My Experience with SIU baseball coach Dan Callahan

When you hear the words, "He/she has cancer," the mind sinks and worry begins to emit from the soul. Pain and anger can ravage the mind, wishing the awful disease would auto correct its self and everything would return to normal.

In some cases it does, in a lot, it doesn't. As is with SIU head baseball coach Dan Callahan.

Since 2006, the skipper has been battling melanoma, a most dangerous and deadly form of skin cancer. On Monday, he succumbed to the disease.

While I won't claim to know the most intimate secrets of the late skipper, or pretend I knew him for years, I do have some great memories I would like to share about Callahan.

This reporter had the pleasure of covering SIU baseball during the 2006 season. As with any team, a squad of promise. There were many young faces on the Diamond Dawgs that year, including Scott Elmendorf, Bret Maugeri, Cody Adams and Danny Wells.

While coach Cal (as most called him), promised nothing to freshmen, these players would see significant playing time and develop into great players during their tenure at SIU.

My first time meeting coach Cal was a couple of weeks before the season began. Basketball was in full swing, but America's favorite past time was about to begin and I was needed to get a couple stories before the season started.

As the latest reporter to cover baseball, I made an appointment with Callahan and met him down at his office at Abe Martin Field the next day. At the field...? I wondered to myself. After meeting the head basketball and football coaches, I fully expected to be going to Lingle Hall for my first sit down. Not at all.

The next day, while rather rainy, I walked over to his office. Using the word, "office", would be rather giving. He had an old desk covered in paperwork. Behind him the locker rooms and to the left, a couple sets of old washer and dryers. This was far different than what I was expecting, but after a few interviews with Callahan, I saw it was fitting.

We chatted for the next hour or so about his father who was in media relations, the expectations of this year's team and what I should expect from his players. First and foremost, Callahan required his players to make themselves available to all media requests in a timely fashion. He understood what deadline was and how anxious we can get when someone doesn't call back. The same availability went for him too.

Callahan went so far as to pull the list of players numbers off the wall so I could copy it and call them whenever I needed a quote. From there on, I knew covering baseball was going to be interesting. While covering basketball, tracking down a player after hours was about as easy as finding the Holy Grail.

After our meeting, I knew baseball was going to be my favorite sport to cover of all SIU Athletics. Since I was set to graduate in May, the culmination of ending my career in Carbondale and at the Daily Egyptian, finishing it with my favorite sport seemed fitting.

The season began and within the first couple of weeks, it was obvious two things were happening. Several pitchers were dominating, but the defense was sinking faster than the Bismarck.

The once-stable left side of the Saluki field, anchored by Matt Brewer at third and Nathan Emrick at shortstop, was falling apart.

While Brewer didn't flat out lose his position, Emrick was replaced by true freshman Scott Elmendorf. Emrick was fresh off a phenomenal junior season, garnering first-team honors for the Missouri Valley Conference, and had no words to explain this rapid downfall in defense. Callahan couldn't offer any solutions to the question either.

Over and over, the central theme was behind the fledgling defense. In fact, at the end of the year, they lead the conference in errors by a solid 20 percent.

 I found this a mystery myself...so I began to write about the inequities of the Saluki defense. Apparently this started getting to Emrick's girlfriend, Krystal Stein. We shared a class, and one day after an article I wrote she decided to spout off loud enough for me to hear.

I remember her saying something like, "Nathan didn't get a hit, but at least he hit the ball hard." The guy went 0-3, advanced no runners and committed three errors. Not what I would call solid production. What drove me nuts is Stein played softball, so she knew better. This little outburst left me laughing and I knew someone who would also appreciate this humor...coach Callahan.

What a coincidence I was going down to the field after class. He burst into laughter and told me he was glad I was writing what I was. Maybe the focus on the bad would finally get it through their heads and they would play better baseball. Eventually their defense got better, but that is clearly no attribute to my writing.

Thursday was my meeting day with coach Callahan. After class, like a ritual, I would meet him at the field and we would discuss the weekend match ups, pitching rotation and everything Saluki baseball.
Callahan would discuss his players potential and if they were hitting their stride or working off a slump. As one would expect, he knew everything about his program, from the ground on up...literally. He knew what kind of grass the field had and specifically ordered it.

After decades on the diamond, Callahan knew what kind of grass was conducive for southern Illinois weather and baseball.

The paper stopped publishing before the season ended, so I wasn't able to finish the year properly. I called Callahan for the last interview. As usual, he was courteous and offered me an official Saluki baseball hat, which I never took. I did see him off campus before I left and had a quick conversation. Little did I know that would be the last time I talked to him.

Coach Callahan was total class. No other way to explain it. Total class.

Using Twitter to Snag Suns Tickets

When I first signed up for Twitter, I wasn't sure what to expect. I knew that it was a great source for an insightful look into the personal lives of celebrities, and a quick source for information in 140 character form. I still wasn't sure it was for me.

Since using it for the last five or so months, I am hooked.

Twitter is my generations radio. When you want to know now, you get on Twitter and find it. And for a news junkie who always wants the most current information, it's a perfect tool for me.

Not only has it also gotten me reconnected with friends across the country, I won basketball tickets from using Twitter.

Two weeks ago, my new favorite radio station in the Valley posted a tweet saying if you retweet this, you have a chance at winning tickets to the Suns home opener against the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers.

Even though I never win anything like this, I figured why not give it a chance. Retweeted the message just like they said and Booommmm, got a DM like an hour later telling me I won tickets to the game. All I had to do was drive to the station and pick them up.

Andrea and I went, had good seats and thorough ally enjoyed ourselves. The Suns/Lakers rivalry is pretty big here, so it was fun to see everyone really getting into the game, especially it being the home opener.

Thank you KTAR for the tickets. We look forward to having a chance at winning again!