Time to start. Or something

Posted on October 9, 2010 | 1 Comment

I’ve got this mountain I have to climb. I stare up, but I can’t make out the top. It’s too damn far away. It’s above the eagles, and it’s above the clouds. As far as I’m concerned, it could be above the heavens and the moon and the sun, as well. People make it to the top – plenty of people, in fact – but from this view, it’s hard to see how. At the bottom, it’s safe and easy. At the bottom, the research never gets done. The interviews are unheard. The words are never typed, never read. The bottom is easy. The bottom is boring.

Once, I made it to the top of a mountain – a structure that stood 120,000 words tall. You think 120,000 words is a bear to write, and you’d be correct. One hundred and twenty thousand words is almost unfathomable.

You might think about it this way: well, I just need to write 1,000 words a day – that’s about two pages or so on Word – and I accomplish that for four months straight, presto! You’ve got a book. One thousand words a day isn’t really that much. Not really. It actually sounds fairly moderate.

It’s not that easy. It’s not that easy to digest. You could write 1,000 words, but it might be crap. You might have to hit “select all” and flick the delete button. Then, what have you got for your day’s work? You’ve got a blank screen.

In fact, you might not get close to 1,000 words, because you’re swimming in so much research that you might as well be in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Not only do you not see land from where you’re desperately trying to tread water, but you can’t even fathom that there’s such a place. When you’re swimming that deep in research, 1,000 words might take you eight hours to write. If you’ve got another job, you can’t spend four months straight writing 1,000 words a day. If you’ve got twins, a wife who works and a hectic life, you can forget it. I might as well be Sir Edmund Hillary with two broken legs and a bad case of apathy.

Yes, I’ve done it once before. I’ve done it when I didn’t have kids. I’ve done it when I was freelancing and didn’t have steady hours of work. I’ve done it when Sunday mornings were clear for coffee and Caps lock. I’ve done it when I could spend the afternoon in a coffee shop letting jittery fingers roam all day.

The finished product was a book I’m proud to have written – Bearcats Rising. It didn’t sell as well as I thought it might. It didn’t make me as much money as I would have liked. But that’s OK. It was an experience, and that experience led me to the top of a mountain. I could plant my flag and breathe in the scenery. But by the time I got to the bottom, I wanted to start trekking back up again.

And now I stand at the bottom, and I have no idea how to get back to the top.

OK, so I’m writing another book. I don’t have a title yet. Hell, I don’t even have a signed contract yet (that’s why I can’t tell you what it’s about). I’ve talked to, like, three people for the book but didn’t really interview any of them. I haven’t done any research. But I’ve been thinking about the subject all week, and I don’t know where to start.

“Why don’t you start where you started for ‘Bearcats Rising?’”

I can’t.

“Why not?”

Because I started where I started, and it turned out, I was wrong to have started there. In fact, where I started, I probably shouldn’t even have included in the book. If that makes any sense at all.

The first time I started, I didn’t have a table of contents per se. I didn’t know how the chapters would fit together. I didn’t know what I was doing.

Now, I have that table of contents, but that’s about it. It will change, because … well, it just will. I’ll learn countless new facts and anecdotes that I’ll need to find a place for in the book. Adjustments will have to be made. Chapters will be moved in, moved out, thrown over there and pulled back over here.

I have so much research to do, and I don’t know where to start. I know I need to organize, but I don’t know what it is that I have to organize.

It almost feels like I’ve never written a book, like I never planted my flag at the summit once before.

And now? Well, now, I have to start. I have to take that first step. The mountain is immense, and I can’t see the top. But I won’t get there unless I get moving. I’ll never reach the sun (or wherever it is that the mountain ends) if I don’t put on my SPF 45 and start walking.

And so, I do.

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Posted in Sid Gillman

Ah, memories

Posted on July 14, 2010 | Leave a comment

I watched the final few innings of the All-Star game tonight, and lo and behold, look who emerged from the bullpen to close out the game for the National League. A guy I covered in high school when I was working at the Augusta Chronicle.

He was pretty good back then. He’s pretty good today.

Here’s the story I wrote from his draft party June 4, 2002. Not a bad read, but I really liked the timeline.

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Posted in MLB

Tagged

Say it to my face

Posted on July 11, 2010 | 1 Comment

The wife and kids and I were at a get-together/barbecue yesterday, and I got into a conversation with one of our friends about anonymous e-mailers and the people who rip sports writers on blogs but refuse to use their own names.

I was making the point that one person who disagrees with something I wrote could have a field day with me from his keyboard. He could make fun of my name (it’s been done numerous times on the Internet with people who thought my opinions/writing were horse manure). He could label me an idiot (it’s one of the nicer names I’ve been called). He could say how crappy I am at my occupation and how he could do a much a better job (this comment, as it turns out, was made just the other day).

But …

What if he was to run into me in real life? What if he recognized me at the coffee shop or at the library or in the airport while waiting for my luggage? Would he ever say any of it to my face? No. No, he wouldn’t. He would ignore me, or he’d walk up to me, excitedly shake my hand and tell me how he checks out the blog/web site/whatever all the time and how he’s a big fan.

