With the high school basketball season rapidly winding down, South Williamsport’s players sat despondently in a quiet locker room as their hopes for a playoff berth took another hit. Standing before them that Friday evening, the Mountaineers coach, Rob Houseknecht, stood stoically — momentarily silent. When he began to address his team, he spoke in a manner so many other coaches have no doubt used in their own locker rooms over the years.

Reminding his players of the goal they had yet to achieve, he stressed the importance to his young squad that it was important to play each and every game as if it was to be the last game they ever played. “Nothing is guaranteed,” he said. Citing injuries or personal tragedies that other sports figures had endured, he went on to say, “No one knows what the future holds, or how many games you may get to play. It doesn’t matter how many games we may have left on our schedule; it is important you play the next game as hard as you can because no one knows when that last game may be.”

Less than 48 hours later, coach’s words rang in my head when the news of the helicopter crash that killed Kobe Bryant, his 13-year old daughter Gianna and seven others who were on their way to a youth basketball game in California. Gianna and her young teammates loved basketball, and they and Kobe, as their coach, had no way of knowing that the last game they had played was to be their last.

It didn’t matter if individuals were fans of Kobe Bryant or the Los Angeles Lakers, this sudden accident stunned a large portion of the globe and not just the sports world. Tributes of all kinds were held at sporting events and venues where people gathered. There was disbelief that this worldwide icon at 41 years old was taken so suddenly from the game of life. Despite all our differences and discord, sports have a unique way of bringing people together.

As the world lost Bryant on that January 26 fatal crash, our own little corner of the globe was paying tribute to two of the men who would become instrumental in the eventual launching of what became Williamsport’s most famous export on the planet, Little League Baseball. Bill Bair and Al Yearick were teammates on the 1939 Lycoming Dairy team, one of the first three teams in founder Carl Stotz’s Original Little League. Bair checked out of life’s lineup on January 25 while Yearick left the dugout two days later on January 27.

Unlike the recently retired Bryant, both Bair and Yearick played their last games a long, long time ago. But similar to Kobe, they spent their entire lives as ambassadors to the game they loved so much. While I didn’t know them well, I knew who they were and enjoyed the few instances shared in their company.

Both men were genuine disciples of Stotz and relished the opportunities they had to tell others of what that Original League experience was like and the positive influence it had on both of their lives. Each August, when the Little League Baseball World Series came to town, they could be found at the Original field telling all comers about the great history of the game that now has put Williamsport, PA, on the worldwide map.

My last visit with Yearick came last November as I shared a table with him at the Lycoming County Brotherhood Banquet. The conversation was spirited as he talked about two of his favorite subjects, baseball and Bucknell University basketball.

Yearick had been associated for many years with the Bucknell men’s team and was one of their biggest supporters. He did odd jobs for the program and related well with the players from his seat near the Bison bench. As a special tribute to Yearick, the Bucknell team is wearing commemorative patches on their uniforms for the rest of the season.

On Super Bowl Sunday, as had been my practice on most Sundays in the past, I enjoyed a weekly conversation with a fellow parishioner at Christ Episcopal Church. For Mary Ambrose and her husband, David, those Sunday conversations formed the basis of our relationship. She opened the dialogue several years ago when she approached me to tell me how much she enjoyed reading my columns. As avid baseball fans, who themselves had visited many of the Major League stadiums, we swapped many stories of our travels, our sports tales, and various topics that appeared in Webb Weekly.

Although David admitted sharing some of my rooting interest for the Pittsburgh Pirates, he unashamedly appeared during Sundays in October, wearing his Washington Nationals cap and making sure I knew how ‘his team’ was doing. Mary, as she always did, smiled and made sure he wasn’t rubbing it into me too hard.

As we parted that Sunday, the smile on Mary’s face was as brilliant as it always had been. Little did I know that was to be the last smile I would see from her. The next evening Mary retired to bed early, telling David she was going to read the paper. David took the dog for a walk and returned home a half-hour later only to find Mary has passed on, the newspaper and glasses by her side.

Coach Houseknecht and Mary Ambrose didn’t know each other, but the events of the past few weeks serve as a vivid reminder that we should all play life’s game to the fullest each and every day. Bill and Al just got to play it longer than most.