V 2 N. 11 A Remarkable Family

 

                                                                     

This Easter morning in beautiful British Columbia I decided to open my hometown newspaper. The Dayton Daily News and see what was happening.  I don't have a subscription to the paper, and normally the stories don't open completely for me to read.  But today for some unexplained reason they opened (divine intervention?), and I was treated to this incredible story of resilience in a family of not so ordinary people.   The Kash family of Oakwood, Ohio, which touches the south boundary of Dayton have had an incredible journey in the world of track and field, music, and medical challenges.  While none have made a big name in the track world that you will recognize, there is still optimism that it may still happen.  One of the family is on her way to Oregon State next year on a track scholarship.  I'm also touched by the appearance of this article as the author, Tom Archdeacon, did a story about me when I came back from China in 1989 after witnessing the Tiananmen Student Movement and began coaching at Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio.  

I have not sought permission to put this story on the blog, but I doubt seriously that the News will come after me, as I've never sold a subscription to this blog.  Thanks in advance.

Here is the story.

A Foul Ball, Four Kids, and a Mother Who Thrives on the Chaos

from The Dayton Daily News    April 5, 2026

by Tom Archdeacon   contributing writer

A few weeks ago, when he was visiting Philadelphia, Becker Kash had his photo taken in front of the famed Rocky Statue at the top of the stairs of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

A senior biochemistry major who’ll graduate from the University of Dayton next month, Becker may have posed with upraised arms to mimic the towering, 3-ton, bronze likeness of Rocky Balboa behind him, but in truth he was the real Rocky in that picture.

The other was a 10-foot high, silver screen creation, albeit one that’s symbolic of much more, of a fictional fistic hero.

But Becker, along with his mom Molly, is the one who took what very well could have been a deadly knockout blow almost 22 years ago and has since risen up to become a champion in so many facets of his life.

Back in May 2004, then 29-year-old Molly Kash and her husband, Jeff, were about to become first-time parents. Nearly nine months pregnant, she had been relegated to two months of bed rest because of the strain on her 105-pound body.

Finally, one morning in May her doctor, in an effort to give her some mental and emotional relief, gave her a 4-hour window to get up and move around.

Becker Kash gives the Rocky pose in front of the Rocky Statue at the Philadelphia Museum of Art a few weeks ago. A straight A student majoring in biochemistry at the University of Dayton, he’ll graduate in a few weeks and enter the Physician’s Assistant master’s program at UD. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

When Jeff asked her what she’d like to do, she suggested going to a Dayton Dragons game.

They got seats in Section 107 of what was then known as Fifth Third Field, right behind the visitors’ dugout.

Molly was eating a soft pretzel and watching Kyle Smith’s at-bat when the Dragons’ outfielder suddenly fouled off a pitch that became a near 100 mph line drive, according to a Michigan lawyer who’d done extensive baseball research, headed straight at Molly.

Those were the days before the Dragons had put up the netting they now have that protects most seats.

According to the research of James O. Elliott, a person had about one second to react to a batter’s line drive foul ball. Molly said she spotted the ball coming at her and managed to stand.

The line drive hit her square in her enlarged belly, just below her navel.

“When it hit me I was terrified and took off running up the stairs,” she recalled the other day. “I just kept thinking, ‘I killed my baby! … I just killed my baby!’

“I got up the stairs and started running down the corridor holding my stomach and the paramedics already were coming toward me.”

They got her into an ambulance and rushed her to Kettering Medical Center.

Back then, I remember Jeff telling me: “It was like I was caught in a white light. After nine months of ecstasy, suddenly, ‘BOOM!

“We were convinced it was over. People tell me I began screaming: ‘My wife’s nine months pregnant. My wife’s nine months pregnant!’”

For two days Molly didn’t feel the baby move. She said her placenta was bruised and there was speculation the baby’s blood and hers were mixing.

With a laugh she recounted how her doctor had minced no words with them afterward, saying: “I said you could move around, not go to a (expletive) ball game!”

She gave birth three weeks early to a 5-pound, 13-ounce baby boy they named Joseph Becker Kash and soon just called Becker.

Today that baby has grown up to be a lean, 6-foot-3 mix of academic and athletic achievement.

An A student in the honors program at UD, he’ll soon begin studies in Dayton’s physician’s assistant master’s program.

Molly and Becker Kash after running the Boston Marathon in April 2025. At age 50, she ran a personal best 3 hours, 7 minutes, and was seventh best in her age class. Becker ran a 3:02.

A cross country and track athlete of note at Oakwood High School before college, he has continued his distance running and last year completed the Erie (Pennsylvania) Marathon in 2 hours, 52 minutes.

That qualified him for last year’s Boston Marathon, which he completed in 3:02. Molly, who now specializes in 100-mile ultra marathons, ran Boston in 3:07.

