Imagine this.
You're a high school sophomore on the baseball team and you've just been
told you're going to make the first start of your career.
It's a Friday, and the coach has decided to give you the ball in just the third game of the season.
You're a lefty at South Dade High, a large public school in Homestead,
Florida. And you didn't pitch an inning of varsity baseball the year before.
You didn't think you'd start this year. Maybe an inning or two out of the bullpen. But not this.
Still, you take the ball and you head out to the mound. You don't look back. Because there's someone you need to honor. Someone very important.
After finding out he would take the mound for the first time, Adam Roush spent the weekend with his grandmother, Joan McKenna, who had suffered a stroke and been hospitalized for two weeks.
"It was quiet," he says. "Kind of weird. I think my parents knew she was going to go, but they didn't want to tell us."
Adam's grandmother, with the help of ventilators and tubes, made it through the weekend.
Then Tuesday came. The big day.
South Dade would take on Ferguson, and Roush, the sophomore southpaw, would take the hill.
After classes let out, Roush went to get something to eat.
Then his dad, Ron, called and asked him to come back to school.
When Adam got there, he was told.
Your grandmother has passed away.
-- For the full story on Adam Roush, click here.
