Thompsons are Aikens’ fans and friends

Two of Willie Aikens longest fans and friends in Seneca are Pat and Charley Thompson—an association that started when Aikens played high school sports.  Retired educator Charley Thompson coached Aikens in football and basketball, and Charley Thompson remains in touch with Aikens to this day—having spoken with him by phone about four weeks ago.  The Thompson family plans to see “The Royal” – the movie that depicts a poor Seneca’s boy rise to the Major Leagues and then his downfall due to drugs, and finally his rehabilitation.  Aikens was one of several baseball players whose careers were ended or curtailed by drug use in the 1980s, but he likely paid one of the stiffest penalties—a 20-year sentence in the federal prison system.  Because of a new way the government views drug offenders, Aikens’ offense today, according to Thompson, would be more than two to four years.