UConn’s Penders’ emotional moment with father after NCAA win
The final out had just been recorded, the UConn baseball team was dogpiling on the field at Bob Smith Stadium after beating Maryland to clinch the College Park Regional, and head coach Jim Penders was making like a former U.S. Olympic hockey goalie.
“I was like Jim Craig at the end of the 1980 hockey game, looking up in the stands: ‘Where’s my father? Where’s my father?,’ ” Penders said.
That he was essentially asking this question to a bunch of Maryland fans who had no idea who his father was made it even more surreal. Then, Jim Penders Sr. popped out from around the dugout.
“And I got pretty choked up, telling him what he meant to me,” the younger Penders recalled. “It was pretty emotional, getting him down on the field.”
On these same grounds, 59 years earlier, Penders Sr. nearly lost his life. A junior second baseman at UConn at the time, Penders Sr. was hit in the head by a fastball, just below the temple, from Maryland flamethrower Jerry Vezendy in the third inning of a game April 6, 1963. At first he felt he was alright, even took first base.
“I thought in my crazy mind that I was going to play again,” he recalled. “My mother (Lillian) observed me and knew that I wasn’t the same.”
Later that night, Penders Sr. was brought to Prince George’s Hospital, next to the Maryland campus. Ruth Jacoby, one of the few female neurosurgeons in the country at the time, determined that he had a fractured skull. Surgery was scheduled, and Penders, who hadn’t lost consciousness throughout the ordeal, remembered seeing on the clock that it was about to begin at 11:32 p.m.
Nine years later, Jim Penders Jr. was born at 11:32 p.m. That never would have happened if surgeons hadn’t drilled into the elder Penders’ skull, revealing a blood clot that, fortunately, hadn’t traveled over to the other side of his brain.
“Thank God it didn’t,” Penders Sr. noted. “I would have been gone if that was the case.”
Still, last rites were administered to Penders. He survived surgery, but the ensuing months were difficult. He had to learn to speak and read all over again. His younger brother, Tom, had committed to play basketball at Duquesne. But Tom’s mother told him that he instead had to enroll at UConn to help take care of his brother.
Jim Sr. returned to the diamond the following season, batting with a heavy, football helmet-like ear flap on his helmet, and his hitting tailed off toward the end of the season and he had some arm problems. That was supposed to be his final season — there were no medical redshirts at the time — but UConn athletic director E.O. Christian lobbied the NCAA to allow Penders to play one more season.
That season, Jim and Tom Penders helped lead UConn to the College World Series for just the third time in program history. The Huskies have only been two other times since, and never since 1979. They are currently two wins away from finally getting back, needing to beat Stanford in a best-of-three Super Regional series out in Palo Alto, Calif. this weekend.
That’s part of what made Jim Penders’ embrace with his father in the moments after Monday night’s win so special. That, and the opponent and venue at which it was accomplished, of course.
“Sweet redemption, 59 years after he almost lost his life there,” the younger Penders said. “To have that moment was pretty cool. Because, if one of the only woman neurosurgeons in the country at the time doesn’t save his life, I’m not here. So, it was pretty powerful.”
Shortly after Penders learned the Huskies were heading to College Park, Md. on Memorial Day, he texted his father and insisted he come along. Penders Sr., never wanting to interfere with his son’s team, was hesitant at first.
“My wife ( Joan) pushed me to go,” he noted, “and Jimmy kind of drilled me to go.”
He’s glad he did. Penders Sr., who won four state titles as East Catholic’s baseball coach from 19692012, had actually been to the Maryland baseball field back in the 1990s to see his son, Rob, play for Wake Forest. But this one was different
“To go against the University of Maryland, and my son being involved, obviously, I became very emotional,” the elder Penders recalled. “Both Jimmy and I, and the meaning of it. It was a great finish, let’s put it that way. A great ending.”
It’s not over yet, of course. The Huskies head out to Palo Alto on Thursday and begin play against Stanford on Saturday at 10:30 p.m. (EST). Jim Penders Sr. may or may not be along for the ride. He doesn’t like to interfere, but it does have its perks. Penders bussed down to Maryland with the team last week, something he rarely (if ever) has done. On the ride home, the bus took a detour so that Jim Sr. could meet up with Joan to see Billy Crystal perform on Broadway on Tuesday night.
“It was quite a weekend,” Jim Penders Sr. noted.
An emotional one, as well.