Yet this isn’t the fodder for some cheatin’ country song.
It’s a story about being faithful.
About being a part of the Flyers’ Faithful.
Roshto makes the 660-mile roundtrip from Chicago to shoot photos at every Dayton Flyers men’s basketball game at UD Arena. Sometimes, if they are on back to back days, he shoots a women’s game, too. And he often takes photos at UD road games.
Since 2014 — after a UD marketing person saw his work, asked him to take some photos for the department and got him a courtside photo pass so he no longer would have to shoot pictures from the stands — Roshto has missed just one UD home game, the Flyers’ Nov. 11 matchup against SMU.
That was the same day as rehearsal for the wedding of his eldest daughter, Leslie, to Dan Stern on Nov. 12 in Chicago.
But this story really goes back to one of his younger daughters, Lisa, who decided not to go to Illinois State where her twin sister Lindsey was headed and where Leslie had gone before that.
“Lisa and her sister were always identified as twins and she thought it might be better if they separated,” Roshto said. “She felt a smaller school might be a better fit for her.”
Someone had mentioned the University of Dayton, though she and her family knew nothing of the school or the city.
“We came here unannounced on a cold, rainy day,” Roshto remembered. “But everybody — whether it was teachers, RAs, students or people working on campus — they all were extremely friendly. They were like: ‘What are you looking for? Can I help you with something?’
“Within 20 minutes, Lisa was like: ‘Dad, I really want to come to school here!’ She immediately fell in love with the school, the campus, the people.
“I did, too, and I’ll tell you, it’s been just an unbelievable experience.
“Our whole family loves everything about the place, not just the school, but the community too.
“These are some of the finest people in the country here. No matter where you go, people are nice to you. It’s a totally different atmosphere than a lot of places I’ve been.
“And then there’s UD Arena. It’s an electric atmosphere. Once I started going there, I was hooked.”
‘They were the finest people in the world’
Roshto grew up in Highland, a small suburb next to Fort Sheridan, 26 miles north of Chicago.
His father — Major Howard Roshto during World War II — had an exemplary military career with the Air Force. He was part of a B-24 bomb squadron, was sent to Cerignola, Italy, and ended up highly decorated, including receiving a Bronze Star.
After the war he stayed in the Reserves and was activated in 1951 during the Korean War and sent to Europe to help build airfields. Howard and his wife Evelyn adopted Rick when he was six hours old.
“They were the finest people in the world,” he said of his late parents. “They provided me with a phenomenal life.”
Rick played basketball in high school and then joined the fire department for what he said ended up a “fabulous” 33-year career. Before retiring, the 69-year-old was both a firefighter and a paramedic.
“I tell kids now, ‘If you like playing team sports, you’d love the fire department,’” he said. “It’s the same kind of deal, where you have each other’s back. It’s like the military, where you have to have camaraderie and the ability to work together when it really counts because it can be a life and death situation.”
Because the firefighter’s job includes 24 hours on and then 48 off, he said you can pursue a second career. He ran a machine shop for 32 years and built race engines for dragsters, road racers, street rods and muscle cars.
Once his daughter Lisa came to UD, much of his attention was refocused here, especially at UD Arena where his love of basketball was rekindled and magnified.
“When Lisa was in school, her classmates were guys like Chris Wright, Chris Johnson and Marcus Johnson and I got to really like UD basketball,” he said.
He bought Section 400 season tickets and then would work his way down to any place he could to take photos from the stands. He got to know everybody from the ushers to the cheerleaders, some of the Red Scare students and Dr. Willie Morris, the head of the UD pep band.
“I just fell in love with the whole UD basketball experience,” he said.
Meanwhile, his daughter also fell in love.
Soon after she came to UD, she met a student who was a year older, Jude Odafe, from the Cleveland suburb of Amherst.
They dated for six years, even as Jude went on to medical school at Ohio State and then switched and got a second masters at Carnegie Mellon.
The couple married on Oct. 8, 2016 at the UD Chapel. Some 200 guests attended, many from Chicago and Cleveland. The UD pep band surprised the couple with music outside the chapel.
Today, the couple has a daughter, 2 ½ year old Vivienne.
She showed up at the UD-Wyoming game at the United Center a couple of weeks ago with her mom and dad, wearing a Dayton hoodie and had a Flyers T-shirt underneath
She can even sing the UD fight song.
Game-day schedule
On game days, Roshto said he tries to leave home between 4 and 6 a.m.
Once he gets to Dayton, he spends the afternoons at places like Carillon Park, taking photos of the eagles, or at the Air Force Museum or Eastwood Metro Park, shooting nature pictures.
He gets to UD Arena two hours before games and is usually courtside by the time the Flyers start to warm up.
These days he takes photos — as does Leon Chuck, a research material scientist at UD — for sports information director Doug Hauschild to supplement the work of UD photographer Erik Schelkun. At times, Roshto has also provided photos to Cox Media for its social media platforms.
Each half he sets up at the Flyers’ offensive end of the court. He sits on the floor, behind the baseline, wearing a shoulder harness to which he can hook his two cameras — a Nikon P6 with a 24-70 lens and a Nikon P5 with a 70-200 lens. He usually brings along a wide angle lens for pregame photos.
There have been times he’s made a sure-handed catch on an errant pass and been cheered by the crowd, especially the students.
His favorite Arena moments. though, have centered around the dynamic players and dramatic moments.
“That whole year with Obi (Toppin) was magical, but it was even before that with Chris Wright and the others,” he said.
“The rest of the country always thinks we’re underdogs, but we know we are not, right?”
At the end of the year, he always gives the head coach a nice album of photos from the season.
“That nano-second of time that is captured with a still image is something that I really appreciate,” he said. “I believe that even though video has probably become more popular with today’s social media, nothing captures and expresses the moment as does a still photograph.”
To see his work, visit his website: dblrphoto.com.
At present there are 149 collections of photos there, encompassing everything from UD men’s and women’s seasons going back several years; the Dayton cheerleaders and pep band, team managers, the Red and Blue Game and a Steve McElvene tribute. There are also photos from car shows, concerts, nature and family photos.
After Flyers’ games, Roshto drives over to Indianapolis, stays the night and is back in Chicago by 9 a.m.
He said his wife knows how much he loves Flyers basketball and UD — she even comes along sometimes — but she also enjoys needling him, he said:
“Yeah, when I tell her on Monday there’s a game on Friday, she’ll say, ‘Why don’t you leave now so you’re not late!’”
She knows this isn’t the fodder for some cheatin’ country song.
It’s a story about being faithful.
About being a part of the Flyers’ Faithful.
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