Chattanooga Christian baseball coach Ben Wharton, right, shakes the hand of brother and pitcher Joseph Wharton while making a pitching change during a home game against South Pittsburg last month.When he was a teenager, somewhere around the age one begins driving, Ben Wharton’s mom and dad were serving as foster parents for an infant.
They were asked to adopt the baby and at first declined.
“He and I had a connection almost immediately, and I begged them (to adopt),” Wharton recalled. “My parents had done foster care since I was in kindergarten, and we got him when he was about 15 months old. We’d had him eight or nine months when they asked us to adopt him. The adoption agency asked them to reconsider, and they did.
“I guess I’ve had a connection with him since the very beginning.”
That relationship has changed over the years, and now Ben, the first-year varsity baseball coach at Chattanooga Christian School, is coaching Joseph, the adopted brother with whom he forged a connection so many years ago.