Sid’s better half

Posted on September 5, 2012 | 1 Comment

When I first decided to write a book about Sid Gillman, I knew he was what my grandma Essie would call “a character.” When you’re writing a biography, that kind of unique personality is essential. Sure, Gillman was one of the most innovators in pro football history, but you can’t spend 300 pages solely discussing the fact he’s the only person that resides in the pro and college football halls of fame or the intricacies of his vertical offense or why the 1959 season with the L.A. Rams went so badly awry.

He can be a football wizard, but in order to possibly write a compelling biography, he can’t be boring.

No, he has to be the first coach to room his white players with his black players, he has to be the first pro football coach to spring a team-wide steroids ring, he has to be a bastard, he has to be a sweetheart, he has to be a family man who spends most of his time watching football film. He has to be a contradiction and an enigma. He has to be the kind of guy who can inspire hatred and love and wonder and annoyance in the same conversation with the same person.

For better and for worse, he’s got to be a character who can carry a book.

And it helps if he has the kind of wife like Esther.

I never met Sid, who died in 2003, but I almost had the chance to meet Esther.

In doing research and interviews for my first book, Bearcats Rising, I spent some time with a charming former University of Cincinnati football player and a city of Cincinnati icon named Glenn Sample. Since Sample played for Gillman in the early 1950s and because he loved the Gillman clan, he kept in touch with Esther, even 60 years after they first met. Sample told me that they exchanged Christmas cards – actually, the same goes for former UC player Nick Shundich, who actually lent me a few of those holiday mementos while I researched this book – and while I interviewed Sample about Sid (long before I thought about writing a book about him), he told me he would send me Esther’s address.

The plan for me was to write Esther a letter and ask if I could interview her about her husband. For a woman in her late 90s, she was still remarkably sharp, and her oldest daughter, Lyle, later told me that Esther could have told me enough to fill an entire book because she was still so vibrant.

But, from what I recall, I procrastinated. Interviewing Esther was not really essential to Bearcats Rising, and I never pressed Sample to get me the address. Thing is, when you’re thinking about interviewing a 97-year-old woman, it’s best not to put it off until next week. But Esther didn’t die. Sample did. And with him went the chance to touch base with Esther.

After a few starts and stops, I started researching Sid Gillman in the summer of 2010, and I was dismayed to discover that Esther had died in February of that yea and was buried on Super Bowl Sunday.

Even though she loved sports before she met Sid in high school, she wasn’t into football (though she was a big Red Grange fan). Nope, this was a girl who loved attending hockey games and listening to Jack Dempsey fights on the radio (she sobbed after he lost to Gene Tunney). Sid eventually turned her into a football junkie, and after they were married*, she spent many evenings eating her dessert in the garage while watching game film with her husband.

*The two spent their 1935 honeymoon in Chicago so he could observe a college all-star game at Soldier Field. It rained during the game, and though she used a newspaper as a de facto umbrella, her powder blue wedding dress got soaked.** She also lost her purse that day. Doesn’t get much more romantic than that, am I right, ladies?

**Why she was wearing her wedding dress to a football game, I don’t really know.

She learned football from Sid, but following Sid around and bearing his children weren’t the totality of her life. Esther also loved fashion and going out on the town to mingle with strangers and friends. She loved meeting people, learning about them, making them feel comfortable in her presence. One of her daughters called her another Jackie Kennedy. She was a housewife, but only in the loosest sense of the word.

“This has been my career,” Esther said in 1996. “These are my people. At first, you have to understand. There has to be love to begin with. And understanding. Sid made it very easy for us to love football. He brought it to the family, but he didn’t force us. He made it so interesting for us by bringing film home and teaching us this play and that play. … I loved doing it. It’s an old-fashioned phrase, but I think we were a happy family, and I think that contributes to his success. The man can’t do it alone and the woman can’t do it alone. I didn’t do it because I was supposed to do it. You do it because that is the way to do it.”

