Section 1:
A: I was in this game for a long, long time,
starting when I first enrolled at UNI. I was
hoping I might hear somebody from UNI
(University of Northern Iowa) speak up here,
but didn't apparently. They were Iowa State
Teacher's College then, so you went through
there and you came out as a teacher.
Unfortunately, that affected me, too. But,
eventually, I worked part time in sports
until I got a full time job in 1949 and I
worked the next forty-one years. I retired as
the sports editor at the Courier in Waterloo,
Iowa.
Q: All right. Time to get started. I just
want to know how you first got started in the
business. I know that you started as a part
time employee. Can you take us through all
the steps that brought you through your first
years working for the Courier.
A: If you were able to translate that epistle
that I handed you, it explains some of that
to you. It was totally, well, several things
were involved. One, I don't suppose I should
be proud of at all. I started with...somebody
picked me out of the stands one night at the
baseball game and asked me if I wanted to run
the scoreboard. I don't remember how old I
was, but I was a long ways from being a
senior. I ran it several years and then the
man who was the sports editor of the Waterloo
Courier at that time was sitting beside me,
as he always was, covering the game. And I
was running the scoreboard and telling him
how to cover the game, I suppose. I was a
senior and it was in May. He asked me what I
wanted to do when I got through school there.
I stuttered and stammered. I didn't have any
idea what I wanted to do. He asked if I would
like to go to college up at UNI. "Yeah, I
guess so." He said, "I can make you the
sports personnel for Cedar Falls." Now we
don't have such a thing. If you are a sports
writer for the Courier, you cover Waterloo
and Cedar Falls. But, in those days, they
hired somebody special to cover Cedar Falls.
He said I also could work a little bit on
Saturday and he gave me a figure. It sounded
like I could probably make it through my
thirty-five dollars a quarter expense
accounts for three quarters a year. In other
word, it only cost me a little over a hundred
dollars to go to school for a year. Can you
imagine that? But, they figured a way to do
it. I stayed with them until I graduated and
found out there wasn't anything to do after I
graduated but teach. I didn't teach very long
and I decided that wasn't what I was supposed
to do. About that time, they decided to
expand the sports staff at the Courier from
two people to three. "Would you like the
job?" You bet. That was in 1949.
Q: That is great. We talked at dinner about
your being a baseball coach and, in your
words, "a damn good one." I want you to tell
everyone about your experiences as a coach.
A: As you look at the scores, which are on
these printed sheets, you won't be greatly
impressed. But the teams that I coached
hadn't had much success and I think I gave
them a little, possibly. One thing I like to
remember for all time was that we, the Orange
Township High School, enrollment around 75 or
80, beat Cedar Falls High in a baseball game
at Cedar Falls. Not only is that a great item
in my career, but it so happens that my
wife's sister's husband-to-be was on the
Cedar Falls team and we kicked his bottom a
little bit. But, then I coached basketball,
also. Those two sports. That was all they had
in those schools in those days. All the
athletes were male and that is all they had
in those schools in those days. While I was
coaching, usually on Friday night I had a
game, but on Saturday, they would bring me in
the office and I would answer the phone and
would help put the paper together for Sunday.
In fact, it went a little bit further than
that. On Saturday, in the fall, after I had
had a little experience, I was putting out
the paper. The only other two sports writers
on the job, one carrying a camera and the
other a paper and pencil, went someplace to a
football game and I put out the paper. I was
still in my teens. But, it was wartime.
That is one of the sad parts that I have to
look back on. I was drafted to the service
and I did go and get a physical examination.
Not only at home. After I got it at home,
they told me "Such-and-such time next week,
get on the bus and go to Des Moines." I did
that, fully expecting the next place I would
be would be France or Japan. Of course, after
I went through the whole examination process
and nobody said a word, the last man I went
to said, "Sorry. Can't use you because of
your eye." I didn't have one in the right
side. This is an artificial one. So, this was
in February or March. In those days, UNI had
quarterly programs, three a year. This was at
the end of the second quarter, the beginning
of the third. In fact, the third one had
started. But when I got back home, and I was
darned near the only one that went back home
- after the examination, everybody else went
to camp. After I got back home, I went back
to school and finished my degree and got to
do a lot of things that I wouldn't have
gotten to do under any other circumstances.
