Billy Zinkhan and the joy of helping others

Nelson Shaw remembers the time, when they were classmates at Parkville High, that Billy Zinkhan pushed Shaw to go to the senior picnic — even if he wouldn’t be graduating with the class.

“I had to go to summer school to get my diploma, and I didn’t want to talk to anybody,” Shaw says. “I stayed in the house and Billy called me and called me, and I was like, ‘I’m not going, man.’ I just wasn’t in the mood. I didn’t want to go because I wasn’t walking across the stage with everybody else. But Billy called me and called me. I stopped answering the phone.”

So Zinkhan knocked on his door.

“Get dressed,” he told Shaw. “You’re going to the picnic.”

Shaw went.

“And I was glad he made me go because I had a good time,” Shaw says. “That was Billy.”

Everybody has a Billy Zinkhan story. My son, Nick, who knew him as an ice hockey coach and adultleague player, called him “legendary.”

His brother Jim reminds me that Billy once saved a man from a burning car. It was 1993. Billy was 19 and working as a mechanic’s helper. He and his boss saw a collision on Interstate 95 in Elkridge and a car burst into flames. Billy and his boss pulled the driver from the burning wreck. The governor of Maryland cited them for heroism at a State House ceremony.

None who knew Billy Z. will be surprised to hear that story.

Zinkhan, who was 50, died on Monday, April 3 inside a burning shed at his house in Parkville; the circumstances and cause of death are still under investigation by Baltimore County police.

Zinkhan’s daughter, Kiersten, has organized a celebration of her dad’s life for April 29, from 3 to 8 p.m., at the 4H Pavilion in

Rocks State Park.

Billy Z’s death shocked the people who knew him because he had a big, memorable personality and an energetic instinct for helping others.

He had a large presence in the relatively small world of Baltimore ice hockey — as a player, coach, on-ice official and volunteer for special programs for children and adults.

Let me get my Billy Zinkhan story out of the way.

I met him 20 years ago when, as a volunteer with Baltimore Youth Hockey, I recruited Billy and his brother, Jimmy, to coach a peewee team of 11- and 12-year-old boys. The Zinkhan brothers had played for BYH when they were kids, and they wanted to give back to the club that had given them a hockey experience otherwise unavailable in the area.

Two girls were among the boys who tried out for the peewees; my daughter, Julia, was one of them. I swear I had nothing to do with it, but the Zinkhans picked both girls to play defense on their team. That gave those girls confidence to compete with the boys, and I am forever grateful.

The Zinkhans went far above and beyond with their volunteerism. After coaching in BYH for a few seasons, Jimmy and his wife, Teresa, helped to establish the Baltimore Saints, an ice hockey program for both children and adults with traumatic brain injuries or intellectual disabilities such as autism or Down syndrome.

In his raspy voice, Billy encouraged and coached the kids.

“He was one of our first mentors,” says Jim.

Fifteen years later, the Saints are still going.

Billy Zinkhan’s efforts did not stop there. He volunteered to coach with the Bennett Blazers, the September-to-April sled hockey teams of Kennedy Krieger Institute’s adaptive sports program. Zinkhan coached children and adults with physical disabilities.

“He was just phenomenal,” says Gerry Herman, who directs the Bennett programs with his wife, Gwena. “Billy would do anything for the adults or kids, anything to make the team better.”

All of this hockey goes back to Billy Zinkhan’s youth. His father was equipment manager and an assistant trainer for Baltimore professional teams — the Clippers, Skipjacks and Bandits — that competed in the downtown arena over the years.

“Billy was the stick boy,” says Steve Wirth, another longtime fixture on the Baltimore hockey scene.

“He was a locker room attendant,” says Jim Zinkhan.

“Hockey was his life,” says Rich Jondo, who played with Billy Z. and later skated as an official with him.

“There’s a generation of Baltimore hockey players with a love of the game because of him,” says my son.

Zinkhan was the consummate hockey guy; he could be tough, gritty, hard-nosed. But he also embodied everything good about the sport — the camaraderie and lasting friendships.

One of his closest friends was Jondo.

“Literally, he was the only person I know who would give you the shirt off his back,” Jondo says. “He would do anything for you. Whatever it was. He did everything for everybody. If I called him, he would be there for me in a heartbeat.”

Zinkhan regularly expressed pride in the performance of the sled hockey teams he coached for Kennedy Krieger. Of all of Zinkhan’s ice rink experiences, Jondo says, his efforts as a coach of people with disabilities were the most meaningful.

“I can’t even describe to you the joy that was on his face and the way he interacted with the Blazers,” Jondo says. “He loved being around the kids. He loved being around the Blazers. He loved being around the Saints. He was perfect with them, really. That was his thing. That was his calling.”