One of my most favorite discoveries in my research was finding her recipe for what Sid’s Cincinnati players called Jewish Spaghetti (“It was the hottest stuff in town,” Shundich said). Starting when the two lived in Granville, Ohio, Esther took it upon herself to host Sid’s college players for huge spaghetti dinners. It fostered a sense of family, and it gave the Gillman’s a good excuse to use their window screens as pasta strainers (hopefully, Esther sterilized them beforehand). Anyway, I discovered her recipe for the spaghetti sauce in one of the multitude of newspaper articles that had been written about Mrs. Sid Gillman, and I gleefully put it in the book. It’s irrelevant to the larger story, but that tiny detail has made me happy ever since.

Esther was gorgeous when she was young, and she grew up to be a very handsome woman. In some ways, I fell in love with her during my research and writing, and I talked to a number of people who felt the same way.

“She was an angel,” said Dan Pastorini, who played quarterback for Sid in Houston and had an, um, somewhat love-hate relationship with him. “She was the soft hand in that whole deal. She knew everybody’s name. She knew every player and every player’s girlfriend. She was like the den mother. To put up with that guy for that many years, she had to grow wings.”

Damn, I wish I could have met her. Her kids were great to speak with, but getting to Esther would have been akin to interviewing Sid (mostly because she would have been a better interview than Sid). I’m sorry I didn’t get the chance. And I’m sorry I didn’t follow up with Sample.

Because even though Esther was basically a football wife and mother, she was exceptionally versatile and interesting. She was, at her very core, a character who could carry a book.

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The next step

Posted on August 23, 2012 | Leave a comment

The letter below fills me with pride. And makes me a little sad. And makes me excited for the kids. And me. And my free time. But also a little lonely.

Yes, I have mixed emotions about the twins finally heading off to preschool.

Dear Children and Parents,

First of all….WELCOME! I can’t tell you how excited Ms. M and I are about our 2012-2013 class!!

We have been working very hard all week getting your child’s room ready and planning for an (sic) great year of fun and learning.

With the first day of school fast approaching don’t forget that this Friday morning from 8:30AM-10:30AM is “Meet the Teacher”.

Ms. M & I will be on hand, eager to meet you and your child as well as answer any questions you might have in regards to the upcoming school year.

Also, I have set up this e mail especially for the class and will be checking it frequently so please feel free to send us an e mail with any questions or concerns throughout the school year.

Can’t wait to meet everyone and we hope to see you all at “Meet the Teacher” on Friday!

Again, WELCOME! :)

Best,
Ms. R

Tuesdays and Thursdays around the ol’ homestead now will be just a little lonelier.

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Sid Gillman and his love of jazz

Posted on August 21, 2012 | Leave a comment

When I first got into the book-writing game, I thought you could throw all your research, all your interviews, all your written words into your masterpiece of a tome. And there it would stick, all your thoughts (every single one) for all the book-reading public to consume.

I had all the space in the world, right? So, I figured, why not mash all the good stuff in there? Somebody gave me an excellent quote that didn’t really fit the context or the narrative? Shoehorn it in. I discovered a story that’s too good not to include somewhere? Make room for it. Or, in the case of my first book, I’d done too much reporting on a season not to include the whole freakin’ thing, no matter how irrelevant that slate of games was a half-decade later? Fold it up like origami and stuff it in. I was writing a book, dammit. Pile that sandwich high and shove it down the reader’s throat.

But here’s the thing: 300 pages or 100,000 words really isn’t all that much. Yes, it’s an enormous mountain to climb when you’re at the base and you haven’t conducted interviews or written a single word. But when you have dozens of folders stuffed with research and an entire flash drive filled with transcribed quotes – and you have hundreds of stories that need to be resurrected – those pages and words disappear faster than your oxygen at the mountain’s peak.

And with my latest book on Sid Gillman, I had too much good fodder. I couldn’t use it all, and then, after turning in my first draft, I was told I had to cut about 30,000 words from the manuscript. I had to lose most of an American Football League section. I had to cut out some good stories. I had to delete some fantastic quotes. Really, it wasn’t much different than editing down a 25-inch newspaper feature story into a 15-inch hole. I had to keep what was absolutely essential. A good quote or a strong story wasn’t enough. I had to be selective – and that’s what I learned going from Bearcats Rising to Sid Gillman: Father of the Passing Game.

Which brings me to Gillman’s love of jazz.

Gillman was an accomplished piano player. His mother started him on lessons when he was 7 years old and living on the north side of Minneapolis. He got good enough on that spinet to join a few bands in high school and college and keep himself well-styled.

