Journal-World sports editor Tom Keegan, reporter Benton Smith and photographer Nick Krug share a few things they have learned on the complicated, joyful and sometimes humbling road of fatherhood.

Tom Keegan

If your goal as a father is to be considered “cool” by your children, chase a more realistic dream. You know, like, buy a Powerball ticket, try to catch the wind, reverse time to redo mistakes. Just don’t fool yourself into thinking you ever will be viewed as “cool” in the eyes of your children.

The reminders, dealt from all four of our children, came steadily, following the moving van from California to Illinois to Maryland to Connecticut to Kansas.

After playing one of his baseball games for Norwalk (Connecticut) High, John couldn’t wait to make it home to ask his mother, my wife, Angie: “Was Dad trying to embarrass me wearing those sunglasses?”

For the record, I was not. I actually thought they were cool. At some point decades ago they probably were.

Same house, different day. Jimmy couldn’t wait for John to walk through the front door so he could break the big news.

“John, you missed it,” Jimmy said, eyes flying-saucer wide, “Dad got into a wicked argument with a telephone recording: ‘Give me a human being! I want to talk to a human being!’ It was hilarious.”

But not cool.

After our daughter Ellen and I had completed one of our drives from Lawrence to Skaneateles Lake in upstate New York, Angie asked Ellen how she enjoyed the trip.

“Dad listened to the same Cat Stevens CD the whole drive!” came the reply.

Translation: The trip was awful. Can’t I just fly with you next time?

Devoid of musical talent, I was fired in seventh grade by my guitar teacher, who said, “You know, I’ve seen you play basketball. You’re not too bad. You probably should stick to that.”

Jimmy, a drummer, and Andy, a bass player, play music better than basketball. So I thought I’d worm my way into their world by suggesting a band name. I was sure I nailed it: “Dipstick Dungeon.”

Andy: “What’s the back story?”

Me: “You guys all work in a garage, changing oil all day and the place is like a Dipstick Dungeon to you.”

Andy: “One problem: None of us work in a garage. None of us change oil.”

OK, I get it. If I were a soft drink I’d be the UnCoola.

Oh well, it’s not important to be cool. It is important to be there. At John’s basketball and baseball games, Andy’s football games, Andy and Jimmy’s jam sessions with their instructors, at the dinner table eating meals cooked by Jimmy, at Ellen’s plays, concerts and swim meets.

Eventually, they’ll figure out there is no place you would rather be than watching them do their things and they’ll say to themselves: “How cool is that?”

Nick Krug

One of my favorite pictures of my dad was shot in February of 1954, 24 years before I was born. He, Bruce Krug, is 3 years old and standing in the backyard of my grandparents’ Du Quoin, Ill., home with a Lone Ranger-style toy pistol, wearing a pair of jeans that appear big enough for a 10-year-old.

I remember being shown the picture as a teenager and, years later, wanting a copy of it for myself, I scoured my mother’s and grandmother’s photo albums, shoe boxes and desk drawers for the image, to no avail. This continued on and off for years with me rifling through many other unlikely hiding places until just this last weekend, on a visit home to St. Charles, Mo., while cooking dinner with my mom, she mentioned offhand that she had come across the picture. I stopped what I was doing, described the image again to her, and she said, “Yeah, I think that’s it.” Moments later she returned with the photo from the office where it had been tucked between various letters and pieces of mail in a filer. On the front read the name Brucie.

I’m not sure what it is that draws me to the image. I think seeing a childhood photo of a person whom you have revered throughout your life just humanizes that person all the more. Maybe it’s that I can look at his face and see glimpses of myself and my brother. Either way, the image feels comforting and familiar.

Since 1999, Father’s Day has carried with it a persistent lump in the throat and a stream of memories of my dad who lost a long battle with leukemia when I was 19 and my brother 16. Simply put, he was a loving father who went out of his way to make sure that he did things with the both of us that we would remember.

My dad’s most frequent fatherly request, in addition that we be good to our mother, was that he wanted my brother, Caleb, and me to always look out for each other. Such requests usually came in the wake of prying us apart from a backyard or living-room fight. As a young kid, ignoring him in the heat of these moments was easy to do with fresh cuts and a bloody nose. Looking back, I’m certain it was his way of trying to ensure that we both developed a shared sense of responsibility for each other without bringing up the weighty and emotional topic that he knew his time was limited.

This year marks my fourth Father’s Day as a parent. On such a day, and pretty much every other day, having two little ones whose default modes are happy makes it nearly impossible to do anything else but radiate a smile. There will likely be blueberry pancakes, a trip to one or several of Lawrence’s beautiful parks and the presentation of a handcrafted coffee mug created by my wife, Louise, and my 3-year-old daughter, Olive, who spilled the beans about the gift on Wednesday. Also, today is the day that Dad is actually in the pictures rather than just shooting all of them.

While we’re on the topic of pictures, one of my favorites that I shot of my kids came a little over a month ago on a Tuesday morning while Louise and I were getting ready for the day. Our 3-month old, Bruce, or Brucie as we affectionately refer to him, was lying on our bed while Olive, sleepy-eyed from just waking up, came into the room toting her copy of “Harry the Dirty Dog.” Without saying much of anything, she climbed onto the bed, pulled the covers over herself and started turning the pages, making sure that her baby brother could see the pictures, too.

Before Louise could say “Honey, go get…” I was already fumbling through my camera case trying to fit a lens to a camera body before the moment was gone. Watching my oldest child gently care for my youngest makes me feel a closeness to my own dad and all the things that made him happy, and this is a nice place to be.

Benton Smith

A little more than seven months ago, a trained medical professional handed me an adorable, crying newborn girl, seconds removed from the safety and comfort of her mother’s womb.

The unforgettable moment struck me with two simultaneous reactions:

1. I love this 9-pound, 21-and-a-half inch stranger more than I could’ve imagined.
2. Don’t screw this up.

As I head into my first Father’s Day as a parent, I can proudly say not only does my devotion grow as quickly as Aviva, but also I have neither dropped her nor allowed her to pick up and eat anything that would bring her harm.

At this early stage in our relationship, I’m discovering my fondness for her fuels the mostly irrational fears that accompany caring for a child. The last thing you want is for your kid to experience any pain, and the older she gets the more I realize how impossible that soon will become.

Once she graduates from scooting to crawling, then on to the realm of walking and running, some bumps and bruises are inevitable. And there’s nothing I can do about that — regardless of how many padded edges and gates we put in place around her.

As long as my wife, Sarah, and I help her navigate the world and continue adoring her more than she’ll ever know, I’m pretty sure we’ll all enjoy every moment of the process.

A couple of weeks ago, the three of us went with my sister and a friend to Kauffman Stadium for a Royals game. My wife likes to joke about my disdain for arriving at sporting events late and/or leaving them early. But on that particular steamy Sunday afternoon, we missed the first inning because we wanted to let our infant finish her nap. And before we left in the sixth inning to whisk her away for more sleep at home, Aviva and I navigated the crowds on the shaded, breezy concourse, away from our baking-hot seats.

A daughter and a sports writer enjoying each other’s company. Both blissfully unaware of the baseball game going on within earshot.

Because only one of us can speak at this point, I talked, together we made sounds and laughed, and occasionally either of us looked down toward the field when cheers distracted us.

Both of us — as far as I could tell — loved the moment. And no one got hurt.