Met up with Eric Cole's dad today

I really, really wanted to do a story on Eric and his dad, Terry, once I found out what Eric did with the ball after the final out of the super regional. Terry and I have been keeping up a bit over the last week-plus, texting back and forth, and we finally got to meet today over at Blatt beyond the right-field wall at TDAP.

He was wearing a really good looking cardinal red Arkansas jersey with Eric’s No. 8 on it. He’s returned home to Texas once during the CWS and has pretty much worked every day he’s been in Omaha. Eric’s sister, Megan, was with his dad, too. She’s in from San Diego. Jax Biggers’ mother, Christie, walked up while Terry and I were talking, so I got to meet her as well. She was wearing a big button on her shirt with Jax’s face on it. It was kind of cool/comical.

Terry and I probably talked for a half hour before I left for the park. I just enjoyed getting to meet the man who’s had such an impact on Eric and who he is. Eric’s mom, Andrea, was holding their spot in the player pass line. They’ll be sitting in the sections above Arkansas’ dugout.

I met him briefly during the early season tournament at Frisco’s minor-league ballpark last year. He was sitting right in front of me before the first game and we just started talking like twoHog fans will…And I saw that he had in Arkansas dad shirt or something that tipped me that his son might be one of the players. So I asked, and when he told me he livec in Southlake I .said “you must be Eric’s Dad”, which seemed to please him.

Seemed like a pretty nice guy. Not one of those helicopter dads thatlived through his son every pitch.