Varsity Kansas - The Blog

by joanna

Not sure if you saw it, but I wrote a story on Curtis Dolezal, a one-handed senior at Wilson High. I heard about him from a voice mail left on our sports editor’s voice mail. I was instantly intrigued. So on April 29, I drove to Wilson, which is off I-70 on the way to Hays.

I went to the high school where I was supposed to interview Curtis, but he was in an on-the-job training class, driving a tractor. So I talked to one of his teacher’s, Alice Peterka. She gave me more information on a variety of subjects in such a short period of time. She was wonderful to talk to.

By the time Curtis got back to the school, we only had about 10 minutes. As we were talking I asked him how many times he’d told this story to the media. I figured, a one-handed baseball player and basketball player and kicker, had to have been in the media before. Not so much. The day before I came, Channel 12 had been out there, and the day after I came, the local newspaper was scheduled to do an interview. But that was it.

The reason I had asked him is because he was so well-spoken about the incident. Turns out, he’s just a good person to talk to. He’s honest, he shows feeling and emotion. So often we get those people who look at you as though you asked the most ridiculous question ever (wonder why I seem to say how much I like this person so much? it’s because there’s so many people who are so much worse that you’re just darn glad to get somebody who says something interesting.)

After we chatted briefly, Curtis had to head to the ballfield to get ready for his baseball game with Ellsworth. (I had an hour to kill, so I went to Lucas, about 20 miles away, to see the Garden of Eden. Now that is weird. But the trip was great because Wilson Lake is absolutely beautiful.)

I was duly impressed with Curtis’ play. He’s not on the field just because his coach, Clay Mettlen, feels sorry for him. He’s out there because he can play. The first inning there were several hits his way, and he played them just as well as anyone else would have. I didn’t get to see him bat until the second game, and that’s when I just smiled and shook my head. He’s got so much power in his left arm to be able to put so much force into his swing. He got a nice line drive to left while I was there. Very nice.

This story was one of the more enjoyable ones I’ve done because not one person that I talked to ever seemed to put on a facade, you know, come with a fake personality. These people were real and they let me see it. They didn’t mind talking about themselves and sharing their experiences.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 12th, 2008 at 11:48 a.m. and is filed under Baseball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.