Few West Virginians know more about sports and sports figures than Frank Giardina.
Growing up in McDowell County when coalfield life revolved around football, basketball and baseball games, he wallowed in a passion for sports that persists to this day.
Interest mushroomed with a move to Campbells Creek and DuPont High School, a hotbed of athletic prowess.
Through it all, he dreamed of a career in broadcasting. He laid the groundwork as a student at Marshall, covering games for area radio stations. At 23, his alma mater named him the Voice of the Herd, a role he relished for 10 years.
After a stint at East Carolina, he hit the big time as marketing director and broadcasting coordinator at Penn State.
For 20 years, he rubbed elbows daily with bigwigs in the Penn State sports department, including legendary football coach Joe Paterno.
He followed with an administrative sports gig at Marshall, talk show work with West Virginia Radio and broadcasting for a national Christian radio company.
Today, he feeds his passion through writing. His nostalgia-based sports column appears regularly in The Sunday Gazette-Mail.
But all is not roses. The boyish dimpled face and genial manner belie a life in limbo.
In 2014, he suffered a massive near fatal stroke. Struggling with the lingering physical limitations, he wonders what lies ahead.
At 61, a proud father of five, he gives thanks for a future, however uncertain. He believes God saved him for a reason. He's waiting to find out why.
"I'm from McDowell County. My father got an associate's bookkeeping degree and became a bookkeeper/accountant for the coal company.
"We lived in a coal camp called Black Wolf. There were probably a dozen houses. Now you can't even tell it was even there. I lived there until I was 11 and we moved to another coal camp called Pageton.
"We lived on what was called The Street, the only paved street in the area. We moved into a house that used to be a doctor's office, and it had a doctor's office attached to it and we turned that into a play area. I took chalk and made it into a baseball field and designed stadiums and played games with my baseball cards.
"I credit growing up in McDowell County for my love of sports. Sports was everything down there. There wasn't much else to do. There was this rabid sense of community that's hard to explain.
"We had nine high schools. This was the early '60s, and the schools were segregated in McDowell, Wyoming and Mercer counties. If it was a Friday night, everyone went to a game somewhere.
"My dad loved sports. We went to all the games. They would have double headers at the old Ross National Guard Armory and you couldn't get in the place. All the schools were old and all the gyms were small and they were packed. The stadiums were packed.
"It was a big deal going to a Bluefield game. Going to Bluefield was like going to New York City. They had two big things I'd never seen. The Penney's store had an escalator and an elevator. It was a big deal to ride the escalator and the elevator.
"I played Little League when I was 8. We didn't have organized Little League. It was a coal camp team against a coal camp team. I played with 12-year-olds, which was tough.
"The coach was great, a local pastor named Clyde Oliver. He treated me like I was Babe Ruth. He called me Frankie Boy. 'Way to go, Frankie Boy!'
"When I moved up here and played my first Little League game at Campbells Creek, I said, 'Where are all the fans?' It was just moms and dads and brothers and sisters. I was used to the whole town being there.
"I always wanted to be a broadcaster, just from driving around with my dad going to games and listening to games on the radio. We would listen to WLW in Cincinnati and WCAU in Philadelphia.
"I was going to go to UK, but my senior year in high school, I fell in love for the first time. So I wanted to stay closer to home.
"So I went to Marshall and it turned out to be the great decision ever. I loved Marshall. I majored in broadcast journalism. Teachers used to say, 'Frank, you are a man in a hurry.' I had a lot I wanted to do and I wanted to get it going.
"I wanted to go where all the big sporting events were. One time I wrote a paper in high school about the three things you would like to do. I wanted to go to a World Series, the Olympics and the Rose Bowl.
"Most people save a bucket list until later, but I had a bucket list when I was 15. I have pretty much accomplished most of that, and I'm thankful for that.
"I worked while I was at Marshall. I started getting summer jobs at radio stations in Huntington and Charleston. I would broadcast West Virginia State and high school games. I broadcast games for the student station, WMUL, too. It was great experience, and I was making a little money.
"My parents would have paid my tuition, but I was able to do that. I wrote checks for $141 a semester and room and board was another $400. "I was very fortunate. In 1977, at 23, I was named the Voice of the Herd. I did that for 10 years.
"I loved working with the coaches -- Aberdeen, Huckabay, Zuffelato, Bob Daniels in basketball; Elwood, Randle, Parish and Chaump in football.
