I wish that I had known Roger Schmitz, the former dean of the Notre Dame chemistry department and later a vice-president and associate provost at the university.

He loved to run and was still winning his age group into his 70s even though he laughingly admitted he sometimes didnt have any opponents.

He threw snowballs at his three girls, the three Js Jan, Joy and Joni even when they were adults and coached them in softball, sometimes having to nudge them off the bench for their two-inning minimum in the field. He loved giving them nicknames.

He enjoyed a wide variety of music from Bobby Darins Mack the Knife to the English folk song Greensleeves, from Roger Millers King of the Road to the Notre Dame Fight Song, of course.

He collected 200 autographs of major league ballplayers when he was growing up in Carlyle, Ill. His collection included 22 Hall of Famers with names like Musial, DiMaggio and Robinson.

He died of ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) in October of 2013 while the World Series played soothingly by his bedside.

During his 78 years, Roger Schmitz knew how to live and love and then leave this world in both a courageous and dignified way.

I dont think I ever met anyone who didnt enjoy being around my father, says Jan Schmitz Mathew, Rogers oldest daughter. And he demonstrated the same incredible grace and presence when he was dying that he had shown throughout his life.

To honor her dad, Jan has written a book, Surrounded by Love: My Familys Journey Through ALS. It is available at corbybooks.com, Amazon and the Hammes Notre Dame Book Store.

It is about Rogers life with his wife, Ruth, and their three daughters and the battle they faced together against Lou Gehrigs disease that took him in just seven months.

When his diagnosis was confirmed, he wrote his daughters. Everything else has been ruled out. Thats a bummer but it doesnt surprise me There will be bumps ahead, but we can handle them as you know.

Yes, they knew. Their dad had never been about self-pity or bitterness. He accepted what he couldnt change and moved on just as he had during an earlier bout with bladder cancer.

But in not much more than a years time, Roger went from still being able to jog around the block to needing a walker and then a motorized wheelchair and finally a scooter he bonded with.

And he kept his quirky sense of humor, Jan says.

When he once banged his scooter into a doorway, Jan remembers him saying, Well &$$%, Roger. Do you think you could clobber the wall just one more time today?

He never built walls around himself, though. He never tried to push his family away and go it alone.

Love is costly, the Rev. Paul Doyle wrote in the foreword of Jans book. And when we love, we carry crosses with each other. On the day Roger died, his last words to his daughters Jan, Joy and Joni were I love my Js. They and his wife Ruth had carried this cross with him.

Surrounded by Love is the story of that sad yet sometimes sweet journey of this uncommon man.

Heres another story about the late great Chicago Bear star and Wakarusa resident Gale Sayers from reader Michael Myers:

Its 1995 or so, and my son Matthew and I are walking down the midway at the Elkhart County Fair and I see Gale Sayers, Michael recalls. He was by himself, nobody bothering him, so I decided to change that. We approached him and I apologized for bothering him.

He was very friendly and I told him I wanted my son, who played football, to meet the greatest Bears running back ever. He then said as he was shaking Matthews hand, Is Walter Payton here?

You gotta love a humble man like that.

Congrats to the whole town of Buchanan for garnering the top honor on Reader Digests list of The Nicest Places in America.

Yeah, Ive always thought Buchanan was pretty cool. A couple of my friends come from there even though they probably should have been kicked out of town.

The Redbud City earned the accolades because of its 150-year-old tradition of honoring our fallen veterans on Memorial Day a summer march for racial justice with police chief Tim Ganus joining in Red Bud Area Ministries, which helps so many of the less fortunate the Scarecrow Factory and the Buchanan Promise scholarship fund to name a few reasons.

Life is better here, is Buchanans motto, and its citizens seem to believe that. Buchanan is a very supportive community, says 27-year-old Megan Goodrich, who sets up donation boxes for the homeless, according to the article. If you have an idea and want to do something, theres bound to be people here who will try to help you figure out how to make it happen.

Buchanan obviously is a happening place and now Readers Digests nicest of nicest places, too.

I was trying to out-drive my wife on Studebaker Golf Courses seventh hole when a ball plunked down on the No. 9 green and rolled into the hole not 30 yards from us.

Then Tribune sports editor Mike Wanbaugh came whooping down the hill like a banshee. Our buddy Kirby Sprouls had just made a double eagle/hole-in- one on the 265-yard hole.

In the last year, Ive been in the vicinity of two of my buddies making aces at Studebaker. If you pay my way ha, ha (it costs only $6 for a senior to walk), Ill serve as your lucky charm.

But then Kirby had to come clean: OK, before anyone calls Sports Illustrated because it was a heckuva shot, if I say so myself it was a mulligan. My first tee shot was a little left and a little short. With no one behind us, I decided to hit a second tee shot. The rest is history. But if I dont come clean on the mulligan, I would owe Wanbaugh drinks from Hammer & Quill for the rest of my life.

Sadly, Wanbaugh is like that ha, ha. But as groundskeeper Carl Spackler (Bill Murray) said in Caddyshack, Its in the hole!

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Chemistry professor had the right formula for how to live and die - South Bend Tribune