The Owner's Box, Ep. 25.

Paul Souza, shown fronting the Velveteen Playboys, recently battled COVID-19.

We've hit a milestone with the 25th episode of "The Owner's Box," and it's an important story.

Paul Souza, a former standout Mansfield High School athlete, world-class high jumper at Penn State, successful track coach at Wheaton College and very popular singer with several rock bands, moved to Indianapolis a few years back and is still involved in sports and music. But all that almost came to a screeching halt early last month when he was diagnosed as having the COVID-19 virus.

Souza went through several days of pneumonia and excruciating pain in his head, his back and all over his body, but his good health and good medical attention pulled him out of the fire. He still has a way to go before he will feel totally normal, he said, but like about 800,000 other Americans, he's on the road back and feeling fortunate to be so.

After we get the scary stuff out of the way, we talk about his job helping to mentor young coaches, his young son's success at basketball, and how that dovetails with the very heartening news that Indianapolis avoided a lot of the violence during the recent protests of police brutality that was spurred by the death of George Floyd beneath a police officer's knee in Minneapolis. And you won't be surprised to hear that Souza has plans to get behind the microphone with a new band very soon.

Oh, and by the way -- send your best wishes to Paul's wife, Jill, as well. She came down with a mild case of the coronavirus but got over it quickly.

Here's a link to Episode 25 of Mansfield's most popular podcast. Well, at least no one has told me yet that it isn't.