This is a special weekend in my house. Mother’s Day is always a big day in a house with a lot of children. They love Mother’s Day because they show Mom how special she is to them.
This Mother’s Day weekend takes on extra-special meaning for our house. My wife, Kelley Kolankiewicz Paterno, will be inducted into the Western Chapter of the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame. She will take her place among other elite sportsmen and women of a region rich in sports history. She will join a Hall of Fame that includes Roberto Clemente, Art Rooney, Stan Musial and Chuck Tanner.
Kelley was a dominant All-American tennis player at Mount Lebanon High School, winning two state PIAA singles titles and three WPIAL singles titles. At the time of her first state title in 1982, she was the youngest state champion in PIAA history. She went on to play tennis at the University of Virginia and, after college, began a professional career that was cut short by injuries.
The honor she will receive is one that, in the somewhat biased opinion of this writer, is well deserved. It is an honor that was earned by hard work, long hours and a passionate competitive streak that has not faded with the passage of time.
It was that competitive fire that drew me to her when we began dating more than two decades ago. I did not know Kelley when she was in high school or college, and that is probably a good thing. A girl with that much going for her probably wouldn’t have given a guy like me the time of day back then.
Hall-of-Fame honors recognize achievements in a different time and place. Saturday night, she will have friends and family around her for a moment in her life that we’ll all remember.
But if I step away from that honor for a moment, I want her to recognize that, for her children, for her family and her friends, she’s always been a Hall of Famer.
It hasn’t always been easy for Kelley to be married to me. My life has, in many ways, been lived out in the open. I’ve been a coach at a highly visible football program. I’ve taken public stands and made speeches for congressmen, a vice president and a presidential campaign. Despite our attempts to keep my family sheltered, my public life can be intrusive.
It is the wife who sometimes stumbles upon mean-spirited letters. It is the wife who overhears negative comments at games or outside the stadium or on the home voicemail. It is the wife who dries the tears of a young son after a tough loss or who has to answer the questions that a child brings home from a snide comment they hear about their father at school.
Through it all, Kelley has always known what makes me who I am. In each other, we’ve recognized things that we have in ourselves: a competitive fire, the striving, the reach for perfection and the lament when falling just short of the prize.
My job requires me to devote long hours to work. My pursuits outside of football for what I believe in require more time. But Kelley has always allowed me to pursue those things that make me whole. For that, she is not just a Hall of Fame wife but a saint.
Through it all she has been a loving wife, mother, daughter, aunt, sister-in-law and daughter-in-law. She’s found time to give to charities and events for Tides, The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and others. She’s run two marathons, raising thousands of dollars for charity. If she gets involved in a cause, hang on because she quickly learns the ropes and becomes a driving force.
Her life has been an example to our children of how service for others is how we better, not only the lives of others, but our own as well.
In our life together she has always been there, never wavering. While I have usually been the one in the spotlight, she has been a constant behind the scenes, rock-solid through ups and downs. When things are good, she keeps me grounded, and in tough times, she is there, urging me to get up and move on.
She has been a pillar of strength, unyielding much like I imagine she was on a tennis court those years before we met. Singles tennis is an unforgiving place. Alone, the competitor stands armed with only a racquet, their inner strength and pride, with no help and no one to blame.
For Kelley, I am elated that this Saturday night, others are recognizing not only her achievements but the qualities she used to reach the summit of her athletic career and her life. For my family, we’re happy for others to see the Hall of Famer we’ve known for years.
But most of all on this Mother’s Day weekend, I am grateful that she’s brought her Hall-of-Fame game to the unique challenges of our family team.
The great ones make everyone around them better, and Kelley has done that for everyone she knows.
