Top 100: Joe Koshansky, Baseball
Joe Koshansky was able to sum up his career as a baseball player at Chantilly High School in just one sentence: "I pitched pretty well and I hit a few home runs." Koshansky, who graduated in 2000, did much more for his team than pitch a few scoreless innings and hit a few over the fence.
Top 100: Alex Irmer, Wakefield Basketball, 2005
Wakefield High boys basketball coach Tony Bentley always understood that versatile 6-foot 7-inch Alex Irmer was much more than just another good ball player.
Top 100: Mary Yarrison, Diving, Lee 2003
The four-time high school state champion returned from injuries to continue a stellar diving career collegiately, nationally and internationally.
When she won her third diving state championship in 2002, Mary Yarrison walked away from the meet with a hint of anger. She may have won three state championships in three years, she was only a junior, but she didn't have the record yet.
Top 100: Cathron Birge, Track, Lake Braddock 1986
Teammate in an individual sport.
When the Lake Braddock girls track team won the Northern Region Championship in 1986, the lone senior was out with a mono diagnosis. Many wondered if Cathron Birge would be able to run in the following week's state championship.
Top 100: Bryant Johnson, Herndon Football, 1986
Barry Johnson, arguably Herndon High School's greatest athlete, remembers a newspaper article that tore him up inside. He doesn't remember the specifics, but he remembers reading the words as something to the effect of "There is only one Johnson at Herndon High School."
Top 100: Bob DeProspero, Robinson Wrestling, 1981
After not making the varsity wrestling team his freshman year of high school, Bob DeProspero, a 1981 Robinson graduate, went on to win all but one match in the remaining three years of his high school career.
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Cancer-Free Randolph Returns to Titans
Coach missed final six games of 2011 season.
T.C. Williams head football coach Dennis Randolph was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2011, causing him to miss the final six games of the season. One year later, he's cancer-free and back coaching the Titans.
Column: Choosing My Words, Respectively
It has been brought to my attention by some regular Kenny-column readers – who are friends, too, and whose opinions I value, that my most recent batch of “cancer columns” (as I call them) were not funny; in fact, they were more depressing and negative than anything, and not nearly as uplifting and hopeful as many of my previous columns have been.
Top 100: Larry Fones, Fairfax Football, Baseball and Basketball, 1948
Larry Fones is from a different time. Fones is from a time when football players wore leather helmets and guns marked the end of the games' quarters.
Top 100: Eddie Royal, Football, 2003
Westfield was trailing early in the 2003 Group AAA Division 6 state championship game. It was a position that the Bulldogs had not been in very often that season.
Top 100: Felton Brothers, Basketball Hayfield 1994 and 1998
Two brothers, seven years, one program, numerous accolades and immeasurable impact.
The writing above the number 33 jersey on Hayfield Secondary's Basketball Hall of Fame wall says the number was retired in 1997. A deeper gaze into the number reveals a story of family, winning and losing, record breaking, team leadership and passion for the sport.
Top 100: Brandon Corso, Football, Woodson 1992
In September of 1991 the Connection came out with its Northern Virginia Football Preview for that year. The caption under the photo on page 3 read, "Woodson flies Air Corso again in 1991."
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Column: A Life Worth Living, Still
It might be my age (as in getting older), or it might be the fact that I have cancer (you think?), but my brain and the related physical and mental tasks it coordinates are not exactly working at peak efficiency.
Top 100: Kendyl Baugh, South Lakes, Track, 1989
Lessons from track helped six-time AAA state champion Baugh persevere through personal tragedy.
Kendyl Baugh regained that familiar sense of security as she walked her son around the track at South Lakes High School last year. The 35-year-old Baugh traveled back to Reston with her son Kellen — the lone survivor of what would have been four-year-old triplet sons.
Top 100: Katie Beal, West Potomac, Soccer, 2001
Wolverine girls soccer star continued to shine as defensive stalwart for Florida State Seminoles.
Sitting on a bookcase in West Potomac High Athletic Director Jeff Dietze's office is a framed autograph picture of one of the greatest athletes the Alexandria-based public school has ever known. The picture is of Katie Beal — a 2001 West Potomac graduate and Wolverine soccer great — during game action when she was a member of the Florida State University women's team.
Derek Lee, South Lakes Baseball, 1983
South Lakes slugger was drafted five times before playing for Minnesota Twins.
Derek Lee is remembered at South Lakes high school, and by those that watched him play baseball, for his ability to do one thing — swing the bat.
Taline Tahmassian, Langley Soccer, 2001
Langley star recorded 96 goals and before winning NCAA title at Santa Clara.
How good Taline Tahmassian was on the soccer field can be measured by the pages of old newspapers. Tahmassian and the Saxons could be seen celebrating in photographs while snappy headlines chronicled their victories in a week-by-week scrapbook of archived clippings.
Top 100: Jon Carman, Herndon, Football, 1994
Herndon's gentle giant went from the band to the football field and into the NFL.
The legend of Jon Carman has outgrown the "gentle giant's" 6-foot 7-inch, 350-pound body frame. Any coach or neighborhood kid from back in Carman's day remembers his own story about the giant with the big hands whose mother, Betty, said he drank two gallons of milk a day.