When I was switched from covering Ravenna High School athletics to the Kent Roosevelt beat in 1996, one of my early assignments was to write a story about the Rough Riders’ newly hired boys basketball coach.
So I called then-Roosevelt Athletic Director John Nemec for some comments.
“We’ve got a good one, Tom,” Nemec told me. “His name is Tom Larkin.”
Twenty-seven years later, Larkin is the new superintendent of the Kent City School District. He was appointed to that position by the school board earlier this week and will assume his new duties Aug. 1, when he begins his 28th year in the district.
The memories I have of covering Larkin’s Rough Rider teams in the late 1990s are among the fondest of my 23 years at the Record-Courier. His teams played in the Western Reserve Conference’s rugged South Division, which featured monster basketball programs in Stow, Hudson, Barberton and Cuyahoga Falls. Those eight games on the schedule were pretty much automatic losses for everyone else in the conference back then.
So you were basically starting every season 0-8, and the only way to break even in a 20-game schedule was to win 10 out of the remaining 12 games — which wasn’t going to happen. It was a stacked deck — stacked even further by the fact that Larkin arrived on the scene at a time when the basketball talent pool at Roosevelt was a little on the shallow side, a common and frustrating fact of life at mid-sized and smaller public schools. These things run in cycles, and Larkin’s time as head coach coincided with the down side of a cycle.
But you never would have known it from interviewing him after games. He was always positive, upbeat, never had a bad word to say about his players (a protocol, I discovered, that not every coach adheres to), and, perhaps most importantly from my perspective, didn’t take out losses and frustrations on the Record-Courier reporter assigned to cover the games (a virtue, I discovered, that too many coaches don’t possess).
Larkin was always courteous, respectful and professional. Even at that young age in the late 1990s, he understood how to handle and treat people, how to inspire and motivate his players to lace up the sneakers and play as hard as they could for 32 minutes against often impossible odds, how to get the absolute most out of the resources available to him.
When a kid named Ernie Cobbin showed up at Roosevelt as a sophomore, the Rough Riders went from 0-21 the year before without him to eventually putting together a 12-8 season by the time he graduated. I always felt that if Larkin had two Ernie Cobbins, the Rough Riders might have been a state championship contender. While other programs were oozing talent from the top of the roster to the bottom, Larkin’s teams had to scratch and claw for everything they got – and when one stand-out-from-the-crowd player finally walked the halls of Roosevelt High School, everything changed.
Just one player. To me, that demonstrated Larkin’s ability to maximize the potential of everyone around him — a trait that will serve him and the school district well as superintendent.
Kent City Schools, indeed, got a good one.
The G.O.A.T.s are still coming in.
We’re now on week three of The Portager readers sending in their candidates for the greatest Portage County high school athletes of all time. The responses have run the gamut and cover a time period going all the way back to the middle part of the 20th century.
I’ve enjoyed the wide representation of schools and sports, and it’s been especially gratifying to see readers shine a light on athletes whose exploits have nearly been lost to time.
Here are the latest selections:
– “Leave the name STAN White [Kent Roosevelt H.S.] who is an all Ohio selection in three sports football, basketball and baseball and went on to a career in the NFL with Baltimore [Colts].” – Jim Myers
[T.H.–White was an All-American linebacker for legendary coach Woody Hayes at Ohio State, where he also played baseball and basketball, and was selected as a linebacker on the Baltimore Colts All-Time Team. His eight interceptions in 1975 is still the NFL single-season record for linebackers.]
– “Has there ever been an athletic family like the Ruffs in Windham? Four of them are in the Windham High School Hall of Fame. Ray was the first, a true multi-sport (4 different) athlete and the terror of PCL gridirons. Danny Ruff (Akron) and Guy Ruff (Syracuse) both had the chance to play in the NFL. And the best athlete in the family was Sabrina Ruff, who set numerous school records on her way to two platform finishes in the state track meet her senior year. Genes don’t lie: the Ruffs are Windham’s pride and joy!” – George Belden
– “Ken Levels from Southeast. He was two times All County footballer and wrestler. He is a two-time Olympian wrestler and he won a medal, I don’t remember if it was silver or gold. Chuck Leyland, four-year letterwinner in football, basketball, track and baseball. PCL sprint champion, I think he scored 21 or 22 TDs his senior year. Also there was a guy from Mantua who excelled at KSU, Art Youngblood, football and wrestler.” – anonymous poster
[T.H.–Levels indeed won a wrestling medal, but it wasn’t at the Olympics: He was the United States heavyweight champion in Greco-Roman wrestling in 1975 and went on to win the bronze medal in the World University Games. He was also a member of the 1976 USA Olympic Team and was inducted into Hiram College’s athletic hall of fame in 1988].
– “The GOAT list wouldn’t be complete without adding the Dias twins, Julie and Joanne from Southeast. Their track accomplishments from the 1980’s might not ever be repeated. Never finishing less than fourth in the State Cross Country meet. This includes three first places, three second places, a third and a fourth between the two of them. If that isn’t enough, they also have a first place and runner up state team track and field. Their first place was the first time a team won the state meet with only distance events. After high school they both went on to run cross country at University of Arkansas a premier cross country D1 program. Tom your list has been a reminder of all the great athletes from Portage County, but the list wouldn’t be complete without these two GOATS from Southeast. Joanne and Julie Dias.” – Steve Babbey
Feel free to keep sending in your G.O.A.T. picks. We’ll continue to publish them as they come in — the more of our great athletes we can recognize, the better.
It’s been a heck of a trip down memory lane already.
Tom Hardesty is a Portager sports columnist. He was formerly assistant sports editor at the Record-Courier and author of the book Glimpses of Heaven.