First ran in Sunday, July 25, 2021 editions of Louisiana Gannett papers

God has the best sense of humor.

One day you give diapers to the proud parents-to-be at the baby shower, the next you are hoping the babies who got those diapers will have become grownups and be kind enough to buy diapers for you.

Life’s a circle.

We had a baby shower in the office a few weeks ago. I love a baby shower, although this might have been the first one I’ve ever been to. Usually I find out a friend is pregnant, ask them what brand of diapers they want, and drop those off.

Diapers is my standard gift. It’s not flashy. Not Fifth Avenue. Not “all that.” It’s workmanlike. Nobody likes to get diapers at a baby shower.

What they want is the swing that sits on the floor and rocks the baby. They want the thing you attach to the top of an open door frame and at the bottom is basically a pair of underwear the baby sits in and, once the infant of eight or so months is in it, the little person learns to bounce up and down. Pretend walk. Maybe even pretend to moon walk.

And all that’s great. If I were a baby, I’d prefer those. Or the fancy clothes — just in case the baby needs to go to a board meeting or a wedding or even a baby shower.

But neg. I am a man of the people. A man of the excretory system. Practical. The reminder here is that it all comes back to plumbing.

Which means it all comes back to diapers. Standard gift. It’s the gift you need when the baby gives you the gift that keeps on giving. If the baby needs changing, a cute little swing’s not going to do you much good.

So I brought diapers to the shower and there was punch and chocolate cake and a proud dad who apparently had a decent time during quarantine since his beautiful wife was less than a month away, it turned out, from having the couple’s second child. She was all smiles, chocolate cake on her white shirt as she went back for seconds and who cares when you’re pregnant and eating for two, right? It was a picture of joy.

This week the mom, dad, and baby stopped by again, only this time the baby was on the outside of his mom and not on the inside. Big difference.

This precious little person had on a seersucker jump suit, maybe with sailboats on the front, short-sleeved white shirt, very classy, white socks, shoeless because, well, what’s the point? Even if he could have walked, the women in the room wouldn’t have let him. They passed him around gently and he never opened his eyes, just sucked on the pacifier and kept living the dream.

Babies are usually scrunched up in my eyes but I have to admit, this was one good-looking olive-skinned little man. Just beautiful.

He looked comfortable. At ease. A man of leisure. Maybe he was wearing one of my diapers.

This is my idea of heaven on Earth: having someone like 20 times your size hold you all the time, feed you, change you, rock you. If I were a rich man …

It gives you hope, baby showers and babies and little people do. We have managed to screw things up in this crazy world, make a mess so big that no diaper could hold it. Hopefully these precious little people who can’t walk yet will, and then run, and hopefully do a little better than we’ve done.

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The standalone inductee of the Conference USA 2021 Hall of Fame Class is Russell D. Anderson, great guy, hard worker, efficient former league communications administrator and dedicated member of the C-USA staff for more than 25 years. He passed away suddenly in April.

Conference USA Commissioner Judy MacLeod noted Russ’ contributions to the league were “were remarkable, and his passion and dedication were evident in everything he did for the league,” she said. “We are proud to commemorate his lasting legacy to our conference.”

Anderson promoted Conference USA since its formation in 1995. He is missed by all who knew him, and hopefully his humility and good nature has rubbed off on those of us who did.

The league’s Hall of Fame Committee selects the nominees and the league’s Athletics Directors serve as the voting panel for the C-USA Hall of Fame. 

The league’s HOF debuted in 2019 with 20 student-athletes, three coaches and two administrators. Current and future C-USA Hall of Fame class size will be a minimum of one inductee and a maximum of five inductees per year.
Here’s more information on Russ:

• Communications and media relations specialist since league’s formation in 1995
• Primary media and administrative contact for baseball and football
• Coordinated league championship media operations and events for several sports
• Served on the media relations staffs for many, many NCAA postseason regional, national and championship events, College Football Playoff championship games and bowl games
• The C-USA Baseball Championship MVP Award is named in his honor
• Actively involved with the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) since 1996, and was the organization’s most recent Associate Executive Director
• Received the NCBWA’s Wilbur Snypp Award in 2002 for his outstanding contributions to college baseball. The Wilbur Snypp Award has been renamed in his honor.

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