“Becker’s brilliant and he’s a good athlete and he’s super compassionate,” Molly said. “He is everything you could ever hope for in a kid.”

Back to that day in 2004 when she — and Becker — took that line drive to the belly: “I remember telling the paramedics, ‘I wish I had that ball.’ And they went back and returned with what they said was the baseball.

“I don’t know if it’s THE ball or not, but Becker has it up in his room now.

“I do know I had the imprint of a baseball (it’s seams) on my stomach for six months.”

And that thought eventually brought another laugh: “I guess instead of Becker I should have named him Spalding!”

‘All our kids play hard’

Although it’s been two decades since the incident, Molly said she still feels “an anxiety” when she hears the crack of a bat and because of it she has not gone to another Dragons’ game.

She and Jeff have had more children, though.

They added son Charlie, daughter Addie and son Rudy, and together with Becker the four make up one of the most interesting set of siblings you’ll find anywhere in the Miami Valley.

Charlie, who is 14 months younger than Becker, also was a standout student and athlete at Oakwood High.

He was a wunderkind on the guitar as well, and midway through his senior year, after competing in cross country at state, he hung up his running shoes. He decided not to run track so he could further master the guitar.

He was making a name for himself as a musician and was sponsored by Ernie Ball guitars when, Molly said, “he got a call that March that somebody wanted him to play with their singer in Los Angeles. So, he flew to L.A. and played at the Viper Room.”

Near the end of his senior year, with a nearly full academic scholarship to the University of Dayton waiting for him in the fall, he got a call from That Arena Rock Show.

The classic rock tribute band, based in Hamilton and headlines shows across the United States and Canada, had lost its lead guitarist and needed a replacement in five days to help them put on shows they had in Wisconsin and Chicago.

Charlie Kash, the lead guitarist for That Arena Rock Show, a Hamilton-based classic rock tribute band that plays show across the United States and Canada. An amazingly-gifted guitarist and showman, who ironically is introverted and quiet off stage, was a top distance runner at Oakwood High School. He gave up his senior year of high school track and bypassed a near full-ride academic scholarship to the University of Dayton to follow his music passion. CONTRIBUTED PHOTOs

Molly said they asked him if he could get off work — they thought he was in his 20s and didn’t realize he still was in high school — and if he could learn the 20 songs they sent him in five days.

“He asked me what I thought he should do,” Molly said. “He said he had an AP calculus test that coming Monday and couldn’t study for it and learn the songs, too.

“I said, ‘Charlie, you love the guitar. This is your chance! Follow your passion. I know in my own life, I regret the things I never tried.’”

He played all summer with the band and toured the nation. As fall approached he tried without success to arrange a part-time deal with UD. Finally, he decided to pursue music while he had the chance.

Playing over 100 shows a year, he said he’s now performed in 42 states.

Bare-chested with six-pack abs, leather pants, theatrical makeup and long hair flying as he shreds one famed hit after another, he’s become one of the band’s most popular on-stage personalities.

“Off the stage he’s one of the biggest introverts you’ll ever meet,” Molly said.

Charlie doesn’t dispute that.

“It’s just that I can express myself more on stage with my guitar. I get in a zone then,” he said the other afternoon a couple of hours before taking off for Kansas for shows Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.

Over the next few weeks he’ll perform in seven different states, including California, Arizona, Mississippi and Virginia.

Addie is more outgoing than Charlie. Her senior picture at Oakwood High this year shows her pole vaulting in a flowing white dress.

She’s the reigning Division II state pole vault champ and hopes to repeat that feat in this her senior season before heading to Oregon State University on an athletic scholarship in the fall.

She didn’t take up pole vaulting until her freshman year at Oakwood, when she suffered a badly broken leg that permanently ended her promising running career.

A white-gowned Addie Kash in a senior picture for Oakwood High. She was the Division II state pole vault champ as a junior last season. Next fall she heads to Oregon State on an athletic scholarship. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

Although her grandfather had been a pole vaulter at Stanford University and some uncles and a cousin had pole vaulted in high school, no one pursued the sport in her immediate family.

Because Oakwood had neither a pole vault coach nor any other pole vaulters on the track team, she initially was faced with switching events or high schools.

That’s when Molly volunteered to be the pole vault coach. She learned on the fly thanks to the help of people like veteran coaching legend Roger Bowen and the tutorial videos she found on social media.

As mother and daughter learned the sport together, their bond deepened.

“We’re close,” Molly said. “We’re connected at the hip.”

The youngest of the Kash siblings is Rudy, who is the most Rocky-like in the family.

When he was born, Molly said he was completely blue and had to be revived because he was not breathing.

He also had a rare birth defect: A large, black birthmark diagnosed as giant congenital melanocytic nevi. It encircled his entire upper arm, and doctors feared it could lead to far more serious health issues.

Then eight days after he was born he developed meningitis.

