Christmas Letter 1996

December 14, 1996

Dear Family and Friends,

I hope this letter finds you healthy, happy, and ready to enjoy a wonderful holiday. I also hope you do not find this letter too impersonal, but I can include a lot more info into this kind of letter.

1996 has been the best of years in the Willis household. Let me fill you in. Some of this information you already know, but some of it will be news to you.

First of all, Corrigan really grew up physically his senior year and had an outstanding high school year of pitching, including being named to the all-league team. The week after graduation, however, he had orthoscopic knee surgery to remove a bone chip that was causing him considerable pain and which could actually lock up his knee. Also, the surgery included a lateral release, a procedure to cut the casing on the side of the patella, giving him much more flexibility. The surgery obviously was very successful, and one month later (near the end of July), he was back pitching again.

He rejoined the Tri-Valley Tigers Babe Ruth team, a powerhouse group that was basically the EBAL (East Bay Athletic League) all-stars. He led them to the Northern California championship and then to the Southwest Regional championship where he shut out, 5-0, the previously unbeaten (56-0) Southern California champions, San Gabriel Valley, a team who had 6 starters with full rides to D1 schools, including 2 to USC! Cor was named the MVP of the regional. That put the Tigers into the Babe Ruth World Series in August back in North Carolina.

As regards the World Series, boy, do I have a story to tell. There were 9 teams, each representing a 5-7 state area. They were Oregon, California, New Jersey, Indiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Nebraska, Texas, and North Carolina. The opening game of the series was between California and Texas with Corrigan pitching. We won 5-1, with Corrigan giving up 4 hits, 9 strikeouts and hitting a double of the center field wall. He was named the player of the game and interviewed after the game on the radio. The thing Claudia and I especially enjoyed was the group of little kids hanging around him after the game, getting his autograph!

Our second game was a slugfest against Indiana 2 days later. With the score 10-9 (California ahead) with one out in the bottom of the 7th, Indiana had 2 men on, and the coach looked down to Corrigan who said, "give me the ball, coach." He threw 7 pitches, striking out both batters to preserve the win, and, thus, getting the save. That was truly exciting! (By the way, his foot was wrapped at the time, as he had injured it on Saturday, sliding into second on his double.)

That put us in the winners' bracket final 3 days later against the only other undefeated team, New Jersey - the one team back there who was talking a lot of "smack." Corrigan told me, "Dad, we are not only going to beat them; we are going to bury them." Corrigan pitched that game, and it was televised on Home Team Sports, an east coast sports' channel that broadcasts all the Baltimore Orioles games. In fact, the color commentator was Scott McGregor, who pitched for the Orioles all during the 70's. Corrigan shut down their bats and their mouths, 12-2. At one point, McGregor said, "Remember this name (Corrigan Willis). You will be hearing it again in the future!" I have taped copies of that game, and someday I hope to be able to share that with you.

Tennessee then eliminated New Jersey in the losers' bracket final of the double-elimination tournament that same day. The next day, Tennessee then should have had to beat us twice as we were the only team with no losses, but, to satisfy TV, our game with them was a winner-take-all national championship game. Corrigan had just pitched 7 innings the day before, and he had 2 wins and 1 save in our 3 wins back East, but he was so frustrated to not be able to affect the championship game at all. With 2 outs in the bottom of the 7th, and with a 3-2 count and the score tied 2-2, the Tennessee pitcher hit a line shot over the 360 foot center field sign for a 3-2 victory and the national championship. He was named the MVP of the tournament - an honor Corrigan would have received if we had won that final game. Cor, along with the Tennessee pitcher, were the two pitchers named to the World Series All-Tournament Team. And so, out of the more than 43,000 Babe Ruth teams in the country, we ended second. Not bad! Corrigan only played with the team the last 3+ weeks of the season, post-surgery, and his stats were 7 starts, 6 complete game victories, 3 shutouts, 2 saves, a record of 7-0, approximately 1.5 strikeouts per inning, slightly over 1 walk per 7 innings, and an ERA of 0.4. Not bad!

As you might have guessed, we have heard from a considerable number of college coaches, including Santa Clara, Loyola Marymount, and even Harvard! It has definitely been fun.

Because we kept winning back in NC, we kept getting days off, and so Claudia and I were able to fairly thoroughly tour the area. The Wright Brothers Memorial, Cape Hatteras, the Hatteras Lighthouse, Ocracoke Island (where some of the old timers still speak a dialect similar to Middle English), Williamsburg, a play about the first English colony, called the Lost Colony,(even before Jamestown, which was the first permanent colony), marlin fishing (I got skunked) - we did it all! It was definitely one of the best times of my life! Adding to the joy was the fact that brother Robert and sister-in-law Pat came down from Connecticut, Claudia's brother Greg came from Maine, and niece Molly, her husband Buck and their baby Ryan came from D.C. to watch Cor pitch against New Jersey and to watch the final against Tennessee, and nephew Bob came up from Fort Bragg to watch the opening game against Texas. It was great fun!!

