There is a place in Pittsburg, Kansas called Chicken Mary’s. They serve deep fried chicken and vinegar potato slaw that is out of this world, at least to me. I would leave at noon today and make the twelve-hour trip to get there for lunch tomorrow if someone were willing to split the cost of gas with me.

I was born in that part of the country, and it is where my parents met and married. Whenever we would go to visit our grandparents when I was younger, we would all clean up and go to Chicken Mary’s to eat. It was a special event for us all.

My younger brother and I attended a family gathering up there just last month; we drove straight from Texas to Chicken Mary’s front door, only stopping for fuel and a coke.

The food was good, but reminiscing about the memories of eating there with our parents and grandparents was better.

When I was coaching baseball at West Texas A&M University, I took my team to play in a tournament at Pittsburg State, just a few miles from Chicken Mary’s. I could not wait to take the team to my special place and feed them fried chicken and sour potatoes.

Much to my disappointment, they didn’t care much for it. It was not special to them the way it is to me. Then it dawned on me, what made that spot special was not so much the food, but the fact that I had shared my dining experience with my family. It was my family that made Chicken Mary’s special, not the food.

When I was playing high school baseball, the only way one could get an official game hat was to make the team. You could not buy one from the booster club, nor could you just try – out, you had to make the team.

I vividly remember my sophomore year in high school. I had broken my ankle in a scrimmage game and had missed the entire season. I finally got my cast off the very last game of the year and I remember to this moment how excited I was to get to suit up in a varsity uniform and be able to wear a gold and black hat.

It was an awesome feeling because our coach made it special. It was a privilege to wear that uniform because a price had to be paid to earn that honor.I graduated high school in 1982, I still have my gold and black hat sitting on my shelf in my bedroom. It is without a doubt one of my most prized possessions.

It is just a cap, but it is the people surrounding that simple baseball hat are what makes it so special. All of my teammates that paid the price to earn one are forever grateful for a coach that went the extra mile in building relationships and making all of his players feel special.

When I was an Athletic Director, I often challenged my coaches by asking them a simple question, “What is special about being on your team?”

The best answers always included the words “relationships and family.”

The Pointer Sisters had a massive hit back in the seventies, We are Family. It became the official theme song of the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates. They eventually went onto win a World Series Championship that year.

Was it the song? Nope. It was the relationships between players, the song just made it all that much better.

There is no secret sauce, it does not matter if you work at a bank, in a restaurant, play in the marching band, or on the baseball team. Making anything special revolves around human relationships.

I saw a survey a few years ago. They asked 5,000 elementary school children why they liked their teacher. The number one answer; “Because they make me feel special.”

School is not special, the teachers are.

I am certain Chicken Mary’s fried chicken and sour potatoes would not taste as good without having shared that experience with my family. I’m also certain I would have tossed that hat in the trash years ago if there were no relationships attached to it.

People make things special; things don’t make people special.

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Todd Howey is a columnist for BrownwoodNews.com whose articles appear on Fridays. Email comments to [email protected].