Growing up in Trotwood in the 70s, Kirk Herbstreit and his friends spent their after-school hours playing “every game imaginable”, juggling block-to-block, four-square, freeze tag, and more. His first love was baseball. So when he moved to Centerville High School, the “little too quiet” 15-year-old had some clear choices: play quarterback for Elks head coach Bob Gregg during football season, and third base for baseball coach Tim Engle K in the spring. But life after high school wasn’t so straightforward. At 6-foot-3 and 187 pounds, Herbstreit was bound for Ohio State. There, he had to make a final call: football or baseball?

By the time he entered Ohio State, he had chosen football, leaving baseball as something he’d only watch from then on. There may have been a few reasons: signing a scholarship for just one sport, or the ruptured appendix he suffered in tenth grade, which could have affected his ability to play. Still, when his mom asked if he missed baseball, he gave a long answer with a simple conclusion—as he shared during a recent conversation with Ryan Hawk, back home in Centerville.

In the latest episode of The Learning Leader Show, Herbstreit’s mother, sitting in the crowd of about 300 people, asked the ESPN broadcaster a question he did not see coming. “Kirk, I’ve never asked you this.” With some hesitation, he pleaded, “You’re not gonna make me cry. You’re not gonna me cry… Don’t make me cry.”

Promising him, “I’m not gonna make you cry,” she asked, “This is a question I’ve always wanted to ask you, I never have. At Centerville High School, you played both football and baseball. And you were good in both. You played baseball, the whole team played with so much joy. And I believe, correct me if I’m wrong, but I think you had a 500 batting average as a senior. I’ve also wondered, you went into football, you followed it at Ohio State, you couldn’t play both. So, your whole career you’ve followed football and you’ve done very well in it. Do you ever miss baseball?”

With a loud laugh, Herbstreit answered, “Back in our day, we were in the yard. Like we were in the creek or the yard. That was all we knew, you know, when you grow up in my era. We played wiffle ball, we played pitcher’s hand, pickle, we played anything you can imagine. Not to mention four square and all the other games we played. Hide and seek… Just constant in-the-yard playing. When we played baseball, I was always the youngest and I just… I just loved it. Baseball was probably my first love. Baseball, again, was my most natural thing. I played for a great coach– Tim Engle K. – who probably, we talked a lot about Bob Gregg. And Tim Engle K probably impacted me as much as anybody in my life as well. I don’t know if you guys know Tim Engle K. 

“He retired a few years ago. Tim as a coach was a beast… and… scary. Just a tough coach. I made the varsity as a sophomore which was fun but scary, just being around that environment. I burst my appendix. Almost died, my 10th grade year because they mis-diagnosed it. But, I think I miss baseball when I watch it now. But I don’t miss playing football at all. I missed, didn’t see how far I could go with baseball. Like if there’s any regret I’d ever have, as an athlete, it was I didn’t go just in baseball, and gave it a run. But I’m doing okay now. I don’t dwell on it, but it’d have been fun to see what would’ve happened with that sport.”

While he has come a long way, Kirk Herbstreit certainly remembers his coaches with the fondest memories. When Gregg died four years ago, the broadcaster paid tribute to him on ESPN’s College GameDay, talking about his teachings that to date help him. “He got me to believe in myself. He taught me about things that you use for your entire life: your guiding principles; work ethic; determination; getting knocked down; getting back up. He impacted so many lives.”