“When I was in high school,” Gillman once said, “I was the best dressed man because of the extra money I made.”

Obviously, he didn’t make it a career (though he once held a summer job playing the keys at a honkeytonk during prohibition where he collected tips from a glass dish that sat on top of his piano). But it was an important facet of his life for quite a while. In fact, the first time he ever encountered his future wife, Esther, was when he was sitting behind a baby grand, providing the background music of a Sweet 16 party many decades ago.

I write about his piano-playing in the book, even if it became just a passing fancy once he grew to be a big-time football coach. But one of the concessions I had to make for the final draft of the book was to exclude Gillman’s love of jazz. It was intriguing and compelling – at the very least, it helped round out his character – but quite honestly, I couldn’t figure out where to place it in the book. Never could find a home for his obsession with jazz. Or, as one feature writer from the late 1960s penned, “To Sid, jazz is the elixir, the cure-all, the youth machine, even in defeat a precious ennobling balm to the spirit.”

Gillman loved jazz so much that one writer who penned an article entitled “The Old Man is the Hippest“ couldn’t stop himself from gushing about Gillman’s top-notch 33 rpm vinyl collection – which featured mostly jazz artists like McCoy Tyner, Nina Simone, Cannonball Adderley, Dave Brubeck and Fatha Hines (with the exception of Simone, who died four months after Gillman in 2003, I know nothing about any of these musicians, though Brubeck is still apparently alive and well at 92 years old).

As for rock music, here’s what Gillman had to say in 1968: “No musicianship. The big trouble is that most rock n roll musicians are terrible. On the other hand, some of the Beatles songs are great, very pretty and they sound fine when good musicians play them*, like a Buddy Rich or Wes Montgomery or Quincy Jones. Rock n roll is still young, still groping and maybe something good will come out of it. But as yet they don’t have much of a game plan.** It just isn’t very interesting.”

*Is Gillman saying here that the Beatles weren’t good musicians? That’s kind of what it sounds like. But hey, at least none of them played the clarinet, am I right? (Don’t worry, you’ll get there in a minute.)

**Even when discussing one of the other loves of his life, Gillman just couldn’t stay away from the football analogies.***

***To further illustrate that point, here’s what Gillman once said about his idol in high school, a near-blind pianist named Art Tatum: “Tatum was the greatest of them all. He commanded that keyboard like a quarterback calling a perfect game. When Tatum improvised, he was Unitas, Starr, Van Brocklin rolled into one.”

In one of those feature stories from 1968, Gillman was asked to name his all-time all-star jazz team. Though I couldn’t figure out a way to shoehorn the results into the book, I present it to you here. Because it was a passion of Gillman’s, and because … why the hell not?

  • Piano: Oscar Peterson (“But I want some backup pianists in there – Ahmad Jamal, Bill Evans, Denny Zeitlin, Bobby Timmons, Red Garland and Billy Taylor.”)
  • Guitar: Wes Montgomery
  • Saxophone: Cannonball Adderley, Bud Shank, Paul Desmond, Gerry Mulligan on baritone
  • Clarinet: None (“That’s a lost instrument. You just don’t hear much good clarinet anymore.”)

  • Trombone: J.J. Johnson, Kai Winding, the whole Stan Kenton trombone section
  • Bass: Ray Brown (“Who else?”)
  • Trumpet: Dizzy Gillespie, plus Miles Davis, Nat Adderley, Clark Terry and Bobby Bryant
  • Drums: Buddy Rich
  • Vibraphone: Terry Gibbs
  • Singer: Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Billy Eckstine, Buddy Greco
  • Co-coaches: Quincy Jones for composing and Shorty Rogers for arranging
  • Team captain: Dizzy Gillespie
  • Consultant: Duke Ellington

    • As Gillman said at the end of that recitation: “There’s my team. Have tux, will travel.”

    In reality, the all-time all-star jazz team is a detail that’s probably only worth the 1,200 words I just dropped on it here (and it’s probably not even worth that). Which is why you won’t find it in the book. But that’s OK. This particular detail didn’t deserve to make the book. My only regret with the exclusion, though, is this: I just wish I could have figured out a way to write about Gillman’s disappointment with that era’s music – with the birth of rock n roll and the death of the clarinet.

