To cover a truly dreadful sports team is to cut off one's foot with a rusty saw, suck out the marrow, then eat it raw. But just as somebody has to go 0-16, somebody also has to document the hellscape.
My college football team lost 50 games in a row, setting what was then an NCAA record. Biggest regret: Having to work my part-time job on the day we led 6-0, only to have the opponents rally to win . . . 97-6. Biggest thrill: Covering the alma mater for the Minneapolis Tribune in the season opener when it (we) kicked a field on the last play to break the streak with a 17-14 win. Stands were packed and fans rushed the field. It didn’t matter that the losing school had an enrollment of about 300 and been a women’s college until a few years before. It closed a few years later. The places writing can take you . .
Correction #2: Andy Cohen spoke of a man (who he presumed to be gay) by noting, “He’s strictly dickly.” It was CNN, not ABC. Anderson Cooper was there also. Both were drunk, as usual, during their NYE broadcast. The person Andy referenced is Andy's friend and the comment was not harmful because the friend is openly gay. Andy made the reference because the friend is very handsome and Andy was informing the audience "he's strictly dickly". To quote Anderson Cooper, their NYE show is a complete gayfest. Anderson giggles the entire 4.5 hours. Certainly a different side of Anderson Cooper compared to the serious journalist he is the other 364 days a year.
I was hoping you'd hear from the esteemed Jim Sumner or another who covered an early aughts Duke football program that endured separate 22 and 23 game losing streaks in a span of 6 years, but perhaps it's still too soon.
That era did spawn the best work of football-related literary fiction you probably haven't read: The Redshirt by Corey Sobel, a former Duke LB. COVID scuttled the book launch and it's yet to get its proper due for the elegant treatment of a mind-blowing confluence of events that escaped notice while in the shadow of Duke's legendary basketball program.
one cavil and one comment: 1998 for Ray Rhodes; and 1999 his time here in Green Bay would be fodder for a mini 30 on 30. :).
My college football team lost 50 games in a row, setting what was then an NCAA record. Biggest regret: Having to work my part-time job on the day we led 6-0, only to have the opponents rally to win . . . 97-6. Biggest thrill: Covering the alma mater for the Minneapolis Tribune in the season opener when it (we) kicked a field on the last play to break the streak with a 17-14 win. Stands were packed and fans rushed the field. It didn’t matter that the losing school had an enrollment of about 300 and been a women’s college until a few years before. It closed a few years later. The places writing can take you . .
Correction #2: Andy Cohen spoke of a man (who he presumed to be gay) by noting, “He’s strictly dickly.” It was CNN, not ABC. Anderson Cooper was there also. Both were drunk, as usual, during their NYE broadcast. The person Andy referenced is Andy's friend and the comment was not harmful because the friend is openly gay. Andy made the reference because the friend is very handsome and Andy was informing the audience "he's strictly dickly". To quote Anderson Cooper, their NYE show is a complete gayfest. Anderson giggles the entire 4.5 hours. Certainly a different side of Anderson Cooper compared to the serious journalist he is the other 364 days a year.
1 correction: Orlean Times-Herald is Olean Times-Herald.
You probably heard from Mike Vaccaro prior to this post <smile>
Thank you Jeff, been a reader since your Patent Trader days. Sorry for the loss of your Dad.
His Sunday columns in the Reporter Dispatch were awesome. Glad he was still writing while living in Heritage Hills.
Great stuff!
"Can't Anybody Play This Game ?" Jimmy Breslin
I was hoping you'd hear from the esteemed Jim Sumner or another who covered an early aughts Duke football program that endured separate 22 and 23 game losing streaks in a span of 6 years, but perhaps it's still too soon.
That era did spawn the best work of football-related literary fiction you probably haven't read: The Redshirt by Corey Sobel, a former Duke LB. COVID scuttled the book launch and it's yet to get its proper due for the elegant treatment of a mind-blowing confluence of events that escaped notice while in the shadow of Duke's legendary basketball program.