Seniors on the baseball team at one South Carolina high school got a touching send-off that they and their parents will never forget.
On May 5, a group of nine high school baseball players rounded the bases at the end of their season. For many, it would be the very last time.
And if there was a dry eye in the stadium, no one who was present at Legion Collegiate Academy in Rock Hill, South Carolina that night witnessed it.
For many of the seniors, this was their final at-bat in a game that many had played since they could walk. Each boy was thrown a last pitch by his dad. As they rounded the bases, the announcer read each senior a letter written by their parents. When they headed home, each boy's mom was waiting to welcome him with open arms.
Jackson Gordon, 17, was one of those senior boys. His dad, Scott Gordon, threw the pitch.
"This day got here way quicker than I ever thought possible," the announcer read from his parents' letter while he jogged around the bases. "Although I'm sad to see this chapter come to an end, I'm even more excited to watch you take on the world in a different way. ... It was never about where you ended up — it was about who you became getting to this point."
As Jackson rounded the bases, he said, his thoughts were filled with "...memories, memories, memories. The happy, the sad, and everything in between," he tells TODAY.com.
Carrie Gordon, Jackson's mom, was waiting for him with a hug.
She tells TODAY.com she felt filled with gratitude. "I felt completely blessed for the friendships the team provided, not only for Jackson but our family," she said.
Gordon also expressed gratitude for the team's coach, Hamilton Bennett. He stepped into the role earlier this school year, after the team's former coach died. This style of senior send-off was Bennett's idea, Gordon said.
"It was a role that would have been difficult for anyone to fill," Gordon said. "I was just so grateful for it all in that moment."
Bennett said he was hired in September, following the death of Jalen Benjamin, a much-loved coach and teacher who had passed away in August of 2024.
"There was a good month when these seniors and their moms were basically in charge," Bennett told TODAY. He was grateful for the opportunity to coach the team and had Coach Benjamin's famous saying put on the team jerseys: DWYP ("Don't waste your presence.")
He presented his idea for senior night and the final base run early on in the school year. "Even back then there were already lots of tears," he said.
The idea, he said, came in part from something he did with his own father at the end of every part of his baseball career right through his professional days: a walk around the bases. "We would chat, talk about life, the memories. Sometimes there were tears," he said.
Bennett said he wanted to take the time to recognize not only the nine senior players, but the parents who had sacrificed so much to get them to that moment.
It was a moving moment for Jackson Gordon.
“As early as I could remember, from playing ball in the backyard with just my parents, to all the games leading up to this moment,” Jackson said. “Listening to the letter for me as I rounded the bases and then seeing my mom as I headed for home. That was definitely the best way to end it, running toward the person who had been there for all of it.”
