ST. LOUIS – Before he was a star on the field and in the booth for the Cardinals, the late Mike Shannon was a legendary athlete at an all-boys school in St. Louis.
For his accomplishments, Shannon’s baseball jersey number 18 is retired, and the stadium on the Christian Brothers College High School (CBC) campus bears his name as well.
He was named Missouri player of the year in both football and basketball in 1957.
“He was an athlete across the board. Now you can’t basically play three sports,” said Michael Jordan, president of the CBC. “Because if you’re a hockey player, a soccer player, a basketball player, or baseball, you’re playing that sport all year long. Mike, back in the 50s, played all those sports.”
For most Cardinals fans, Shannon was the sound of summer. Plenty of others remember him as one of their favorite players too. For his alma mater, though, it’s Shannon’s philanthropy that they’ll remember the most, raising money to help send hundreds of young men to CBC.
“Mike said, ‘We needed to do something for the young men.’ We have all of these young men in the area that want to come to CBC but couldn’t afford it,” Jordan said. “We’d raise $100 or $200,000, and we’d use it for young men who can come to CBC.”