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    Please help my friend

    Posted on August 8, 2012 | Leave a comment

    I posted this earlier today on my Twitter account, but if you’d like to donate $10 (or more) to my friend, Amy Swann, I’ll enter you in a drawing to win a free autographed copy of Sid Gillman: Father of the Passing Game. And if that’s not enough, I’ll throw in a hug from me (level of strength and duration to be determined) or, if you’re not down with that, a hearty handshake and a grateful pat on the back.

    From my fingers to your ears:

    Here’s Amy’s website. Please help if you can.

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    Writing a biography on a lost soul

    Posted on August 3, 2012 | 3 Comments

    Sid Gillman, in so many of the interviews I’ve read of him, wasn’t especially forthcoming. Well, that might not necessarily be true. When the interviewer wasn’t asking questions about Sid specifically – if the queries tilted toward his team or about football or about the famous coaches he knew and supported – he was fine. I don’t think he loved dealing with reporters* and I think he especially didn’t love talking about himself.

    I mean, good lord, look at some of the answers Sid gave to Todd Tobias in this interview a couple years before Sid died. Could he have said anything less when asked about himself?

    *There is a great story in my book about Sid swearing off reading the newspapers after getting into a spat with the media during his first season with the Los Angeles Rams in 1955. The legendary L.A. sports columnist Mel Durslag told me that Sid swore off reading the papers forever. Durslag asked Sid what he would do during breakfast instead of reading the local rags. “I’m going to eat my eggs and look out the goddamn window,” Sid smartly replied.

    Still, I really could have used Sid – who died in 2003 – during the time I wrote his biography.

    Especially when I had to write about how he grew up in Minneapolis. Or what he thought about leaving an African American player behind when Miami (Ohio) was invited to play in the 1947 Sun Bowl and the Sun Bowl officials forbid black players from competing. Or about his offensive philosophies or about if he knew forcing his 1963 Chargers team to take steroids could have long-term consequences on those individuals’ lives?

    Would he have answered my controversial questions? Probably not. Or he would have tap-danced around him. Or he would have gotten pissed at me and eaten his eggs while ignoring me and looking out the goddamn window. Still, like I wrote in the intro of my book — due out Aug. 29 Sept. 11 (apparently) — it’s tougher to write the story of a man when you can’t shake his hand and talk to him face to face.

    I had long and multiple interviews with each of his four kids, and all of them were great. All were forthcoming about their father, the good and the bad. Yet they couldn’t tell me stories about Sid growing up and they couldn’t get inside Sid’s head during the most meaningful moments of his life.

    But Sid’s not here, and so we must find a way to move past it.

    I just finished reading Richard Ben Cramer’s fantastic biography on Joe DiMaggio, and though the Yankee Clipper was alive when Cramer was researching and writing the book, DiMaggio refused to speak to him. But at least Cramer could observe some of DiMaggio’s actions (and there is a great scene at the beginning of the book with Cramer watching DiMaggio during his last appearance at Yankee Stadium). Me? I didn’t know anything about Gillman until five years after he died. Except for old film, there wasn’t much of anything for me to observe.

    So, how do you write a biography about a dead person? I didn’t know. Naturally, I googled it.**

    **To be clear, I used google for this exercise only. I did not use it to figure out how to write a biography of Sid Gillman. I do wonder, though, if this knowledge would have made the book better if I had actually thought to do this before I started.

    According to this site, writing on somebody who’s dead is easier because “Information about them can be easier to obtain, and they can’t complain when you mention their underwear, etc.” Yes, information about Sid’s personal life was MUCH easier to obtain from the newspapers that didn’t write about it. I mean, thank the lord I couldn’t ask Sid directly about that kind of stuff. Really dodged a bullet there. And the chances of me writing about anybody’s underwear – whether Sid was alive or dead – were pretty slim (though I do have a rather-innocent story in the book about Gillman buying a kimono for his wife that he thought made her look like a geisha girl).

    Let’s try eHow. “Follow a chronological order of the person’s life if possible. Include any noteworthy accomplishments, events, tragedies, successes, and more. If the person is still living, end with un (sic) uplifting conclusion about their path for the future. If they are dead, then conclude with one of their great accomplishments.” Well, crap. I concluded my book in a cemetery. That’s no good.

