Family Values

Kelly Lytle, 32

The former Fremont, Ohio, high school sports star worked in finance in New York City, as a salary cap analyst for the Cleveland Browns and currently works at digital content company Findaway World in Solon. Last year, he published To Dad, From Kelly, a memoir about his relationship with his father, Denver Broncos running back Rob Lytle, who died in 2010 of a heart attack.

For the first few years after he retired, [my parents] would just sit on the couch together at night, and he would just cry.

The big, strong football player — football hero — would just break down and cry. He just missed what he loved so much, and he didn't know where to turn next.

He wanted me to be as well-rounded as possible.

He was just so consumed by his passion and his love for the sport that he didn't appreciate everything else around him.

I'm constantly striving for that sense of purpose, that sense of satisfaction. I saw him struggle without it, and it's something that I never wanted to experience.

Maureen Kyle, 34

The WKYC reporter and anchor is the daughter of famed St. Ignatius High School head football and track coach Chuck Kyle.

I think I was around the age of 12, just a stubborn 12-year-old, and we were in Niagara Falls. We were getting on the Maid of the Mist. I didn't want to wear the blue poncho on the boat.

I'm sure I was throwing a fit. He looked at me, and he put his finger underneath his nose like it was a mustache. He said, "Well we're just going to have to go in disguise." So in all of our pictures from that trip on the Maid of the Mist, we all have our fingers underneath our noses.

He didn't yell at us. He was able to find a good sense of humor. He was able to make something fun, and we forgot that we didn't want to do something. 

Now I have a daughter, and she just adores him because he can make everything fun. I don't know how he does it. I try to channel that. But he's got the touch.

Phillip Morris, 50

The Plain Dealer Metro columnist is the son of Frank Morris, a custodian for Columbus Public Schools.

My father had been highly active in a prison ministry with his church for well over 40 years.

I've always admired the way he gave back, the way that he tried to show the need to really go beyond yourself and have compassion and empathy for the less fortunate, those who have made poor decisions and mistakes but have a chance at rehabilitation.

It impacted the way I live my life and probably would be best demonstrated in the sorts of things that I write about, the sorts of things that I care about.

Kathy Vegh, 38

Vegh is president and CEO of Danny Vegh's, the chain of home-entertainment retail stores her Hungarian immigrant father started in 1963.

My father, every single night, tucked me into bed and sang two lullabies. One of them was "God Bless America."

Think about where he came from: dirt floors. He got his first lightbulb at the age of 16.

My husband, daughter and I just moved to Gates Mills. My father came to the house, and he got so choked up, just stood there and said, "The fact that I risked my life [fleeing Hungary] and this is the payoff, that my granddaughter gets to grow up here." It chokes me up every day.

Trish Sgro, 51

Sgro owns and operates Sgro's Barbershop, the Shaker Heights institution founded by her Argentine-born father, Joe, in 1964 that has shaved and shorn everyone from mobster Danny Greene to Cleveland's original celebrity chef Hector Boiardi.

My father always says, "It's in the detail."

I watched him one day file down the teeth [of a comb]. "I said, "What are you doing?" He goes, "Trish, watch. I file the teeth down. I got a nice, flat, thin surface. I can make a taper disappear."

The comb is thinner, so when you lay your scissors against it, it's closer to the skin.

I have it now. I have OCD days where I'm cutting somebody's hair and I'm like, Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait! There's this little hair right there. Oh, there's another one right there.