Stories

Please post some of your favorite Blake stories! We would love to remember him this way.
To add a story about Blake Hubbard to the “Stories” section of our website, you must first be a registered user. If you have not registered, click here to register. After you register, an email will be sent to you with your password and a link to login. After you have logged in, click the “Add New Story…” button on the right side of the page. Now simply enter your story and click “Publish”. Do NOT select a category from the

One weekend Jeff and Patty asked if we could take Blake to a USTA tennis tournament because they needed to be out of town. It was somewhere in eastern NC if memory serves me correct. Anyway, Blake won his side of the draw to move on to the championship game. We knew who Blake’s opponent would be because we watched him finish his last match. But the other guy had no idea of who his opponent would be.
 

 
We had a break in the afternoon, waiting for a court to be assigned for the championship match. It…

On 11/11/11, Blake invited a few friends over to his house for a “one one one one one one party.”  We were going to celebrate at “one one one one one one one one one one”(11/11/11 11:11pm), but everybody came around 7:00, so we had 4 hours to kill.  I still don’t know how we fit so much fun into those hours but we did.  We played outside in the crisp November weather in shorts and t-shirts, played upstairs in the playroom, and even snuck onto the roof once or twice.
Even though we were high schoolers, we broke out…

This is how I remember Blake. He was the youngest kid at the lake until Jake came along. Even though Blake was about 7 years older than Jake, he was never mean to or ignored him. No matter how many times Jake asked Blake to play games or to throw a ball, Blake never turned him down. There were many times Blake got left out at the lake because he was the youngest and couldn’t do whatever us “big kids” were doing so Blake never made Jake feel left out and was always considerate of him. This always meant so…

I remember my first time ever meeting Blake. I was ten years old, and I was doing a tennis clinic at the club with Blake in my age group. We didn’t talk to each other because there were plenty of other kids and we had never met before. After a few weeks of the clinic, I walked over to the snack bar to get lunch. I was waiting for my friend to show up so I could eat with her, when I noticed Blake walk into the snack bar. He got lunch and sat at his own table. After a…

I remember the 100th day of school in 2nd grade and we were paired to measure our 100 items. I had 100 chocolate chips, and he had 100 mazes. I remember thinking what a crazy thing–100 mazes that he drew himself! we measured and counted and his chain of mazes stretched all the way down the back hallway at trinity. but i remember how much we laughed and goofed off-100 mazes!
when i moved away, my class gave me all these good-bye cards, and i still have them. blake’s said simply “good bye” with a big smiley face…

One weekend when Blake’s parents were not home, Blake came over and stayed at my house. That Saturday night he went to the Hope Valley Country Club for a tennis tournament. When he got back from the tourney he told me he won and I was doubting a little. At the time he had just started playing tennis and really wasn’t his huge thing. Blake, being the jokester that he always was, led me not to believe him. Then Blake pulls out this giant trophy showing that he had won. The trophy was nearly the size of Blake! I was…

Several years ago, when Blake still played baseball, I was attending a baseball camp in Florida with him. During the lunch break at this camp, everyone would always play ping pong on this old table in the corner.  I remember watching Blake, whose head was barely above the edge of the table and who held the paddle with two hands, beating absolutely everyone that he played.  No matter if they were twice his size, age, or if it was his coach he was playing, Blake would calmly put them away with ease.  To the people who knew Blake, it was…

 
Last year, when I was in 7th grade, and Blake was in 8th, my friend Katherine and I would always mess with Blake. We didn’t mess with him because we were trying to be mean, but we messed with him because Blake was just such a fun kid to joke around with, and he always put a smile on our face no matter what mood we were in. A couple other friends and I had made a poster in art, and afterwards we didn’t know what to do with it. Katherine and I had the idea to put the…

Blake and I were always the last people to finish every test or quiz. I would usually beat him by a few minutes, but it was always close. It became something of a contest between us, to see who could finish first. But what I loved about Blake was that he never let the unimportant cares of life distract him from having fun. Grades never consumed him. I miss you, test buddy.
Once, we were taking an especially challenging physics test last period. As usual, we were the last two kids still working. At the end of class, we still…

I remember my last year of little league, playing on the Orioles with Blake. It always seemed like the bat was bigger than he was. One particular story that pops into my mind is watching Blake almost hitting a home run in the middle of a game, when nobody else could even make contact. One of our best hitters had just struck out, and Blake strolls up to the plate and crushes one to right field, and hits the fence. When he got back to the dugout, he said he never saw where the ball went, he was just running until…

Blake, James, Jay and I were returning from a trip from Great Wolf Lodge when we stopped at a Subway. Jay, James, and I ordered our food and stepped to the side to wait for Blake to order. Blake approached the counter and said, “I will have a foot long Italian bread sandwich with everything on it.” The waiter stared puzzled at the tiny kid who ordered everything on the largest size of sandwich. Blake got his food and we all sat down at a booth and began to eat. Blake was unusually quite so I looked over at him to ask…

It was a summer weekend, and Blake’s parents were out of town. Blake and I decided that this would be a perfect weekend do to a challenging tennis tournament! Blake and I, knowing my dad, knew that if we asked him, he would take us to this high level tournament. We rented a Hotel 6 room for two nights, and made the two hour trip. It was Friday night, and we decided to go to TGI Fridays. Dad and I finished dinner in about thirty minutes, but we weren’t out of the restaurant until about forty-five minutes later due to…

One of my favorite memories of Blake, in the short time that I knew him, occurred during a regular lunch period this year. After eating our lunch, Blake, Jay and I decided to play extreme ten with a yellow, smiley face bouncy ball. After a few short minutes, one of the throws ricocheted off the brick and went bouncing away into the parking lot. Immediately, Blake sprang up to retrieve our smiling ball, followed quickly by Jay and me. Oblivious to the honking horns of a few cars, Blake led the charge after the bouncy ball. We were all over the place. The ball was…

I was touched today when I watched Blake’s video showing during school. One thing that caught my attention was a “ping pong machine gun” for Blake to practice with. It brought back humorous memories I had when Blake was over at my house.
As rumor had gone around school that “Blake was the ping-pong king,” I had ardently honed my table-tennis skills with the new ping pong machine my dad had recently bought. Under the name of “RoboPong,” it was a fearsome looking, ping pong ball shooting robot, with advanced oscillation, spin, and speed control. After a couple weeks of…

It was Halloween 2007 and I had planned to go trick-or-treating with Lauren in her neighborhood. Age 14 may have been getting old to participate in the activity, but Lauren and I hadn’t yet phased out of it. We still liked candy, and we still gave the Almond Joys to our moms. Robert was clearly too old for us, but Blake certainly wasn’t. Mr. and Mrs. Hubbard offered to drive us around the neighborhood, to help increase the efficiency of our candy accretion. This turned out not only to be a gracious offer, but the salvation of the activity.
As…