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Citizen’s one and only grandma reporter will be missed
I’ve had lunch with head coaches over the years but the dates on which those lunches took place were never noted on my calendars that I keep year after year.
There’s only one name that I can see who is connected to sports that I’ve recorded in my pile of calendars.
Five years ago, in my 2003 calendar in the square reserved for July 18, I penned in this notation: “Drive to Austin with Judy Stupak; eat dinner at steak place in La Grange.”
To specifically put down Judy’s name is probably a pretty good indicator of where I ranked her among the folks I’ve been privileged to know on this sports beat of mine.
I didn’t see much of Judy after that trip because she made a move to Pearland where she devoted time to more grandmotherly pursuits, but with the news of her death Sunday, it instantly made me think back to that trip with a special gal that made attending a youth baseball game all the more enjoyable.
Geez, in her heyday as unofficial “First Lady” of youth baseball, Judy was such an integral part to the city’s summer sports scene for so long that it would be impossible to imagine what a youth game would be like without her presence.
“She’s at more ballgames than any other individual in Pasadena. If there’s a game in Pasadena, she’s there,” said then Pan American Little League President Bo Kirkwood in an interview in preparation for a feature article on Judy 12 years ago.
She touched us all with her dedication to the youngsters and their ball-playing. She despised the pro ranks of any kind. If she stepped inside a pro stadium once during her lifetime, it was news to me.
“I like kid ball more than pro ball. There’s just more excitement to it,” Judy said in that feature article.
And once at the youth ballpark, she touched us further with her humor, knowledge of the game and her willingness to pitch in.
Grandma Reporter I should have called her because if I asked her, she would report in final scores, giving me time to squeeze in the score just minutes before deadline.
And as Grandma Reporter, she kept me on my toes in a humorous way. “Well, it’s about time you showed up” or “Where have you been?” were two of her favorite comments to me as she sat in that lawn chair of hers, her feet propped up against the chain-link fence.
Memorial High School coach Kerry McGrew met Judy 16 years ago when the two served on the city’s Pee Wee board. He had a son in the league, she had her first grandson.
“It was serious stuff to her. We would meet at her apartment complex and she’d have the grill fired up,” said McGrew whose pet name for her was “Nana Judy.”
So, is it any wonder that I wrote Judy’s name in my 2003 calendar? It was like I was driving royalty. With her lawn chair in my trunk, we were on our way to cover the city’s 13-year-old Pony all-stars and their pursuit of the state championship that they won that summer.
After watching them play on a Friday night, we drove back to town that same night, but we stopped off at Boss’ House of Steaks in La Grange to have dinner where we gorged on chicken-fried steaks that draped over the side of the plate. She talked baseball and grandchildren; I wanted to talk about the atmosphere of the place, but didn’t get many words in.
Judy and I would hit the road two more times to see our summer ballplayers in action and in those two trips I discovered she was a big fan of the scratch-off lottery games. She had to buy out-of-town scratch-off tickets in order to raise her chances of winning, I believe was her theory. Believe me, she had a system.
Judy also stated in that 1996 article that she was a stickler for rules. Now that we’ve lost a dear friend, there’s just one rule she’d probably like us to always adhere to and that’s to smile when we think of her name.
There’s only one name that I can see who is connected to sports that I’ve recorded in my pile of calendars.
Five years ago, in my 2003 calendar in the square reserved for July 18, I penned in this notation: “Drive to Austin with Judy Stupak; eat dinner at steak place in La Grange.”
To specifically put down Judy’s name is probably a pretty good indicator of where I ranked her among the folks I’ve been privileged to know on this sports beat of mine.
I didn’t see much of Judy after that trip because she made a move to Pearland where she devoted time to more grandmotherly pursuits, but with the news of her death Sunday, it instantly made me think back to that trip with a special gal that made attending a youth baseball game all the more enjoyable.
Geez, in her heyday as unofficial “First Lady” of youth baseball, Judy was such an integral part to the city’s summer sports scene for so long that it would be impossible to imagine what a youth game would be like without her presence.
“She’s at more ballgames than any other individual in Pasadena. If there’s a game in Pasadena, she’s there,” said then Pan American Little League President Bo Kirkwood in an interview in preparation for a feature article on Judy 12 years ago.
She touched us all with her dedication to the youngsters and their ball-playing. She despised the pro ranks of any kind. If she stepped inside a pro stadium once during her lifetime, it was news to me.
“I like kid ball more than pro ball. There’s just more excitement to it,” Judy said in that feature article.
And once at the youth ballpark, she touched us further with her humor, knowledge of the game and her willingness to pitch in.
Grandma Reporter I should have called her because if I asked her, she would report in final scores, giving me time to squeeze in the score just minutes before deadline.
And as Grandma Reporter, she kept me on my toes in a humorous way. “Well, it’s about time you showed up” or “Where have you been?” were two of her favorite comments to me as she sat in that lawn chair of hers, her feet propped up against the chain-link fence.
Memorial High School coach Kerry McGrew met Judy 16 years ago when the two served on the city’s Pee Wee board. He had a son in the league, she had her first grandson.
“It was serious stuff to her. We would meet at her apartment complex and she’d have the grill fired up,” said McGrew whose pet name for her was “Nana Judy.”
So, is it any wonder that I wrote Judy’s name in my 2003 calendar? It was like I was driving royalty. With her lawn chair in my trunk, we were on our way to cover the city’s 13-year-old Pony all-stars and their pursuit of the state championship that they won that summer.
After watching them play on a Friday night, we drove back to town that same night, but we stopped off at Boss’ House of Steaks in La Grange to have dinner where we gorged on chicken-fried steaks that draped over the side of the plate. She talked baseball and grandchildren; I wanted to talk about the atmosphere of the place, but didn’t get many words in.
Judy and I would hit the road two more times to see our summer ballplayers in action and in those two trips I discovered she was a big fan of the scratch-off lottery games. She had to buy out-of-town scratch-off tickets in order to raise her chances of winning, I believe was her theory. Believe me, she had a system.
Judy also stated in that 1996 article that she was a stickler for rules. Now that we’ve lost a dear friend, there’s just one rule she’d probably like us to always adhere to and that’s to smile when we think of her name.
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vbinkley wrote on Aug 27, 2008 1:02 AM: