Remembering ‘Mouse’ Chacko
No matter how someone was feeling, Jim “Mouse” Chacko could make them smile and feel better almost instantly.
A star athlete at Charleroi and then a two-sport NCAA Division-I collegiate athlete, Mr. Chacko lived and breathed sports, with it coming in second on his list behind his family.
How good of an athlete was Mr. Chacko at Charleroi? A Parade All-American in basketball, he was inducted into the Mid Mon Valley All Sports Hall of Fame, the Washington-Greene County Hall of Fame, the Western Pennsylvania Hall of Fame, the WPIAL Hall of Fame, the Charleroi Football Hall of Fame, and the Charleroi All Sports Hall of Fame.
Mr. Chacko died at the age of 83 on Nov. 10.
Offered minor league deals by both the Cincinnati Reds and the Chicago Cubs, Mr. Chacko would become an umpire and official after his playing days ended.
In fact, he umpired games in the Florida Gulf Coast League, and he could have made it to the majors had he chosen that path.
After teaching in Florida, Mr. Chacko and his amazing wife, Carole, returned to home.
He continued to umpire baseball games and also did football and basketball games as well.
This is where our paths first crossed.
Us players, even at a young age, knew that if we saw Mr. Chacko and his umpiring partner Tom “Tookie” Evans walking to the field, it was a big game because we looked at them as the “A” team of umpires.
With Mr. Chacko being the veteran of the pair, he was always on the bases while Tookie had the plate.
As a first baseman, this served me well as Mr. Chacko always took a liking to me.
He respected my grandfather and knew my dad well as he was only a handful of years older than him.
Often when I was younger, my dad would tell me about Mr. Chacko being quite the character, and I was lucky enough to experience this on the diamond.
Being a taller redhead, Mr. Chacko always referred to me as Mark McGwire, and that was fitting as McGwire was my favorite player.
As soon as we would take the field and Mr. Chacko would make his way towards first base, he would drop a, “hey, Mark McGwire,” on me.
It always made me laugh, and we would literally talk the whole time he was behind first base and not out in the field.
I’m sure he spoke to all first basemen like that, but when he and Tookie were on our games, I wanted to impress Mr. Chacko because of the reverence I held him in.
One game that Mr. Chacko was on, I hit a home run in the first inning that everyone knew was gone as soon as it left my bat.
As I rounded first, he said for anyone within ear’s distance to hear, “alright Mark McGwire. The ball is still going!”
I’m sure the Southmoreland players that heard this weren’t happy, and I couldn’t stop laughing as I rounded first because at that moment, he was having fun and genuinely happy.
When I went out to first base the next half-inning, he decided to bust my chops by telling me that if I had jogged the bases any slower, I was going to make him late for his bedtime!
Happy for someone else but throwing a zinger to make himself laugh. That was Mr. Chacko, because the man loved to joke around.
When I did my student teaching at Charleroi High School in 2002 with my supervising teacher Bernie Medved, Mr. Chacko was the guidance (now school) counselor at Charleroi Middle School.
In fact, it was a conversation I had with Mr. Chacko where he shared that he felt I would make a good guidance counselor that led me to eventually becoming one.
During my time there, Mr. Chacko checked in with me at least once a week.
This was during my wrestling career, and he told me we had to take a picture together and to sign it for him.
We took the picture at a game he officiated, and I signed it for him.
When I surprised him the next year at school, he had the picture up in his office.
It caught me off guard, but in a good way, as someone that I admired and respected so much truly thought that highly of me.
The next school year, I was the Charleroi boys middle school basketball coach.
Mr. Chacko had a few of our games, and his showman side would usually come out.
In each of the games, Mr. Chacko winked and smiled at me while everyone else was watching the game.
It was his way of telling me that he was part of the game!
A few years later, I took part in a wrestling fundraiser at Charleroi High School, and Mr. Chacko showed up to watch me for the first time.
He had never seen me in the ring, and I was excited that I got to show him my showman side.
If there was a sporting event going on, there was a chance Mr. Chacko would be there.
It was a guarantee that if I was covering one of his granddaughters’ sporting events, Mr. Chacko and I would get together at halftime for a hug and chat briefly.
Another connection we shared was our love of the Boston Celtics, and when I was at Game 2 of the NBA Finals this past June, I thought about how amazing an experience it would have been to have been able to take him and my dad to the game.
He watched games on TV every night, regardless of the sport, until the last west coast game ended, and then would sleep in late before waking up and heading to the gym.
Whether you wanted to talk college hoops, Major League Baseball, NBA, college football or any other sport, he knew the players and teams.
Until the last so many years, Mr. Chacko could be seen working out daily at the Mon Valley YMCA.
And when I say working out, I mean it, as in he tried to outwork everyone while being loud, as the man loved attention!
He would be there for hours, and if he wasn’t exercising, he was chopping it up with kids while trying to feed off their youthful exuberance.
It could be said that Mr. Chacko always was a kid, and he always did his part to stay young.
Heck, in his mid- to late-60s, he got a pair of tattoos, with one being of a mouse with a basketball, if memory serves me right!
When I asked about them, he simply said, “all of the kids are getting them!”
Mr. Chacko did his best to fight off Father Time, and he literally worked out until his body would not let him anymore.
When my sisters and I threw our dad a surprise 60th birthday party, we invited Mr. Chacko and he happened to get to the building at the same time as my dad, granddad, and me.
Forgetting it was a surprise birthday party, Mr. Chacko wished my dad a happy birthday outside!
My dad thanked him before realizing that Mr. Chacko didn’t know when his birthday was.
Feeling bad for blowing the surprise, Mr. Chacko apologized profusely, but all we could do was laugh! Afterall, you couldn’t get mad at him!
Every year, Mr. Chacko would call me on my birthday, and he would call my sister Jess on hers as he truly considered us like family.
In fact, Mr. Chacko told me as much twice.
“If I had a son, I wish he would have been you,” was the first compliment, with the second being, “I love you like the son I wish I had with my four daughters.”
Powerful words to hear from someone that you respect as much as I will always respect Mr. Chacko.
At his viewing, Mrs. Chacko and others told me how much I meant to him.
I can only hope my words that day conveyed that the feeling was, and will always be, mutual.
Since Mr. Chacko’s passing on November 10, I have kept going back to a Maya Angelou quote.
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
I can only hope that Mrs. Chacko, their daughters and the entire family knows how much Mr. Chacko made so many of us feel like we meant the world to him.
On behalf of my family, our thoughts and prayers go out to the entire Chacko family.