"Every coach and person I worked with at Marshall felt like family. It's like that in West Virginia anyway. I thought it was like that everywhere. It's not. We are different in West Virginia.
"I worked for the athletic department. I worked at Channel 3 for three years and did the Marshall radio broadcast.
"Another thing happened at Marshall that was great for me. Because I registered late, I got a room on the 15th floor at Twin Towers. I'd heard stories about the elevators breaking down. I went to the housing director. He said they could put me in the athletic dorm but it would get pretty wild and doesn't have air conditioning. I asked how many floors. He said three. I said, 'I'm in.' I was one of the few non-athletes who lived there.
"I loved it. I made the best friends. I made the best friends of my life in Hodges Hall to this day. We were all in each other's weddings.
"After that, I went to East Carolina for a year and a half and then went to Penn State and was there almost 20 years. I ended up director of marketing and coordinator of radio and TV.
"I went there as kind of a marketing person. I wanted to prove my administrative experience. I wanted to be an athletic director. I was a man in a hurry. I would do this for a while and then I wanted to do that. I always wanted to do more.
"I wanted to be at a major program. I worked closely with football and men's basketball. I worked with everything. We had 29 varsity sports. Wrestling is huge there, bigger than basketball. You can turn on your radio and pick up three high school wrestling matches.
"I worked closely with Joe Paterno. Joe was the man, like Nick Saban at Alabama and Bear Bryant. He was the guy who held things together.
"He was a very intelligent visionary. Working with Joe Paterno was like taking a really hard class where the professor is so good he makes you interested in the subject. He had you on your toes every day, but it made you good. You enjoyed it.
"The summer between Randy Moss' junior and senior year, I was on a plane with Joe. He looks at me like he can, all knowing, and says, 'How good is that guy from your area, that Randy Moss?' I told him he was the best high school player I'd ever seen. He waved me off like I didn't know what I was talking about. Later, Penn State recruited him.
"I'm still trying to wrap my head around what happened to Joe. He was the same age as my dad, Greatest Generation Italian. I don't think he had any idea about what (molestation) was. Jerry Sandusky was the most popular guy in town, very outgoing. I'm still shocked.
"West Virginia is my home. I wanted to come back. My mother was elderly and in the early stages of dementia. She has since passed away.
"After [sportswriter and editor] Jody Jividen died, he left a void at the Daily Mail. He was at Marshall when I was there. I called Tommy Aluise at the paper and asked about writing as a way of doing something for Jody. I've been writing a couple of columns a month.
"I write about stuff I remember. I can't imagine anyone finds it interesting.
"When Mike Hamrick got the AD job at Marshall, I went back as an assistant. Then West Virginia Radio asked me to work for them. I was there almost two years doing talk shows before they laid me off. I was disappointed. I enjoyed all the people there. I should have stayed at Marshall.
"I had a chance to do a national radio show on Christian stations. It was almost like a minister who feels a calling to something. I felt called to do this.
"My senior year at college, I had what I would call a born-again experience. I felt my work in athletics was my ministry. Working for this national radio show and magazine called Sports Spectrum was the next thing I was called to do. I loved it.
"They sent me everywhere. Super Bowls. Major League baseball games. We did shows during the Final Four and the Olympics. I did that until I got sick a year and a half ago.
"I had a massive stroke. They told me I should have died. One morning, I couldn't hold anything, not even a glass. My hands weren't working right. I called 911 and said I thought I was having a stroke.
"I was in the hospital over three months. It has been a tough recovery. I'd love to say I'm doing great. But life is hard for me right now.
"I can walk now. I can talk. I can drive. But everything is hard for me. I'm very slow and everything hurts. I have pains everywhere. Sometimes I lose my train of thought.
"I had a blood clot in the back of my brain. The doctor said death was so close that if the clot went this way, you are dead; if it goes that way, you live. It went that way.
"I'm trying to figure out what to do. The Lord kept me here for a reason. I do a little work for the state, but I can't really do much. I haven't been able to get disability benefits. My marriage, I've tried to hang on to it, but it's basically done. So it's a really tough time.
"It's a good thing I had my bucket list and accomplished a lot of things early. I was in a hurry when I was young. I can't be in much of a hurry now."
Reach Sandy Wells at sandyw@wvgazette-mail or 304-342-5027.