    All right, for the real analysis, I turned to New York Times’ best-selling author Jeff Pearlman, who released a fantastic book on Walter Payton last year called, “Sweetness.” Payton, who died in 1999, obviously wasn’t around to help Pearlman (or hinder him, I suppose), and since this was Pearlman’s first book on somebody who’s dead (previous bios include Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds), I asked about his approach to the Payton tome.

    “I guess, Josh, it’s not all that different from the Bonds and Clemens bios I wrote,” Pearlman wrote in an e-mail. “Neither man spoke with me, so – in a way – with Sweetness it felt normal. That said, the thing that I found interesting is how, for lack of a better word, haunted I felt. I would take these long runs at night and feel Payton next to me, running along and talking up his life. That sounds pretty insane – and it’s not like I actually believed he was there. But I just couldn’t shake that idea; that he was somehow reading over my shoulder.

    “Truth be told, it might be easier when someone isn’t around. A. He isn’t there to be annoyed at you; B. (Most important) he can’t tell people not to talk to you; C. People probably feel more at ease talking, knowing Walter wouldn’t get mad at them.

    “All that said, I wish he were alive …”

    I felt the same way about Sid. And I can understand where Pearlman was coming from when talking about going for runs with Payton in spirit. When I traveled to Los Angeles to interview two of Sid’s children in March 2011, I visited the graves of Sid and his wife, Esther. I told them both that I would do my best to present a fair assessment of his life and his life’s work. I would try my hardest to make sure people know who Sid Gillman was, what he did and what he meant to the game.

    But other than that, Sid never visited me during the writing of the book (UPDATE 1:00 a.m. CT: Swear to god, I was just adding the above photo of Sid, and I heard a single piano note go off in my house. Everybody else is asleep in their beds. I do not own a piano or a cat that would crawl across one. Freakin’ creepy, man). I never felt Sid reading over my shoulder. I never felt his presence. I don’t know, maybe I should have gone for more long runs late at night.

    The question of how to write a biography on someone who’s gone never really was answered, and therefore, I have little insight to give. I just wrote it. Which, I suppose, is the only way to go at it. You research, you interview, you dig, you double-check, you triple-check, and you start tapping.

    Anyway, I just hope I present a work that’s fair. I hope I did him right. I hope, like Pearlman said over and over again with his Payton book, that I gave the definitive story. And I hope somehow and in some way, Sid knows about it and would feel the same way.

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    The twins are destined to crush us

    Posted on July 26, 2012 | Leave a comment

    Every day, my twins, Stella and Noah, make more and more conversation. Noah will say something like, “I’m sitting on the potty backwards,” and even though he’s not actually doing anything on said potty, Julie and I will look at each other in amazement. How did he learn how to say that? We, of course, don’t have the answer. We have no idea.

    Or Stella will pull out the most heart-warming version of “thank you” on record, and we wonder, is there anything in this world that’s possibly cuter than those two words emanating from the mouth of our adorable toddler.

    Stella has been smiling more lately, and during music class a few days ago, she started rocking out with sticks and a drum. Noah can almost have a near-conversation, and when I come in the room and he says, “Oh, hi, Dada,” it’s all I can do not to burst (with laughter, with pride, with everything).

    This morning, when I was changing Stella’s diaper, she stuck her hand inside the decorative blanket on the wall and asked, “Where did my hand go?” After I expressed my puzzlement at this perplexing query, she yanked it out and said, “There it is.” Earlier, Noah dropped something out of his crib, and he said, “Oh no, it fell.”

    Yesterday, Stella asked Julie out of nowhere, “What’s the matter?” Before that, when I asked Noah if he wanted some pancakes, he said, “Um ……… yes,” like he was deep in thought and really contemplating the matter.

    It’s all cute. It’s all wonderful.

    It’s also a little heart-crushing. Because my kids are growing up. People say all the time, “Oh, they grow up so fast.” I haven’t felt that yet. It feels like Stella and Noah have been here for almost 2 1/2 years exactly. It’s been a life-changing, fantastic 2 1/2 years. It’s also been a long 2 1/2 years.