You know why? Because people, by and large, are hypocrites and cowardly. If somebody walked up to me, shook my hand and said, “You know what, I hate your writing and I piss on your opinions, but hey, it was good to meet you anyway, ” I’d respect the hell out of him. At least, it’d make for a good story.

Anyway, after having that conversation, I saw this post by Jeff Pearlman, one of my favorite sports writers, on his web site.

I don’t necessarily agree with a few of his points on here, but he details the story of how an e-mail-bashing coward approached him at a Starbucks and introduced himself.

And Pearlman proves my points. This guy called Pearlman “a Kotex” in an e-mail, and then when he recognized Pearlman, he went out of his way to introduce himself. Then, hiding behind another e-mail, he later admitted to Pearlman that it was he, in fact, who had called him a tampon/panty liner.

Pretty lame. But pretty typical.

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Posted in Non-sports

A throwback … with tefillin

Posted on June 2, 2010 | 8 Comments

To me, boxing is a romantic sport, and partially, that’s why I love it*. Obviously, not the punching and the blood from the eyebrows and the brain damage and the hematomas, though there is a certain amount of gladiator romanticism I suppose. No, boxing is romantic because it reminds us of a great era of sports. And, I might add, a great era of sports writing.

*When people discover I’m a sports writer, the first question I invariably receive is this: so, what’s your favorite sport? I always tell them boxing, because 1) it really is my favorite sport and 2) it’s not what anyone expects you to say. Usually, they’re like, “Really?” and I’m like, “Yeah,” and then the conversation takes a different turn. Hardly anybody knows anything about boxing. Which is cool, because normally, I’d rather not talk about sports anyway.

I’ve thought about this many times, but I wonder how fantastic it’d have been to be a sports writer in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. Never mind the Internet, and shorts and flip-flops to work, and anonymous comments on web sites. Give me train rides, fedoras, Western Union and (actual) letters to the editors. Yeah, I know it’s probably easier being a sports writer today (although it’s also probably more brutal as well). But it’s fun to think back to the times in which you’re grandparents went to war, came home, got married and had two kids. And then read the afternoon paper after getting home from the factory to see what Grantland Rice and Red Smith had to say.

If I had to sum up why I think boxing is romantic in 300 pages, I’d go with this: The Sweet Science by A.J. Liebling. It’s got train rides and big-time fights and cigar smoke and typewriters. It’s also a time when the Jews were actually pretty good at sports. It was a time of Battling Levinsky and Maxie Rosenbloom and Lew Tendler. Jews weren’t only successful in banking and in Hollywood (and starring as the punchline in so many ethnic jokes). They were successful in the ring as well.

This, of course, was a long time ago.

On Saturday, though, another Jew – a rabbinical student, no less – will take his shot at retaining his world championship. His name is Yuri Foreman, and he’s making a name for himself (partially, because he is, in fact, Jewish). He was actually on the undercard on a fight card I covered years ago (Vernon Forrest vs. Ricardo Mayorga, part I), and he was kind of a novelty. He was a Jewish fighter who was talented but not much fun to watch. That night, he knocked out a 4-2 fighter named Will Evans in the first round. But his fights weren’t enthralling. He’s proven he doesn’t have much power (only eight knockouts in 28 undefeated fights). He’s not a draw.

Since I saw him seven years ago – in just the eighth fight of his career – his stock has risen. He beat a quality guy named Daniel Santos in his last fight to win a light middleweight world title. This Saturday, he’ll fight the most high profile opponent of his career in Miguel Cotto, once a ferocious fighter who might be on the downside of what had been a standout career. A Jew vs. a Puerto Rican in the middle of the Bronx. Does it get much more old school than that?

The fight won’t begin until about 11:15 p.m., because Foreman observes the Sabbath. Which means he can’t leave his hotel until after sunset marks the end of the Jewish day of rest. He’ll fight Cotto in right field of Yankee Stadium – another relic of the old fight game (except this obviously isn’t the same stadium where Muhammad Ali fought Ken Norton and where Dempsey, Robinson, Louis and Marciano once showcased their skills)

I saw most of the Santos fight a few months back. Like most of Foreman’s bouts, he wasn’t particularly enthralling. But he’s one of my people, so I’ll watch with interest what occurs Saturday night. I’ll watch because he’s Jewish, but I’ll also watch because it’ll remind me of what I perceive boxing of the 1930s, 40s and 50s to be.

A time of romance where a Jew could be champion of the world.

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Posted in Boxing

A phone call surprise

Posted on April 20, 2010 | Leave a comment

It’s not very often you hear from an athlete who makes an effort to seek you out and tell you that he appreciates something you wrote about him or her. It’s actually quite rare.

And that’s fine. I don’t write articles and features so athletes will say how much they like and appreciate my prose and my reporting. In fact, if they read it or not, if they like it or not, it doesn’t make much of a difference to me. If they like it, cool. If not, that’s OK too. If they’re indifferent, well, that’s pretty much what I expect.

