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What do you do for the ones who have done everything for you? Who have given everything for you?

It is not Mother’s Day. It is not Father’s Day. There’s nothing wrong with my parents, Errol and Vickie. Let me start with that.

But for some time, I have been struggling with how to say this, how to express to them in this forum that I have, just how much they have meant to me, to my career, to our family. I don’t want to miss this opportunity to share this.

My mom and dad grew up not having much really. My dad was one of six kids raised by a single mother, whose father abandoned them, leaving them high and dry, miles away from any other family. They would move back to my grandmother’s family farm near West Lima, Wisconsin, in a house with a lot of love and caring about other people. 

With assistance from my great-grandparents, my grandmother raised six wonderful and successful children, including my dad. He likes to joke that four of his siblings went to work for the government, one went to work for God, and he became a lowly roofer.

A National Merit scholar, his life took a change out of high school when he became a father to my older half-siblings, dropping out of college and eventually starting a roofing business in Richland Center, where he continues to work into his 70’s, despite our pleas to hang up the hammer for good.

My dad is the one who introduced me to sports and like so many other athletes, he was my first coach. He’s the one that I tried as hard as possible to avoid disappointing, be it on the court or at home.

When my high school basketball career came to an end in a home loss to a very good Portage team, I held it together on the bench, greeting coaches and teammates after exiting the floor for the final time. It wasn’t until walking off the court following the game, when my eyes settled on my father walking out of the stands towards me, that the emotions became too much to hold back. His hug was an acknowledgement of countless hours spent together watching, playing, learning the game we both loved, and an admission that we’d never get that feeling again.

Even when I got my first real coaching job, as the head men’s basketball coach at UW-Richland, he was the first one I called to ask if he’d help me out.

When I received the call last year that I had been selected for induction to the Richland Center High School Hall of Fame, I got really emotional. It took me a few minutes to be able to share the news with my wife and our boys. When I called my dad to tell him, it was hard to get it out to be honest. And I remember my dad kind of asking why? Was it because this was validation or proving something to people? And certainly there was some of that, but most of all, it was being able to do this and have this for my family, especially my parents.

You’ll be hard-pressed to find someone more proud or loyal than my mom. Her parents raised five kids in a cramped, small house in Richland Center with a work ethic like you wouldn’t believe, and those of you that know my mom, she’s the toughest 5-foot nothing mama bear you’ll ever meet.

Her father was a World War II veteran, surviving harrowing situations in North Africa and Italy to earn several medals, including a Purple Heart. In typical Osborne fashion, he was too stubborn to let the Nazis get him.

My grandmother was devoted to raising the family as a homemaker, and later on was our frequent babysitter, with lots of love and Fig Newtons always present.

Growing up, my dad was a small-business owner while my mom worked jobs that ranged from car hop to KFC manager to office secretary and eventually a night manager at Walmart. I was the oldest of five kids in the house, and there were some lean years and there were some bountiful years, but certainly my parents struggled more than they let on to provide for the five of us.

Still, no matter what we needed, we got it. Basketball camps, shoes, clothes, a car to get around, my dad would find side work or work out some kind of barter (he once traded a roofing job for a new family van) to get what we needed.

But it was way more than the tangible things that my parents provided for us. They were always there. They were always able to drive us where we needed to get to. They were there, through good and bad. Through emotional teenage meltdowns. Through triumphs along the way. 

When we needed a kick in the butt, they delivered. When we needed someone to complain to, they listened. When we needed a shoulder to cry on, they were there. When we pushed them, further than we should, they were ready to receive us, to love us, to get us back on track.

As a parent now, I am going through many of the same things they went through as your kids get older, get involved in sports, and start experiencing the successes, challenges, and failures that come with that. It certainly makes you appreciate what they went through even more, the sacrifices made so we could have opportunities, and an understanding of what it is like to feel the agonies and the disappointments, even when you as a player don’t even know it’s happening.

What I’ve come to realize is there is no way to appropriately pay them back. No trips or vacations could do the trick. No gifts would ever be enough.

What I can do, what I’ve tried to do every day, is live a life they can be proud of. To live a life as the kind of parent they were. To earn and pay forward what they have given to me.

Love you, Mom and Dad.

Travis Wilson serves as the WisSports.net General Manager, Football Editor, and contributing writer for other parts of the site. Wilson was selected as part of the Sports 40 Under 40 list by Coach & AD Magazine and the National High School Athletic Coaches Association for 2019. The Wisconsin Football Coaches Association (WFCA) named Travis the 2015 recipient of the Dave McClain Distinguished Service Award. He currently serves on the WFCA Executive Board and is a member of the Executive Board of the Wisconsin Basketball Coaches Association. A graduate of Richland Center High School and Mount Mercy College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Travis was a three-sport athlete in high school (football, baseball, basketball), inducted to the Richland Center High School Hall of Fame in 2023, and currently resides in Reedsburg. You can follow him on Twitter at @travisWSN.

For the latest and most up to date football news and recruiting information, follow Travis on Twitter @travisWSN. Email story ideas, recruiting info, etc. to Travis at travis(at)wissports.net.