Prologue

Nineteen Hundred and Ninety Five was the year I graduated from a private Parochial High School and as I looked out from that, then pinnacle, I saw my future as more than bright and my outlook could not have been more positive, my life no less than a fulfillment of the dreams I had going into my freshman year and realization that I would graduate 4 years later an adult man.

My grades didn't allow me to play baseball in my Freshman year (basically NO Freshman could play a Varsity sport until 3 quarter marks of 3.5 or better were posted) The requirements were much lower after that and in my Sophomore year I helped lead the team to Class C New York State Championships. My forte was pitching where I went 5-0 in our 14 game schedule, but I also hit .436 with 5 home runs and 27 RBI as a right fielder. In my Junior year we graduated to a Class B level school and got expanded to a 20 game schedule with tougher schools from larger cities and I went 7-1, 0.50 ERA and 78 Strike-Outs in 53 innings with but 3 walks. We took a hard luck loss in the Class B State final that year, landing 4 starting players quarantine with flu. I pitched the final and we lost 1-0. I gave up a 4th inning home run at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse when I basically hit somebody's bat with a 92 MPH fastball. In that final there were scouts there to look at ME! Real professional Major League scouts! However, before my Senior baseball season even started, I signed a letter of intent with a great scholarship (baseball and academics) to South Carolina. I had dreamt of playing baseball for the Gamecocks as my father had many years before. The program was much more competitive in '95 than when he played, but he had a trophy case full of South Carolina memorabilia and the accolades he had drawn.

A major plus to South Carolina was the Engineering program I wanted to be part of. Once again, your Freshman year in athletics is spent on the sidelines (with the exception of the guys in the business school who were basically recruited to play ball. It wasn't basket weaving 101, but compared to Engineering, ... well, need I say more.

But, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me give you some details to have all of this make sense.

My name is Rance Glynn. My Dad's parents came from Norway and settled in Canada. My Father went to South Carolina and got a degree and loved the American life style. He moved he and my Mom into New York State right after they got married. Like every other kid in America in those days, I dreamed of playing Major League Baseball when I grew up. While most kids didn't take the dream seriously, I did. I met my best friend in life, Matt Bardon, in Pee Wee baseball and we stayed friends right up until college and team mates until Matt decided football was for him and joined Pop Warner Football when we were about 12. Matt was a rough and tumble guy who could run like the wind with a body that could mow walls down. His Dad was sending him to summer football camps while I spent my summers playing organized baseball of one kind or another. With the exception of our chosen sport, we did everything together. We had our first drink, our first drunk, first hangover, our first joint, our first dates (we doubled), learned to drive, got our drivers licenses, even got laid, ALL TOGETHER. We vowed going into High School (we went to the same Central Parochial School) that we would keep each other aware of how far we got with our dates and the first to proclaim he had gotten laid would share the dirty details. It all seems so silly now, but we were that close.

As it turned out we both got our first serious girl friends in our Sophomore years. He dated a girl he was teamed with for Science Fair, Chelsea Katzenbaum, and I followed suit a few weeks later with a pretty cheerleader, Megan Baker. Coincidentally Megan and Chelsea were best friends as well. I say coincidentally because neither Matt nor I knew our steady dates were best friends until we planned on introducing them at a school dance. New York Capital Catholic (NYCC) was large enough (1200 students) that you might even be in the same homeroom and not share another class all day and both have the same subjects. After we got together that first time the four of us doubled many times over.

During football season players and cheerleaders had to take school provided busses to away games so Chelsea and I usually drove to the games together in my car to meet and support the team and cheerleaders. Of course the rumors of Chelsea and I were rampant, and nothing could have been further from the truth. My gal Megan was the head cheerleader and just a gorgeous, well put together, sexy and cute blonde who was the wet dream of most of the guys in school. I had blinders to any other girl. I was just not interested in anyone else. Looking back I realize how shallow BOTH of us (Megan and I) were at the time. The fact she was drop dead beautiful and head cheerleader, and the fact I was the much ballyhooed baseball pitcher, was the glue that kept us true to each other. On our trips back and forth to the away football games Chelsea and I spent our time mostly talking about our mates. We didn't engage in much personal small talk, but I really got to know her. Matt grabbed local sports headlines early on when he first made Varsity and was touted by many colleges and Megan was the head of the Yearbook Committee, Prom Committee, editor of the School Newspaper, as well as being featured in a lot of local advertising. Our steadies seemed destined for greatness.

I was no slouch in sports headlines, and Chelsea organized the school involvement in a lot of charities and when her older sister competed in the 1994 Winter Games in Lillehammer Norway, Chelsea went as a local news correspondent and wrote a column for the Capital Cities Newspaper Group that was picked up by many other papers across the country. It laid the foundation of her future as she decided she wanted to work in news broadcasting and reporting.

So, the four of us had our futures laid out before us, we only needed to act on it to make it happen.

While Matt and I told each other of the details of our tries at dating early in our high school life, reporting touched boobs, fingered pussies and getting handjobs, neither of us could report getting laid or a blowjob. We actually figured, as naïve boys do, that no girl we knew would ever do the bj, it was only something you saw in pornos. We never had to fess up about getting laid, as we both got laid the same night, after a dance, in the football stands on either side of the press box. Two young gals from the local public school were at the dance. It was the Friday of the long Columbus Day weekend of our Sophomore years and just before we hooked up with Chelsea and Megan (who we began dating during Christmas vacation) These girls were probably Juniors or Seniors, but they were on a mission to get a couple Catholic boys. It was warm for mid-October and only sweater weather at best. Matt and I were sitting in the chairs on the perimeter of the cafeteria turned to dance hall checking out the women, trying to get the nerve to ask one to dance with us. The girls approached us together and said they didn't go to NYCC and asked where the rest rooms were. They used our directions to start a conversation of small talk while Matt and I gave each other quick looks trying to figure out where this was going and should we try to steer it. Suddenly Mariah Carey's "I'll Be There" started to play and one of the girls brightened right up and said "You guys have been so sweet, could we ask you to dance?".