The driven campaign to name a baseball diamond at Bill Botts Field after the late coach Rick Hudson advanced at last evening’s City Council meeting.
Jerry Chabola, the retired Culver City High School teacher/athletic director, and Gerry Biernat, an intimate pal of the amateur coach for decades, presented lengthy written correspondence to the Council endorsing their impassioned cause.
Some Hudson supporters are frustrated by the delays inside City Hall. But none is discouraged.
Standing beside Terri Hudson, Mr. Hudson’s widow, before the Council meeting, Mr. Biernat recalled how he and the coach met in the late 1980s.
“Rick was my best friend,” he said.
“I joined a coed softball team that flourished into a men’s softball team,” said Mr. Biernat.
“At that time, Rick was very involved in the Culver City Little League, the National Little League. He asked me to help coach his daughter Cassie’s team. That led to more. We got involved in hardball. I helped coach his other three children, too.”
Mr. Hudson served as best man at Mr. Biernat’s marriage to his wife Monica.
As someone who is “not political by nature,” Mr. Biernat did not want to become caught up in the politics of the naming of a Rick Hudson field. “I had hoped, though, that honoring Rick would be a lot easier than it has proven to be,” said Mr. Biernat.
Practically speaking, “we have to go through certain hurdles in life,” he said of the delays.
When?
Council action on the Rick Hudson matter is anticipated in March.
