Hardesty: Ravenna soccer coach lives the meaning of sportsmanship

NBC’s Sunday Night Football telecasts feature player introductions at the start of every game where each player says his name and the college he attended. These can come with an assortment of slang terms for schools, the name of a player’s hometown, or, on occasion, even the name of a youth football team.

The latter in particular has always struck me as especially meaningful: An NFL player at the top of his profession and the monetary riches that go with it paying homage on national television to a team he played on as a boy. It demonstrates the powerful influence that youth team had on the player — and, by extension, the enormous impact the coaching staff made on the rest of his life.