Early in his life he had 16 surgeries at Shriners Hospital, but when those treatments no longer worked as hoped, the Kashes took him to other hospitals of note until Rudy finally found the perfect doctor and the perfect place for treatment.

It turned out to be Dayton Children’s Hospital, where he and Dr. Salim Mancho, a skilled plastic and reconstructive surgeon, have bonded beautifully for nine years.

To date Rudy has had 47 surgeries that have included everything from harvesting skin from his back for his arm to continuing to repair his arm as he goes through growth spurts and stays active in sports.

“Rudy plays hard,” Molly said. “All our kids play hard.”

After spending so much time at Dayton Children’s — and impressing people there with his attitude and drive — Rudy became an ambassador for the hospital and eventually was spotted by the Children’s Miracle Network, the non-profit organization that raises funds for children’s hospitals across the U.S. and Canada.

Now an Oakwood eighth grader and budding track stalwart himself, he travels the nation as a Children’s Miracle Network champion, helping foster awareness for other children in need of special medical care.

Rudy Kash, an Oakwood eighth grade student and already a cross country and pole vault standout, travels the country as a national champion for the Children’s Miracle Network, the nonprofit organization that raises funds for children’s hospitals across the United States and Canada. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

Back in 2013 when Rudy was still being treated at Shriners, Molly was persuaded to train for and run the Chicago Marathon to help raise funds for the hospital.

She brought in over $15,000 and in the process rekindled that love of distance running she had when she competed in the early 1990s.

The chaos of life“I have done really well in my ultra marathoning since COVID,” she said. “Right now, at 51, I’m in the best shape of my life.

“Sometimes it’s fun before a race. You’ll see college kids look down the line and count out all the old ladies they see. I want to tell them, ‘Never count out all the old ladies. One of them will beat you!’

“And the next time I might hear one of them saying ‘You got to watch her!’”

Coming out of Oakwood High after going to state four years straight, she had planned to run for Dayton, but an injury derailed her Flyers’ career.

She got a degree in interior design from UD and today pursues that work for commercial companies.

Add in the coaching, raising four kids, and her ultra marathoning career, her plate is full. She said she runs some 80 miles a week in training, often starting at 4:30 a.m. and then adding a late-night run as well.

“I love the running and I love being a parent to four amazing kids, especially as they’re getting older,” she said. “They’re so different, but they’re all fun.

“There have been ups and downs, as there are in any family, but it’s a great wild ride. I love it that they’re all following their passions.

Molly Kash running the Javelina Hundred ultra marathon outside Phoenix in October of 2025. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

“And I know I thrive in the chaos of life that comes with it.”

While Molly is more intertwined in her kids’ running and vaulting career, Jeff was once was a football player at Centerville High. He’s now a general contractor working at Wright Patterson Air Force Base.

Last summer, though, he was pulled into the chaos that comes with the family’s many involvements.

“He just thinks we’re all crazy,” Molly laughed.

He has reason to. Last summer he may have had another of those “white light” moments he experienced back in 2004.

“We went on a family vacation last July, but we only had three days because that’s as long as Charlie was going to be home,” Molly said.

“We went to Hocking Hills, and we went kayaking and rock climbing and rappelling and ziplining. And we went hiking, too.

“And on the way home, Jeff had a heart attack.

“The kids were like, ‘Oh no, we almost killed Dad! We could have killed dad!’”

It sounds something like that refrain Molly and Jeff repeated over and over when that line drive first hit her belly and their unborn baby boy.

That ended up turning out OK and Molly said this is, too.

“Jeff’s taking better care of himself now. He’s getting into running and getting into shape again.”

Sounds like the Kash family may end up with another real-life Rocky on their hands.

Charlie Kash (front), the lead guitarist for That Arena Rock Show, a classic rock tribute band that tours the United States and Canada, is joined by his Oakwood family at a show at The Clyde in Fort Wayne last December. (Left to right behind him): Molly (mom); Addie (sister). (Row three) Becker (brother); Rudy (brother); Isaac Aguiro (Rudy’s friend); Ainsley Burton (Addie’s friend) and Jeff (black cap, dad.) CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

Charlie Kash, front, the lead guitarist for That Arena Rock Show, a classic rock tribute band that tours the United States and Canada, is joined by his Oakwood family at a show at The Clyde in Fort Wayne last December. Left to right behind him are Molly (mom); Addie (sister). In row three are Becker (brother); Rudy (brother); Isaac Aguiro (Rudy’s friend); Ainsley Burton (Addie’s friend) and Jeff (black cap, dad.) CONTRIBUTED

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Love those pole vaulter/distance runners!  Bruce K.  

Bruce,   I knew you would.   Weird combination.  When I was a freshman in HS a senior PV/miler took me under his wing.   Even took me up to the state meet where I saw Dave Mills win all three sprints including a national 440 record  46.6 around one turn out of the long straightaway.  George