One of my high school classmates has just accepted a postition at Arizona State University and will relocate to the desert.

Herb Sendek, who has taken North Carolina State to five consecutive NCAA appearances, won more than 250 games in the past 13 seasons and has been a part of Final Four coaching staffs at two different schools, has been named the 13th men's basketball coach at Arizona State University, Vice President of Athletics Lisa Love announced Monday.

"I am very excited to have Coach Sendek taking the reigns of the Arizona State basketball program," said Love. "His knowledge of the game and proven record of success made him the ideal candidate for us. His experiences as a head coach on the major conference level and in building winning programs is exceptional, as is his background as an assistant coach. He has been on the staff of two Final Four teams and worked at high-level programs. We look forward to helping Coach Sendek produce those same results at Arizona State."

Good luck to Herb in turning around the moribund Arizona State basketball program. While my sports attention is generally focused on hockey rinks during basketball season, I still cheer for ASU, and hope he is just as successful here as he has been in his career thus far.

Not that I knew Herb at all back in those school days — it was a big high school, with a graduating class over a thousand students. The high school was split into separate schools for 9th-10th grade, and another for 11th-12th grade. Honestly, I can leaf through my high school yearbook and there are many more faces that I cannot recall than those I remember.

Herb Sendek isn't the only classmate of mine to make it big in the realm of the sporting world — here are a few others, along with this guy whom I batted against as a young ballplayer.