidate the neighborhoods in Gulf Breeze as I growled, “TRICK or TREAT.”

I though of those days when I heard that Butkus had died and a part of me died with him.

There have been other great middle linebackers to come along since Butkus, but none filled the position as well as he did. The Bears were known as the Monsters of the Midway and nobody fit that description as Butkus did.

And there have been other great third basemen to play the hot corner, but none did it with the humility and grace as Brooks Robinson.

Robinson understood the importance of being a good reflection on the game of baseball, his family and the communities of Little Rock and Baltimore. Some players think about being a legend. Robinson was concerned about what his legacy might be.

He embraced the opportunity to be with the fans that he often referred to as, “I don’t call you my fans, I call you my friends.”

A columnist at a Baltimore newspaper once wrote, “In New York they name candy bars after baseball players. In Baltimore they name their babies after Brooks Robinson.”
As what did people name after Dick Butkus? In the movie “Rocky,” the title character named his dog Butkus.

If there is baseball in Heaven Brooks Robinson is 30-something again making impossible plays some ordinary at third base in the eternal field of dreams. And the next time I hear thunder ahead of the oncoming storm, I’ll think that Butkus found a running back to hit.

I am a sports writer and I have long measured the seasons of life by what kind of ball is bouncing on a field or in a gym. The spring season of my life was defined in many ways by Brooks Robinson in baseball and Dick Butkus in football.

I won’t wear a Dick Butkus jersey for Halloween this year, but if some young football player comes to my door, I know I’ll smile at a sweet memory of youth.

It has been 48 years since Gulf Breeze lost to Milton 36-6 in the fall of my senior year. I honestly haven’t gotten over it just yet.

I was there in 2002 when the Crestview football team beat Milton twice on the way to the Class 3A championship game. Even so, that was a good Milton football team.

The Panthers I despised were coached by Milton legend Hurley Manning. If you like power football on offense and defense, you would love the Manning coached teams.

In recent years it has been hard to grasp how Milton has struggled. This year that is especially true about the Milton defense. In back-to-back games against Gulf Breeze on Sept. 15 and Escambia on Sept. 22, the Panthers gave up 110 points.

When I first heard Guld Breeze scored 73 points against Milton, I thought it was a joke. When I witnessed Escambia’s five touchdown effort in a 37-0 beat down of the Panthers, I knew it was real.

Since Crestview and Baker both had an open date on Sept. 22, I volunteered to help our sister paper in Milton cover the Panther game against Escambia. I wanted to get a look at Milton before Crestview plays the Panthers in a few weeks.

Standing on the Milton sideline, I saw no player that struck fear into me as an old Dolphin. I honestly didn’t see a Milton player that had a WOW factor.

Six games into the season, teams have scored 197 points against the 2-4 Panthers. All the points have been scored against the Panthers in the four losses.

Will the Bulldogs beat the Panthers? That, I don’t know.

It just seems strange thinking there is anything average in a Milton DNA.

Hurley Manning drove me crazy, but he made football in Northwest Florida fun. He had a way about him that brought about a disgust and hate for his teams coupled with a big dose of admiration.

When you beat Milton in the 1970s, you knew you had a good, perhaps great team. And nobody had to be pumped up when they saw the Milton game was next in line.

Time marches on though. Hurley Manning is now in his late 80s and his players and those that played against his Milton teams are now 60-something.

I miss that feeling I associated with Milton. I loved to hate the Panthers and what they represented to the

Gulf Breeze Dolphins when my school was young and so were my classmates and myself.

The Milton mystique is gone. But in some ways it will never completely die for those of us that remember those Panther teams way back when.

I do remember Sept. 11, 2001, and all the horror of the day when terrorists flew two airplanes into the World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon. Thanks to the heroic actions of a few passengers, a fourth plane never made it to the intended target.

I first learned of the attacks on a phone message from my mother. I had worked late the night of Sept. 10, and it was mid-morning before I got up and started moving.
Sports at every level were put on hold for a few days after the attack and rightfully so. Even the biggest high school and college rivalries meant nothing at that time.

Most school boards across Northwest Florida made the decision for high school sports to resume play on Friday, Sept. 14. I was in Freeport that night as Baker took on the Bulldogs.

I don’t remember much about the game. I recall that Jeff Webb was in his last season coaching the Gators and Jim Anderson coached Freeport.

The Baker quarterback was Vernon Jones, one of the best all-around athletes I’ve ever seen. Josh McKay was the Freeport quarterback.

The game was played at the stadium at Freeport Middle School as the high school had moved into the current building that fall, but the stadium on campus hadn’t been built.

Jones had a big game and Baker won, and that’s all I remember about the game itself.

The thing I will never forget is the communities coming together that night. In reality, there were no Baker Gators or Freeport Bulldogs in that stadium. I doubt if you could find a Crestview Bulldog, Fort Walton Beach Viking or Choctaw Indian in the stadiums where those schools played.

Sept. 14, 2001, was about being together as Americans. It was the family that you have with those associated with the games we play.

That September night was different than any other night I’ve experienced in sports. There were tears of pain as we hurt for our country. And tears of resolve that we would stay the course.

It was only natural that, in time, the tears turned back to cheers. Baker fans cheered that night, but it’s doubtful the cheers felt as sweet as they had felt before or would feel as the memories of Sept. 11 began to fade into the distance.

It has now been 22 years since Sept. 11. A generation has been born since that day and it is to them what Dec. 7, 1941, is to my generation.

I don’t want to forget Sept. 11, 2001. I don’t want to forget the price paid for freedom and the sacrifice so many men and women made that day and continue to make for our freedom.

I don’t want to forget Sept. 14, 2001, either. That night, at a high school football game, life started to return to normal and the healing began that for many continues to this day.