“The worst thing is,” Jack once related to me. “We went out to dinner after and he was so cheap, I had to buy.”

Jack helped build the sport for everyone. He was one of the first to offer women’s leagues. And he was a huge promoter of junior golf.

He and Pepe conceived The Herald-Tam O’Shanter Junior Golf Championship in 1949. Shenango Valley youths were allowed to play free. The 61st tourney was recently conducted and it is believed to be the longest continuous running junior tournament in the country.

For his many contributions to sports, Jack was inducted into the Mercer County Hall of Fame in 1987. But he was also a “Hall of Famer” as a person.

He was a generous man who was always willing to lend a helping hand to those in need. And as a husband, father and grandfather, he was good as they come.

Even the times he spent in the hospital, he wasn’t thinking of himself.

“I feel bad that I can’t be home to take care of Mary Lou,” Jack told me, referring to his wife who had been in ill health herself.

When Jack’s son John, Jim Tamber and I met recently to go over the applications for the Jack Kerins Scholarship Awards, I couldn’t help to think to myself that someday we would have to call them them memorial awards.

I just didn’t realize it would be this soon.

He was a proud Irishman and he and I sang a few Irish songs together a few years ago when we traveled to a Tri-State banquet where he was being honored.

Our condolences go out to the entire Kerins family — wife Mary Lou, sons John and Rick, and their wives and the grand-children.

Jack Kerins was a special man and I’ll think about him and smile every time I tee it up at Tamie for as long as I live.

Rest in peace, my friend!