First person: Randy Rhino, Georgia Tech All-American

Georgia Tech's Randy Rhino will be honored during the ACC championship game as a Legends player, because he's Tech's only three-time first-team All-American. Rhino now serves as the Yellow Jackets' team chiropractor. He is also a legendary volunteer coach with the 12-and-under Titans baseball team of the Northside Youth Organization at Chastain Park, a participation that is dear to him.

My dad, Chappell Rhino, coached me pretty much in every sport from the time I was 6 or 7 until high school. I’m 56, and I can remember being 14 and my dad coaching me in the Babe Ruth World Series in Klamath Falls, Ore. He was a great example for me, in giving up time to coach us. I still consider him one of the best coaches I ever had.

He played baseball and football at Tech, and he, my mom and my brother, Danny, who played football at Tech, will come to the Legends dinner in Charlotte, along with Missy, my wife of 36 years. Legends just means you’re really, really old.

After playing for so long, all I wanted to be was a coach. It only takes going through a couple of coaching changes to see what a really, really rough profession it is when a head coach gets fired. I didn’t like what that does to a family, yet I still had that passion.

I scratch that itch coaching the Titans every year.

I started off coaching my boys, Randy, who is 33, and Kelley, about to be 30. I would never coach another age group.

Boys at 12 years old are on the verge of turning into young men. Their bodies are starting to change, and they can start to do some neat things on the baseball field.

They still have that innocence of being a young boy. I have fun telling their mothers, “Enjoy your son right now. It’ll never be any better than 12 years old.”

The Titans are an all-star team that starts right after Memorial Day. Some people call it Coach Rhino’s Summer Camp. It’s a bang-bang six weeks of intense baseball and practice.

We’ve all been blessed with talents, and I do have a lot of patience. Now, some of the Titans may not think so, but I really do.

The Titans have won four state championships and tournaments in Cooperstown, N.Y., and Myrtle Beach, S.C.

My whole coaching staff is players who played for me, and now they’re having children.