Growing up in the St. Louis area, I was a huge baseball fan and loved to play. One summer during our high schools baseball camp, I decided to try out catching. The coach of the high school at that time, Tom Pile, who is in the Illinois High School Hall of Fame, called me Nieto (after Tom Nieto) because of the way I looked and played.
I never thought too much of this, since this happened in the sixth grade. Now I went to a private grade school, so I did not associate with any of the kids who went to this camp. During Little League games, they would call out "Nieto" when I was pitching, but I did not think anything of it. When I went to high school, it just happened that my friends would become the same kids that were at the baseball camp and heard Pile call me Nieto.
This literally became my first name. Everyone I knew including girls, teachers, and parents called me Nieto. I am now 24 years old, and I still am known as Nieto in Edwardsville. This is even after all the time I spent at college. I just thought that I should write this little story to pay tribute to the man that gave me my name. Thanks, Tom.
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Posted June 18, 2002.
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