To finish the Corrigan section of this letter - he was going to attend St. Mary's on a partial baseball scholarship, but when the St. Mary's coach learned he was having knee surgery, he became less "enthusiastic" and didn't return a couple of my phone calls. Corrigan, Claudia, and I decided that maybe it made more sense for him to attend a local community college, Ohlone College in Fremont, whose coach had watched many of Corrigan's high school games, is a supreme gentleman, has an excellent reputation as a teacher of baseball, and who had been the batting coach at U.C. Berkeley for about six years. And so we made the decision in favor of Ohlone, and this was done prior to the Babe Ruth "run." The St. Mary's coach really blew it, did he not?

Ohlone has had a fall-ball league, more like scrimmages than real games. Cor was one of eleven pitchers who made the team, and he pitched very well during the Fall, even pitching a shutout against the Colorado Rockies Scout Team. It is clear that he will be one of the three starting pitchers this Spring, along with two sophomores. Where he will be at school next September is a big question mark, but my guess is Santa Clara. By the way, he is doing well academically and seems to like Ohlone, although Claudia and I would prefer for him, of course, to have the full college experience of living away from home. That will come!

1996 has also been a big year for Claudia. She is still taking classes (art classes primarily) at Cal State, Hayward and seems to me to be delaying graduation any way she can. I don't blame her, as she is having a good time (although sometimes stressful), and she is definitely successful and in her "element." She was recently given a cash award from the Hayward Art Council for a piece of hers selected for the Cal State student show. She was granted another award by the Watercolor Association of Northern California. She is so talented in this area - especially, I think, in her bronze work. She is now considering entering a BFA (Bachelor of Fine Arts) program.

Her work as Director of Religious Education at St. Charles, however, has brought her a lot of stress. She has developed Faith Time, a whole family model replacement for C.C.D. Instead of families just dropping their kids off weekly for religious "baby-sitting" (Sunday School, in essence), she develops and puts together monthly programs at the Church for the whole family to attend, with age-appropriate discussions on the monthly topic, followed by activities including all family members. Of course, any major change like this meets with some resistance, but it has actually "caught on" very well and is being looked at by other parishes. She is also being considered for some national award because of it.

But her work at St. Charles has also brought some stress. Her best friend, Donna Sapone, recently resigned from her job as Liturgy Coordinator at the church, and Claudia misses her very much. Also, our pastor and good friend, Fr. Steve Swenson, has decided to leave the priesthood, and so the parish is going through a difficult transition period right now because of that.

The demands of work, plus school, plus the family are, as you can guess, a pretty heavy load on Claudia. That's one reason I'm the one writing this Christmas letter. (She's wrapping and mailing packages while I'm writing this.)

1996 has also been a great year for me. In early September, I was informed that I was named Livermore School District Teacher of the Year. That's out of about 500 teachers in the district. Later on, I was selected as one of eleven finalists for Alameda County Teacher of the Year and was honored as such at a very nice banquet at the Claremont Hotel in the Berkeley hills. The county winner turned out to be two women who team teach at Oakland Tech. They now are in the running for California State Teacher of the Year. As a county finalist, I was given a handful of prizes, including a check for $900 (to be spent in some way benefiting my students). Thus far, I've spent a little over $200 on a portable CD player for the English department at Granada. I'm sure I'll have fun spending the rest. The two local newspapers ran articles about my selection, and in one of them (the "Valley Times"), it was actually the front-page, lead article. How about that?

I am presently in my 29th year of teaching at Granada, and I figure I'll teach eight more years and retire at age 60. The last four years have been especially fun for me, as I have team-taught with Martha Eddleman, a fantastic and creative teacher who has become one of my all-time best friends. Unfortunately for me, but I guess not for her, she is retiring in another month, as she will be reaching age 60.

I am also still teaching English one or two nights weekly at the local community college, Las Positas, and I have been doing that now for fourteen years. Most of my classes there are filled with "older" students, and they are a joy to teach because they are so serious about their education.

Erin is in her fifth year of teaching English and Spanish at Jesuit High School in Portland, but this year she is teaching only half-time, as she is also working on a master's degree in Higher Education Administration from Portland State. Her husband, Steve, is director of resident life at Concordia College in Portland but will probably soon move on to a bigger college.

Robert is in his third year of teaching primarily autistic children at a private school in nearby Danville. He shares an apartment in Walnut Creek with a high school buddy and is talking as if he may soon begin to pursue a higher degree in the field of Psychology.

That leaves only the youngest - Kenon. A Junior at Granada, he recently got a 1360 on the SAT and is the only Junior starter on the varsity basketball team. Granada's team is mediocre (3-3 at this point), and Kenon has been the high point player in each of the last three games and was named to the all-tourney team in a eight-team tournament Granada participated (and took fifth) in last week. I'm having a blast watching him play, and I operate the scoreboard at all home games.

I hope you don't mind these "impersonal" letters, but, hey, this is the '90s, and I am able to put in much more info this way.

Merry Christmas to you all!

Love,

Jim, Claudia, Corrigan, and Kenon