‘It’s brought the world to Columbus.’ This 82-year-old is making sure the softball event shines.
Kinard Latham is one of more than 75 volunteers helping the Columbus Sports Council host the USA Softball International Cup this week at the South Commons Softball Complex.
But this 82-year-old is the only one performing this community service in the extreme heat despite having had quadruple bypass surgery nine months ago and still receiving dialysis three times per week.
And no volunteer has his softball cred.
He umpired for more than 50 years and was inducted into the National Softball Hall of Fame, located in Oklahoma City, in 2001.
No wonder Merri Sherman, the sports council’s executive director, took Latham to a softball convention to help her pitch Columbus as a tournament venue.
“He knows it from the ground level,” Sherman said. “He’s been to so many tournaments across the country, so he knows what it takes for Columbus to shine.”
Such as treating the umpires right.
Latham is the tournament’s umpire coordinator. That means he ensures the 16 umpires have what they need to do their thankless jobs well, including transportation, accommodations, food and drinks, plus an air-conditioned room to cool off at the complex.
“From what I understand, at some of the places they go, they don’t get treated that way,” Sherman said. “They have to provide their own. … I was scoping out a different tournament, and (the umpires) were going to their cars between games to get out of the heat.”
Latham knows the feeling. In 1971, he was one of the umpires at a men’s slow-pitch national tournament in Ohio.
“If you got a hot dog, you had to pay for it,” he said. “We had to get our own way from the hotel to the ballpark. A lot of times, we had to walk. … It made me feel terrible.”
He promised himself, “There never will be a tournament that I have anything to do with that doesn’t feed the umpires and give them transportation.”
Latham also has been the umpire coordinator for the Georgia High School Association softball state championship tournaments at South Commons since 1995. But his surgery coincided with last year’s event, so recovering in time to be at this tournament was good motivation.
“I just love softball,” he said.
Here’s what he loves about it:
“The competition,” he said. “You get to see young people develop.”
Latham also has seen softball develop since it became an Olympic sport in 1996, when Columbus hosted the inaugural event at Golden Park and he was the umpire coordinator. Now, 23 years later, he is grateful to be part of another international tournament here.
“It’s brought the world to Columbus,” he said. “I’ve met people from all over that say they came to Columbus for softball.”
Latham used to teach at now-closed Benning Hills Elementary School and was assistant principal now-closed Daniel Middle School. He retired as director of plant services for the Muscogee County School District (1974-96). Latham’s wife, Jackie, joked that she had to also become a sports council volunteer if she wanted to continue seeing her husband. She started volunteering for the 1996 Olympic softball competition.
“It was a very exciting time for the whole city,” said Mrs. Latham, a retired teacher after working a combined 30 years at St. Marys Road, St. Elmo and Hannan elementary schools. “I enjoyed meeting all the people. We got to meet people from different countries, from all over the States.”
Since then, she has helped the sports council conduct other events, such as swimming meets, basketball tournaments and state championships in softball and cheerleading. During this tournament, she is a ticket-taker at the main gate.
This is Latham’s first sports council event since he started dialysis and had open-heart surgery in October. Despite her husband’s health issues and the extreme heat, she figures she can’t stop him from volunteering for 12 hours or more each day of the tournament, where approximately one-third of the volunteers are on duty at any one time.
“He loves it,” she said. “I don’t know if it would do any good for me to say anything. I just told him to stay cool. He said he could go in the hospitality room if it gets hot.”
USA, USA
The No. 1 USA Women’s National Team and the USA U-19 team remained undefeated through Day 2 of the seven-day, 10-team round robin, as of the games completed before Tuesday night’s session.
USA WNT (3-0) won 1-0 over No. 8 China (1-3). Cat Osterman pitched a three-hit shutout with 12 strikeouts and no walks in seven innings. USA collected six hits.
The game’s lone run came in the third inning. Haylie McCleney led off with a double to left field and moved to third on Janie Reed’s bunt single. Two outs later, Valerie Arioto’s hard grounder up the middle scored McCleney.
Osterman, 36, is the team’s oldest player. She is the only three-time winner of the USA Softball’s Collegiate Player of the Year award (2003, 2005, 2006) as the led Texas to three Women’s College World Series appearances. Then she helped USA win gold medals at the 2004 Olymipcs and the 2006 and 2010 world championships, as well as a silver medal at the 2008 Olympics.
She retired from softball in 2015, so this performance shows the Cat is back on an elite level.
USA WNT’s game against No. 20 Peru wasn’t finished before this story’s deadline.
USA U-19 (4-0) beat No. 13 Philippines (0-3) then China, both by 7-0 scores.
Charla Echols of Newnan delivered the key hit against China. Her two-run triple in the fifth inning broke open a scoreless game and sparked the decisive seven-run inning.
“It felt really good,” she said. “We kept fighting the whole game.”
Wednesday, they’ll have to fight against their fellow Americans when they play the USA WNT at 3 p.m. in the stadium.
“Just keep doing what we do and not try to do too much,” Echols said.
But she acknowledged the special matchup.
“Very exciting, definitely,” she said. “That’s where we want to be eventually, so it will be very fun competing against them. We’re going to go as hard as we can.”
China’s coach from Auburn
Corey Myers was Auburn’s associate head coach when he resigned and was banned from campus in 2017 after the university’s investigation determined he violated school policy by pursuing sexual relationships with more than one student. Now, he coaches China, which does most of its training in the U.S.
“I haven’t been with them all the time,” he told the Ledger-Enquirer between games Tuesday. “I would say my role is more like a consultant.”
Myers still lives in Auburn with his family.
“We are very fortunate to live in a community that is very, very much where you want to raise a family,” he said.
Asked what he wants to say about the allegations, Myers said, “The people that are close to us, the people that are our friends, know what happened. The girls know what happened. . . . I’m a firm believer in God. I lean hard on my faith. When I got the China job and we went out and won our first tournament (Asia Pacific Cup in February), I felt guilty. I honestly felt guilty, because I don’t know how a human being that is a sinner gets restored by God and blessed with an unbelievable job.”
Other results
Scores from Tuesday’s other games:
▪ No. 2 Japan 4, No. 4 Puerto Rico 0
▪ Japan 10, No. 6 Chinese Taipei 0
▪ Chinese Taipei vs. Scrap Yard, an independent professional team from Conroe, Texas, a suburb of Houston
▪ No. 5 Mexico vs. Scrap Yard
Wednesday’s schedule
▪ Puerto Rico vs. China, 10 a.m., Stadium
▪ Peru vs. Japan, 10:30 a.m., Field 6
▪ USA U-19 vs. Mexico, 12:30 p.m., Stadium
▪ Peru vs. Chinese Taipei, 1 p.m., Field 6
▪ USA U-19 vs. USA, 3 p.m., Stadium
▪ Philippines vs. Scrap Yard, 3:30 p.m., Field 6
▪ Philippines vs. Mexico, 6 p.m., Field 6
Yep, the schedule is correct: No night games in the stadium. That’s because ESPN needs that time to wire the stadium for its broadcasts of some games through the rest of the week, Sherman said.
This story was originally published July 3, 2019 at 5:00 AM.
