My Unusual Conversations With Two Fraternity Brothers Right Before They Died

Can we continue with Our American Stories and with a story about college friendships and how they can impact the rest of our lives. Today, Ken Kendrick is best known as the principal owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks, but decades ago, he was known by a smaller group of people as a Sigma Nu fraternity member at West Virginia University. Here’s Ken on one of the most impactful periods of his entire life.

The Fratorney stories. I could go on for hours, because it was the time when I met, you know, some of the more important people in my life, both then, of course, but for forever.

Really.

The guy of all that was my most close colleague roommate from that group was Al Cally, and he was from New Jersey, and he spoke very rapidly, and his nickname was Akak, like the machine gun. Sadly, for Al, he had a genetic disease inherited from his father, a deadly disease called amyloidosis. And it is a gene that we all have in our body, and when it acts improperly, as it did in his body, it attacks organs and kills the other organs where that gene has attacked. And he knew that he might get it because his dad had died of it, and he came to visit us once. Never forget this. Yeah, we’re having our usual fun time here visiting. He said, “Well, you know, I need to visit with you privately,” and so he gets me aside and he says, “Well, Kenny,” he says, “I have to tell you, sadly, I’ve contracted my dad’s disease.” I said, “Oh, man, that’s really said.” I says, “Yeah.” He said, “I, I think I only have about two years to live.” And I said, “Oh, wow, isn’t there anything at all, you know, that can be done?” He said, “Well, not really.” He said, “The only thing that could be done would be an organ transplant.” And he said, “I’m not doing that.” And I said, “You’re not doing it if it could save your life?” He said, “No. Look, I’ve lived a very good life.” He’s in his late fifties at this point. “I’ve lived a very good life. I dodged all the bullets in Vietnam. You know, it’s my time.” And I said, “And you’ve shared this with your family?” He says, “Well, the only people who know are my wife and children. And I’ve told him that I’m not going to undergo this organ transplant.” And I said, “Ow, you’re a selfish son of a—” And he just was shocked. I said, “You may not care that much about yourself, but a lot of other people do, and you owe it to those people who care about you to give everything you can to keeping your life going.” And he, you know, kind of rumped. He was a real hard-hitched guy, and didn’t respond, and, you know, visit ended. They left. A couple of weeks later, he called up and he said, “Well, you were right, I’m going to have to do that.” And he did, and he was the first ever, and there was made national news, the first ever triple organ transplant in the United States, done at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. And had it done, he lived ten more, so it extended his life. And, you know, I played a small role in it. Obviously, I didn’t suffer any pain or hardship. But it was just one of those memories of a lifetime with somebody you cared about. And I’ll remember he and I had invited him the first Super Bowl that was ever played in Arizona. I invited him to come and be my guest. And the second Super Bowl that was played in Arizona was when the Patriots and Giants played the famous game where the Patriots were undefeated, and the other game had been twenty-some years in the past. It was the Steelers in the Cowboys game, Super Bowl thirty, and Al had been my guest. And the day before the Giants-Patriots Super Bowl, I get a call from his wife, and she said, “Look, you know, Al is in hospital care and he wants to talk to you.” And so we get on the phone, and, you know, we’re sharing, you know, stories, and he and I always had this, “Can you talk, this, can you get the other guy?” kind of relationship. And I said, “Boy, Al, I wish you were here to go to the Super Bowl tomorrow.” The Super Bowl we went to was one of those great times that we had together. And he said, “Oh, yeah.” And he said, “Do you remember who played?” And I said, “Yeah, it was the Cowboys and the Steelers.” And I say, “Do you remember who won?” And he said, “Yeah, it was the Stealer.” And so we went through these back-and-forth questions. Now, this guy is, as it turns out, the end of the story will tell the story. The ultimate story. We get down to each guy is able to answer the other guy’s questions, and we always would get to somebody would win by stumping the other guy. So the last question he asked me that I couldn’t answer was after I had asked him who the halftime performer was. The answer he gave was Diana Ross, which was correct, and he said, “What significant happened to her during her performance?” And I couldn’t remember. And his last words to me were, “Well, when you figure it out, call me back,” and hung up. And I didn’t figure it out at the time. The next day, I go to the Super Bowl, and after the Super Bowl, I get a call from his wife that he had passed away. And I later figured it out that Diana Ross had been planned: she was going to land in a helicopter in the middle of the football field, and it was too windy, so they had to land outside the stadium and bring her in in a golf cart. And that was the answer, and just so that I came out ahead. When I was one of the speakers at his memorial service, I gave the answer. So I got the last word on my friend Big Al, and he was one of those legendary figures in my life that I loved as much as you can. Another guy. I lost another fraternity brother recently. His name was Tom Longmire. He was referred to as Lungs, as might be expected his last name. And Lungs was a character. He was one of those. He was a glue character, meaning he kept everybody together. I have this ranch here called Bumblebee Ranch, and he organized a group of guys to come out here and spend time in baseball spring training and going to the ranch, and so on. But he was the guy that put groups of guys together. And sadly, he passed away, unfortunately, with brain cancer. And my very last conversation with him turned out to be not unlike the one with Al. He was also in hospice care. I get a text from him, and I remember it vividly, and it was the last basketball game of the basketball season: West Virginia was playing Baylor in basketball, and we were all lifetime Mountaineer fans, and Baylor was top five team. West Virginia was decent this past season, but not great. In the morning of that game in March, I get a text, and it’s from him, and it says, “Bet fifty on Baylor and bet fifty on Marquette,” and that’s all it said. And I saw it was from him, and I thought, “What the hell is this?” So I call. Well, he’s in hospice care. His sister answers the phone, and I said to her, “I said, ‘I got this text from Tom. What the hell is this about?'” And she says, “Hero, I’ll put him on.” And my nickname was, and he never didn’t ever call me by my nickname from college days. My nickname was Keg, okay, for a variety of reasons. In any event, he says, “Hey, Keg boy, I didn’t mean to send that to you. That was meant for my bookie.” I said, “Well, Lungs, you know, I note you’re betting against the Mountaineers. I don’t think your buddies would want to know that.” He says, “Oh, oh, you don’t understand.” He says, “I never win.” He says, “It’s—” He says, “If I bet against them, don’t win the game.” I said, “Sure, I get it.” And we talked a little bit, and that was the last conversation we ever had. I hang up the phone. The game is played in West Virginia. Wins the game. So, two of my lifelong friends from those days, you know, with kind of these unusual parting shots that occurred when these guys are on their deathbeds. Basically, you know, engaging with me and what turned out to be the lifelong banter that you have with people that you shared those days with. You know, when you’re a young person and nobody had any money to amount to anything, you just had a life had you and a lot of things to learn and a lot of things to enjoy together. And we really did.

And great job, as always, to Alex and to Monty. And you can hear more of Ken Kendrick. We have his life story. Go to Our American Stories and type in Ken and Kendrick. What memories he had back at Sigma Nu fraternity at West Virginia University, which wasn’t even named as the best party school because they were ineligible because they were pros. The story of Keg, Big Al, and Tom—three lifelong friends because they’d pledged together at a fraternity and did what all young people do: kill some time, spend some time, and hopefully forge deep friendships, here on Our American Story.