Dan Sewell: Picks for heroes and zeroes of 2022

Due to overwhelming demand*, here is my second annual list of the shining stars and the tarnished figures for the year in the Cincinnati region.

(*I needed a year-end column).

The "Best ofs" earn the Cincinnatus award, for the city's namesake in ancient Rome who was a statesman and military leader who left his farm to quell an invasion and later voluntarily gave up near-absolute power to return home. That’s So Cincinnati. 

Winners are entitled to free selfies with the leader's statue at Sawyer Point near downtown Cincinnati.

The worsts? They get a free red recycling bin … if they call Rumpke and ask for it.

Sports influencers

Cincinnatus: Joey Votto. Talk about making the best out of a bad situation. With his Reds committing to rebuild mode, Votto found himself as one of the few veterans left. As the team struggled, he struggled, finishing with a career low in batting at .205 before calling an end to his season in August to get rotator cuff surgery. After the surgery, he took to Twitter to comment on Aug. 19: “I didn’t know I was hurt. Thought I just stunk.” While there was no seventh All-Star appearance for Votto in 2022, he emerged as a social media superstar, combining humor, baseball insights and fan interaction on Twitter, TikTok and Instagram. He also spent a home game roaming the stands, getting fan’s-eye viewpoints and again providing welcome distraction from the on-field product.

Recycling: Phil Castellini. Talk about making the worst out of a bad situation. The Reds’ president’s tone-deaf “Where are you going to go?” Opening Day response to fans’ displeasure with the Reds’ off-season roster moves set the stage for a forgettable season. They echoed throughout the 100-loss season to come, which ended with a 15-2 home pummeling by the Chicago Cubs.

Political leaders

Cincinnatus: Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear guided the Bluegrass State through a new disaster: Devastating flooding in eastern Kentucky during the summer as the state was still recovering from killer tornadoes in western Kentucky and the COVID-19 pandemic. The Democrat was praised for getting out in the worst of storm damage to offer comfort and assess needs. An Associated Press story dubbed him Kentucky’s “consoler in chief.” Beshear then worked to get federal aid and on relief packages to begin the rebuilding. Beshear was busy again Christmas weekend overseeing state response to the strong winter storm and providing updates to the public. In a red state, he now faces a tough re-election battle in the year ahead but with a record on job creation and low unemployment he feels good about running on.

Recycling: Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine at times in the past year seemed to take a back seat in Columbus as the state’s Republican majority has pushed for such measures as making it much tougher to pass a constitutional amendment such as for abortion access by requiring a 60% approval and to make it tougher to vote including for members of the military overseas. Statehouse Republicans made a mockery out of redistricting by repeatedly submitting gerrymandered maps for court rejection. Republicans also moved to strip power from the state Board of Education. Facing a veto-proof legislature, DeWine has mostly gone along with the strong-arming. Maybe, after handily winning election to what one would assume is his final term in his Ohio elective career that dates to the late ‘70s, he can utilize his political prestige and step up to the bully pulpit to stand firm for fairness.

Education

Cincinnatus: Ohio First Lady Fran DeWine and her promotion of country music star Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. The program has enrolled some 359,000 children, nearly half of those from birth to age 5 who are eligible. It has been expanded from low-income children to include any child who can get an age-appropriate book every month from the library. Parton visited Ohio in August to celebrate the program’s success. Bonus: Reds star Votto used Parton’s “Jolene” as his walk-up music in 2022.

Recycling: To all those politicians, school board members and talk-show hosts who continue to spread urban myths about students who identify as cats being allowed to use kitty litter boxes at school. When Mason City Schools in suburban Warren County were named by the leading local afternoon radio host as a place where this was happening, the schools spokesperson responded that while there were no cat students there, she could provide photos of the school’s therapy dogs available to students on Mason campuses.

History

Cincinnatus: The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in downtown Cincinnati, as a powerful home for learning about this region’s role in helping 19^th-century slaves reach freedom and about the battles for social justice and freedom around the world. It was honored in 2022 with Miami University’s Freedom Summer of ’64 award, which remembers the 800 student volunteers who trained in Oxford to register Black voters in Mississippi. Three of the volunteers were kidnapped and killed in Mississippi.

Recycling: The Forest Hills School Board, some 10 miles east of the Freedom Center, passed a “Culture of Kindness” resolution that not only sought to ban the teaching of “Critical Race Theory” that studies systemic racism in graduate-level instruction not typically found in K-12 schools, but also to prevent “anti-racism curriculum” in student education or staff training. A federal lawsuit blocked the resolution from taking effect.

Mr. Cincinnatus 2022

Joe Burrow. Besides taking the Bengals oh-so-close to their first Super Bowl victory in February, Burrow has established himself as an NFL pace-setter both on the field and off. The cigar-puffing, jewel-encrusted-chain-wearing quarterback quickly earned the nickname “Joe Cool,” and it’s difficult to find a story about him that doesn’t use some variation. Sports Illustrated’s NFL Preview cover story in September upped the ante by calling him “Ultracool." The New York Times recently put him among its “93 Most Stylish People.” That’s along with Lil Nas X, Brad Pitt and Timothee Chalamet. That’s some impressive company for a kid from Athens High School in Appalachian Ohio.

Dan Sewell writes a Sunday politics column for The Enquirer. He can be reached at his personal email dsewellrojos@gmail.com

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Dan Sewell: Picks for heroes and zeroes of 2022