That said, it’s always nice when you get a phone call out of the blue telling you how much somebody treasured what you wrote about them.

Throughout my years as a sports writer, this has happened only a handful of times. When I was in college at Georgia, I wrote a nice piece about Randy McMichael and his daughter (or was it his mother? Not sure, but I think it was his daughter), and he sought me out the next day to tell me how much he loved the story. When I worked at the Cincinnati Post, I wrote a nice feature about Xavier play-by-play man Joe Sunderman. A week or so later, I got an actual hand-written thank you card from the classy Sunderman.

On Saturday, as I drove to pick up my brother from the airport in Dayton, I got a call on my cell from Andre Revels. You might have seen this story I wrote about him recently, and he had just read it when somebody at work slid it across his desk. He said as soon as he read it, he knew he needed to call me to thank me.

Actually, he didn’t need to do that. If he hadn’t, I never would have thought twice about it.

But he called. And I’m glad he did.

No matter how jaded you become or how ambivalent you get about people’s opinions of your work, it’s always nice to hear that you’ve done a good job. Even a sport writer’s cynical heart can appreciate a phone call surprise.

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Posted in College football

Tagged

This is what my time is worth

Posted on April 14, 2010 | 2 Comments

Got a text tonight from a colleague, and he told me to switch on the local PBS station immediately. A copy of Bearcats Rising was up for auction – an auction run by UC – and the opening bid was for $9. Greg Harrell and Brad Wurthman gave it the hard sell. Said it was a literary masterpiece. Said I was a whale of a writer. They talked about my shoe collection. They talked about my beard. They talked about how awesome I am.*

*The first four statements they made about me and my book are definitely true. I might have made up that final part of the paragraph.

The auction lasted for 2 minutes, and though I listened hard for a ringing phone, I never heard anything. It started at $9 and ended at $9. Took me a year and a half to write. Couldn’t get a $10 bid.

Tough business, eh?

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Posted in Bearcats Rising

Ready to stumble? Nope Xavier’s Mack up to the task

Posted on April 1, 2010 | Leave a comment

I’ve known Chris Mack for about six years, and I’ve always liked him. When I covered Xavier from 2004-06 (and parts of the 2006-07 season) and he was a Musketeers assistant coach, I’d occasionally drop by his office for a little chit-chat. He was watching film or just getting off the phone with a recruit, but usually, he’d try to make the time.

But when athletic director Mike Bobinski hired him to replace Sean Miller as the head coach before this season, I had major reservations. The first thought I had when I heard Mack was the leading candidate for the job was the final Xavier game of the 2008-09 season when the Musketeers lost to Pitt in the Sweet 16. I remember Pitt’s Levance Field hitting a game-winning 3-pointer with less than a minute to play, and as CBS cut to the handshake line, it focused – for just a split-second – on Mack. Who was yelling at Fields. A 39-year-old yelling at a college student. It didn’t look good.

I still liked Mack. I just wondered whether he was mature enough to be the head coach. That’s what I wrote about last week in my CBSSports.com column on the tremendous job Mack has done this year in his first year as the Musketeers head coach leading them back to the Sweet 16.

I thought about asking him about the Fields confrontation for an article I wrote on him for Cincinnati Profile magazine before the season, but it instead came out as a question about whether he was a hot-head. He said he was actually pretty laid-back. So, that went nowhere.

But since I knew I wanted to write this column about that particular incident – I figured this was a unique perspective I could provide to the CBSSports readership – I knew I’d have to ask him about Fields.

Here’s what I wrote in the column:

The scene set up this way: Pitt’s Levance Fields had just hit the game-winning 3-pointer to beat the Musketeers in last year’s Sweet 16. At the end of the contest, as the CBS camera crews cut to the handshake lan after the game, they spotted Mack — then an assistant coach under Sean Miller — engaging in some unfriendly postgame banter with Fields.

It was a few seconds of TV that quickly were forgotten by most. But I thought it also showcased a potential hazard, and when Xavier athletic director Mike Bobinski hired Mack two months later to replace Miller, the first question that popped to mind was this:

Was Mack really ready for a job like this?

More than a year later, I could feel Mack cringing on the phone when I asked him about those few inglorious seconds.

“We’re all competitive whether we have suits or uniforms on,” Mack said this week before flying to Salt Lake City with his Xavier (26-8) squad to prepare for Thursday’s Sweet 16 showdown with Kansas State (28-7). “Sometimes coaches lose their cool and will do things that maybe they regret. But I’ve handled myself as well as could be expected. I’m not going to change the person that I am. It’s who I am. It’s made me a competitor my whole life.”

I told Mack in an off-the-record aside about why I was asking about Fields, and we talked about it for a few minutes. I think the article turned out pretty well, though I still question whether I should have led with a negative anecdote for what turned out to be a pretty positive story.

I guess it was fine. I guess.

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Posted in College basketball