Take Me Home

By Gary M. Crist

Take Me Home is a collection of short stories based on the author’s experiences as a sports-loving boy growing up in Indiana in the 60s and as a practicing attorney in Florida. Each story presents vivid local colors and memorable characters. Many present-life passages are to be navigated and moral questions are to be pondered. Take Me Home is a light but worthwhile read that you will want to pass along to your family and recommend to your friends.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Nov 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9798886936711

Gary M. Crist

Gary Crist grew up in Indiana in the 60’s. Like many Hoosiers in love with sports, he spent countless hours in his backyard, on playgrounds and in gymnasiums playing basketball. He dreamed then, and still dreams now, of the State Championship his Southport Cardinals never won.His best sport turned out to be golf, and he won the Club Championship at his father’s country club in Franklin, Indiana twice. Sometime thereafter he forgot how to chip and putt, and his playing skills eventually declined to almost nil. Nevertheless, Gary continues to enjoy the game, of which he has been a non-stop student for over fifty years.A graduate of the Indiana University School of Law, Gary’s practice gravitated to “Sports Law” and he served as Legal Counsel to the PGA Tour and PGA of America for over thirteen years. Thereafter, he maintained his own law practice, specializing in the representation of athletes and a wide variety of sports industry organizations, including Wilson Sporting Goods Company, the National Golf Foundation, the Dan Marino Foundation, the PGA Tour Tournaments Association and others.His enthusiasm for writing has been a life-long experience. His first story, about his beloved Southport Cardinals winning the State Championship at hallowed Butler Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, was pecked out on a dilapidated Underwood when Gary was ten years old.Gary day dreamed during his business career of retiring to a seaside resort. Magically, that has happened. He lives at PGA National in Palm Beach Gardens, where he enjoys the company of his sons, daughters-in-law, two very special granddaughters and Vicki, the best wife God ever created.

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About the Author

Gary M. Crist is a native Hoosier who grew up rich, culturally if not economically, in Southport, a rural South Side suburb of Indianapolis. Early on, he gravitated to the world of sports and actively participated in baseball, football, basketball and golf. Mr. Crist went on to graduate from the Indiana University School of Law and engaged in sports and entertainment law practice for over 40 years, including 13 years in the position of Legal Counsel to the PGA. Now retired, Mr. Crist continues writing and enjoying the good life at the Saddlebrook Resort and Spa near Tampa.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to Trish, my later-life best friend and partner.

Copyright Information ©

Gary M. Crist 2023

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

All of the events in this memoir are true to the best of author’s memory. The views expressed in this memoir are solely those of the author.

Ordering Information

Quantity sales: Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

Crist, Gary M.

Take Me Home

ISBN 9798886936704 (Paperback)

ISBN 9798886936711 (ePub e-book)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023916937

www.austinmacauley.com/us

First Published 2023

Austin Macauley Publishers LLC

40 Wall Street, 33rd Floor, Suite 3302

New York, NY 10005

USA

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Acknowledgment

The author acknowledges the wholesome

values and good moral principles instilled by his family, friends, associates, teachers and

coaches during his upbringing in the Midwest.

White Oscar

Since I’m a sports enthusiast and a native Hoosier, I guess it’s not surprising that some of my richest childhood memories revolve around basketball. Many say Dr. Naismith’s game may have been born in Massachusetts, but it came of age in Indiana.

I remember the first basketball shot I ‘made,’ that is, a shooting attempt in which the ball passes through the hoop. The appetite-whetting experience happened when I was about five years old. The site of the accomplishment was a worn patch of yard behind Larry Mills’ garage, above which Larry’s father had fastened a basketball goal. Hardly custom, Larry’s hoop was affixed directly to the garage, about nine and half feet up, as I recall. The rear wall of the garage served double duty, functioning both as part of the building and a ‘backboard’ for the basketball hoop. The fact that my successful shot, an underhanded fling involving all my might, traveled upward rather than downward through the goal, seemed a mere technicality at the time. To my youthful perception and glee, it represented the first step on the road to future basketball stardom.

My hoop dreams grew incrementally as I progressed through school. Witnessing our town’s high school team, the Southport Cardinals, lose in the regional finals of the 1956 State Championship, lingers bittersweet in my mind. Incredibly, I remember the final score of that unexpected and devastating loss, 72-60, and can still summon tears, especially when reminiscing over cocktails, recalling the disappointment we Cardinal Red-clad faithful endured—tears not unlike those I shed that February Saturday night as a heartbroken third-grader first experiencing the ‘agony of defeat.’

But the great majority of my basketball recollections are positive, like my first real game, as a Southport Grade School fifth-grader. I was proud and excited beyond description, warming up for the game in my emerald-green uniform—Number 7. We Rockets took on the Burkhart Bulldogs in a weekday evening contest in November, 1958. In my mind’s eye, I can still picture the tiny gym, populated by a couple of hundred schoolmates, teachers, parents and family. No matter the fact that the game itself presented very few examples of basketball skill, the trappings of the event nevertheless included many of the sights, smells and sounds of the game, Indiana-style: a gleaming, varnished hardwood floor, enthusiastic, bouncing cheerleaders, pom-poms, popcorn, Coca-Cola and a respectful pre-game rendering of the National Anthem. The blare of the horn from the starter’s table commanded the huddled players to mid-court for the tip-off to start the game. Undoubtedly, there was even a vitriolic fan or two in the bleacher seats, ready to condemn any unfounded rules determination the five dollars per game referees might make—our version of the ugly parent phenomenon that plagues youth sports competition.

At least equally incredible to my recall of the 1957 Southport Cardinals loss may be the fact that I also recall several aspects of my own performance in that Southport versus Burkhart grade school contest. For example, I distinctly remember fielding the opening tip-off, dribbling to