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Jack will always be considered one of the greatest golfers of all time, but not many people have had the opportunity to see him as a regular guy, a sports dad, a basketball junkie, and an overall great man. I went to high school with three of his kids, played basketball with two of them and he was always there at our games. He and his wife were pretty much the team parents, supplying us with Gatorade and energy food. He was always so humble, never touting his status as the greatest golfer. Instead, he was just one of the guys, whether he was kicking field goals out on the football field or scrimmaging against our high school basketball team, he never really held back much at all. He was the parent in the stands making suggestions to the coach and players about what to do. It was a day when the media was not all around to hound him, when Nike was not omnipresent in every day life. It was a great time to grow up, and an opportunity for the greatest golfer in his era to be just Jack, just a dad, just a fan.
More than a great golfer, he was and still is a great man, and truly is a class act and I was lucky to have been at the right place at the right time to have gotten the chance to meet him during my high school days.
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