    But I have made an effort to live in the moment as much as I can. That’s why I go in for second good-nights (and second kisses) most every evening. Yes, I let the kids watch a little too much Sesame Street probably (is five hours a day REALLY too much, though?), but I also feel very present in their lives, moving with them in real time. When the kids start going to school, maybe I’ll feel different. Maybe I’ll feel their youth slipping away too quickly.

    But that’s the thing: they’re growing up. Maybe that should thrill me to no end, but it doesn’t. It makes me (a little bit) sad. I remember when the twins began rolling over and, then, began readying themselves to crawl. During that time span, I almost dreaded the moment they’d begin to crawl forward (or, in Stella’s case, backward). It was just another step in their lives, a step closer out the door, leaving behind old mom and dad to relive the memories of their children’s youth.

    I imagine that it’s a normal feeling for a parent to experience, but it also feels a little selfish. I wasn’t rooting against my kids, but I wasn’t completely sad when they failed at their task.

    And now, they talk. And tomorrow, they’ll talk some more and learn new words. And the next day, they’ll amaze us once again. At some point, Noah will catch a baseball and Stella won’t need my help getting into a swing. Until, one day, they’ll be just little kids having a conversation with us as they get set to graduate high school and get their first job and high-tail it out of here for the rest of their lives.

    Julie and I are so proud of all the kids’ accomplishments. Noah has been rocking the hell out of some rather difficult puzzles, and Stella is doing forward rolls. They are such lovely toddlers with sweet personalities and staggering intelligence. I just wish time would slow down a little. Not because it’s going too fast. It’s just so that I can savor every accomplishment just a little more. So Julie and I can laugh just a little longer when Stella hands Noah a toy and he says matter-of-factly, “Thank you, Stella,” like he’s been saying it for years.

    So we can hold them closer to our hearts before, through no fault of their own and as is to be expected, they eventually break them.

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    Those who have it harder than me (triplets)

    Posted on June 20, 2012 | Leave a comment

    Whenever a friend or an acquaintance or, quite honestly, a stranger learns that my wife and I have twins, one of the first responses is usually something along the lines of, “Oh my gosh, I don’t know how you do it.” My answer usually is, “Well, I don’t have much choice in the matter,” or “Well, since these are my two first kids, this is completely normal to me.” These aren’t conversations that occur every so often. They’re weekly discussions, seems like.

    Stella and Noah have been really good babies and toddlers, and much of the time, they make our lives relatively simple and pain-free. At this point, I can’t imagine not having twins. And I can think of other parents who have it much harder than us. These are the people who deserve the sympathetic remarks. These are the people who deserve medals. That’s why I started this occasional series – originally for manofthehouse.com – called “Those who have it harder than me.”

    Today, we talk to Damon Hack, who covers golf for Sports Illustrated (you can find him on Twitter here). I’d met Damon a few times covering various sporting events, but I’d heard recently that his wife had given birth to triplets. When I ran into him at Super Bowl Media Day in Indianapolis in February, I talked with him for a few minutes so he could describe to me just what it’s like to raise three babies at the same time. At the end of our talk, I thought to myself, “I don’t know how he does it …”

    Previous editions of Those Who Have it Harder than Me:

    My baby has colic

    After a stillborn birth

    Josh Katzowitz: For us, having twins probably isn’t twice the work. It’s probably more like 1 ½ times the work. It’s not too bad. But my and wife I have talked about it: what about triplets? We’re like, ‘How do those parents possibly do it?’ because we know how hard raising two at the same time can be. Tell me about your life with triplets.

    Damon Hack:     My wife’s pregnancy was really good. She went 34 weeks, which was amazing with triplets. The last week, she had bed-rest because she had mild preeclampsia, which is when the blood pressure kind of goes up and own. She gave birth on June 9, 2011, and she had a quick drop in blood pressure right after the deliveries, so they had to give her a couple IVs. I’m sitting there in the room with her, and I’m watching her numbers drop. I’m freaking out, and she’s half-asleep.

    When I think about the changes to our lives, I think of the whole thing. I think of the pregnancy, giving her chocolate Ensure, the things I used to give my grandmother for bone density. It’s really important for the dad and husband to be involved. I wanted to be involved, and you want to go through the pregnancy with them. I just wanted to be a part of the process and be a real good support system for her.

    Katzowitz:     For twins, when they wake up in the morning, you can literally grab them at the same time and walk downstairs with them together in both of your arms. Logistically, how do you do that with three babies?

