[Steve19]

I'll tell you what kind of guy Jack Park is.

Back in the 1980s, before the internet, there wasn't any real way to see how the Buckeyes were doing from Africa, except for press clippings friends would mail. An international phone call cost more than $15.00 a minute, and the Rand had depreciated from $1.40=R1.00 to $0.16=R1.00 in a few years. Over the holidays, because of capacity on the old undersea cable, you could take two or three days to finally get an international call through and then find that the person you called was not home.

If you were far away before 1995 or so, you know how it used to feel when you received a letter with a press clipping after the TSUN game and then wondered what bowl the Buckeyes got into and how they did and then tried to catch up with short phone calls in between quick family greetings.

New Year's Day was always bitter sweet. Sitting on the beach, soaking up the sun, and feeling miserable because you didn't know how the Buckeyes had done or even if they were playing.

In 1987, Jack Park heard from a mutual friend that I had given a speech on international trade at Ohio State's Fisher College of Business, during whichI got a bit choked up when I said how excited I was to take my Dad to the Minnesota game the following day after being away so long. It was the last game my father was able to attend, before his disablement made it impossible. We watched the Buckeyes crush Minnesota 42-9 in the rain.

I returned to South Africa and some of the darkest days of Apartheid. A very good Black friend had been murdered and I was feeling pretty gloomy the week before Christmas, when I received a package from my friend. In it was an autographed copy of a book on Ohio State football, with a personal message from him, an Ohio State tee-shirt and a video tape of the TSUN game that our friend had recorded and translated to the South African PAL system. My friend said that Park would not allow him to pay for the book.

When people ask me what it was like to live through those dark days and see so many ugly things happen, my mind often goes back to the kindness of my friend and Jack Park and to that day in the stadium with my Dad.

Edit: Saw BestBuckeye's scan. Here's one of my two books. My older book is in my archive library at work and I can't remember now if Park wrote it or perhaps it was someone else's book and he just signed it. I do have his Ohio State Football: The Great Tradition here at home. It was sent by the same friend in time for our bowl loss against Tennessee, after the undefeated Bucks lost to TSUN in 1995.