It was a moment that always made me smile. Walking across the court at the Holy Cross gym and seeing the reserved seat with the name “Bezold” embossed on it.
For those of us who got to coach against Tony Bezold, or even got to cover him as a sportswriter, or to hang out with him at games over the years and loved everything Tony — and the life he lived – represented, it made us feel like we’d made the right call. Sports was a good place to be — it was Tony’s place.
I was hardly alone here with the hundreds of responses from the thousands of folks who’ve read about Tony’s passing June 10 at the age of 93. They’ll all get a chance to say goodbye Saturday morning at Holy Cross Church with Tony’s visitation at 9 a.m. followed by the Mass of Christian Burial at 11 a.m.
As the first lay teacher at Holy Cross when he signed on in 1958, Tony became the AD the next year and started a one-of-a-kind multi-decade career. He was a teacher (“a great algebra teacher,” one former student called him) and the JV basketball coach who won more than 400 games while preparing players for two separate Sweet 16 runs with George Schneider and Ralph Kemphaus, the first in 1965 getting the kids from Latonia to the state championship game in front of 18,000 at Freedom Hall…