    Hack:     We’re lucky, because we have help. As you know, I’m a sports writer and I’m on the road a lot, and my wife has her own business. We actually have had baby nurse help since they were born. It’s been the only way we can function. We’ve had times where it’s just me and my wife, and you get through it. But one baby has to stay down. When we don’t have anybody helping us, you do it in order. You feed one baby, you feed the second baby, you feed the third. But you alternate it. You don’t have the same baby not eat first every night.

    Katzowitz:     You make it fair.

    Hack: Yes. And what we’re discovering now, is that you want to spend time with each child individually. My wife will take one child on a baby date. She’ll take James one day, Rhys one day and Miles one day. I’ll do the same thing. We have two dogs, so our house is a complete circus. When I walk the dogs, I’ll put on the Baby Bjorn and take one of my boys with me. It’s great bonding time and a chance for the boys to see what’s going on outside.

    Katzowitz    : That is great. That individual time is something we strive to do, but it’s tough. You really have to work to make that happen, because it is important to get that one on one.

    Hack: Absolutely. They’re going to be together a lot. They’re in the same room. Meal time is the same for them when we have our full complement of help. But we bathe them one at a time. We try to get them in a routine. That’s the thing. Everybody talks about it. You go to sleep at the same time. Bath time is at the same time. Nap time.

    Katzowitz:     We were lucky because our kids are easy going, but one of the things we did early on was with sleep. It was one down, both down.

    Hack: Exactly, you have to do it.

    Katzowitz: You have to have a break at some point.

    Hack:     It’s just for your sanity’s sake. You know, once a week, my wife and I go out on a date night. We have babysitting help, and you don’t want to completely lose yourself. Sometimes, you can’t help but lose yourself to the kids, and it’s important to do so. But sometimes you want to be an individual too and be romantic with your spouse and remind yourself how you got into this trouble in the first place.

    But I’ve been tired for eight months. I’ve carried this fatigue with me for eight months. It’s hard to catch up and get back on top with your sleep. When I’m on the road – this week in the Super Bowl – I’ll get more sleep then I ever do.

    Katzowitz:     When did you guys find out, and what was your reaction? It took me a long time to wrap my head around the idea of twins.

    Hack: We first thought we were having twins. We had one of our ultrasounds, and they saw two. We went back two weeks later, and they saw the third one. I couldn’t believe it. I was in shock. In some ways, I’m still in shock when I walk in the room and see three babies in there. We wanted to have a baby for so long, and it really is a blessing. But it’s a shock also. Most people have one baby, so that’s what you’re used to seeing. But now you see commercials for twins and triplets.

    But once you’re there, it’s special. We’re “the triplet family” in our neighborhood. My wife’s family is in Queens, we live in the city, and we’ve had aunts come over. It’s a special, special designation to be a parent of multiples. It’s really awesome.

    Katzowitz: I’m not trying to pry, but we get a lot of the, ‘Oh, do twins run in your family?’ question. Which is code for, ‘Oh, did you have reproductive help?”

    Hack: I get that a lot.

    Katzowitz: How do you handle that?

    Hack: I’m honest. Maybe it’s because I’m being a journalist, but because we wanted kids for so long, we had to get help. For whatever reason, medically we couldn’t get pregnant, so we had to do in vitro fertilization. And it worked.

    Katzowitz: It worked very well, apparently.

    Hack: It worked too well, some would say. No, it worked perfectly well, as far as we’re concerned. But people do pry, because it’s a curiosity. Do triplets run in your family? I’ve gotten that question a hundred times.

    Katzowitz: Do you feel like it’s code?

    Hack: Yeah, I’ve had some people straight-up ask me if we’ve used in vitro.

    Katzowitz: Oh, yeah. People have asked me that. To me, it’s rude.

    Hack: It’s noisy and it can be rude. People don’t know what we’ve gone through. There are ups and downs. We didn’t get through on the first in vitro fertilization.

    Katzowitz:     Oh my god, that’s a lot of money.

    Hack: It’s a lot of money and stress. But thankfully, all’s well that ends well. I don’t mind telling people, because of those who are struggling and can afford it, at least it’s an option. I share it, because of how happy we are with the end result.

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