Tales from three Valley stars

By WAYNE STEWART

For MVI Sports

Ben McCauley, Yough High School basketball star from the Class of 2005, has many memories of his playing days. He had to be pleased that an opposing coach, Seth Greenberg of Virginia Tech, praised McCauley’s pivot play when he was at North Carolina State.

“If he saw me prior to the game he would always say, ‘McCauley, you kill us every time. I’m going to try and make a trade for you.’ Sure enough, a lot of the games that I played my best were against Virginia Tech for whatever reason—I don’t know why.” 

Legendary Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski was also a friendly opposing coach.

“My junior year we had a tough game against Duke. I think we were up the whole game and then there was a foul called that went Duke’s way at the end. They got some free throws and they took the lead,” McCauley recalled. “After the game Coach K came up to me because I had a pretty good game that day and he shook my hand. He did the shake, but also put his other hand on top, being real personable.

“He looked at me and said, ‘You guys deserved to win that game.’ I know he gets a bad rap because Duke wins a lot and people think they get special treatment on calls, stuff like that, but he is truly a good guy, a really good person.”

McCauley says not only does Coach K run a clean program, but “guys respect him. It’s tough whenever you get these young players who are playing big time high school and you get all those egos on one team, but he finds a way to make it work. He gets kids to respect him.”

Ken Griffey Sr.

While Ken Griffey Sr.’s major league career has been widely chronicled, here’s a new look at some of his days in the minors, his climb to the majors, and a glimpse of some of his earliest big league highlights. 

Signed by the Reds in the 29th round of the June amateur draft in 1969, Griffey began to shine by 1971, hitting .348 in the minors. The following season he stole 31 bases and was thrown out just three times in Class AA ball—plus he hit an impressive .318. In 1973, he swiped 43 bases in only 107 games at the Triple-A level. Further, for his entire minor league career, he was successful on 80% of his stolen base attempts.

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