We were short-handed. One of the main reasons
we were short-handed, we had forgotten about
the possibility of using women in the
newsroom. It hadn't happened yet. But, before
the war was over, by gosh, it started to
happen and it worked. --
Section 2:
Q: Why sports? Why sports for so many years?
A: For me? Well, I like them. They are fun.
Many things that I guess that reporters do,
especially those that draw the police beat,
can hardly be classified as fun. But, I was
not an athlete. I did enjoy competing and did
compete. But I was certainly not going to be
any all-stater of any kind. I was doing part
time, in the summer I think, I can't remember
what year it was, not very far along, first
or second, the Chicago White Sox sent in two
people to work with our team. We were in
their White Sox farm system. See if they
could teach them a little bit more about
playing ball than they appeared to know. They
asked me to help them. Chase the ball. Pick
up the bats. One thing and another. But, I
learned things I wouldn't have learned any
other way. I also, one spring, worked at the
suggestion of my sports editor, who happened
to be chairman of the Recreation Department
in Waterloo, he said, "Why don't you work
with my other partner on the summer baseball
program?" He had a bike with a trailer on it
that carried bats, balls and catching
equipment. I just rode my bike down the
street alongside of him and had a good
summer. Had a lot of fun. A couple of years
later, the guy asked me if I wanted to manage
the program because he didn't. So, I said,
"Yes," and I did it alone. I learned a lot
and I got to enjoy it and to like it. I have
never regretted my sports career at the
Courier. Since I got along in years and
started to think in different ways, I have
been going to various places, all around the
United States and even out, on mission trips
where we meet people that we didn't think
ever existed. We had an awful lot of fun with
them and, in some cases, it was a "mother and
father" type situation. And I enjoyed that.
But, that was after my sports career was over
with.
Q: What distinguishes sports
reporting from other types of reporting? Or
is it just covering sports as opposed to
covering the city council?
A: I don't know just how to answer that. A
sports reporter, I am sure, most of them, try
to make their stories appealing. They try to
make them fun and light in some ways. Council
meetings are not usually regarded as a fun
and a light situation. That is the best
answer I can come up with on it. In our
newspaper, and I suppose most of them, they
are going to write more about the home
players and polish them, tell great things
about them, than they do about the visiting
players. But I guess maybe that is the way it
is supposed to be. The people that read the
paper, that is what they want to read, I
suppose.
Q: How has the Courier changed? I know it has
changed many ways. If you could take us back
to when you first started. How much you
earned. When you left, how much you earned.
The politics in the meantime.
A: I will tell you. I wrote this in that
thing that I passed out. When I got my full
time job, six days a week, incidentally, at
the Courier, I was offered the sum of fifty
dollars a week.
Q: Which year?
A: 1949. And, actually, at the end of the
year, I should have had twenty-six hundred
dollars. I had twenty-six fifty because, at
Christmas time, they gave us another fifty.
My last teaching job, I worked nine months
for twenty-nine hundred dollars. If they had
both thrown that out, saying, "Here is your
twenty-nine. Here is my twenty-six. Which
would I take?" I would take the twenty-six.
That is what I did take. But, somewhere along
the way, in the first place, in those days,
we had three people on the sports department,
me being the third. One of them was mainly a
photographer. But you go in at six o'clock in
the morning and you sit until three or four
o'clock in the afternoon, and I mean for the
last four hours, you did sit. Then you got up
and went to a game that night. Well, they
re-organized that. You still have a crew come
in and put out the paper from six o'clock in
the morning until ten or ten-thirty. Then
they go home and then they go out and work
again in the evening. Most of these guys, I
have a hunch, the Courier didn't then and
doesn't now pay by the hour. They might give
you an overtime deal if they thought you had
a particularly rough day. But, basically, you
get what they tell you. So much a week, no
matter how much you work. But, I would have
to hazard a guess, those guys, very few of
them are working more than forty hours a week
on the job. Some of them may, some week, put
in a lot more than that. But most of them,
their average is probably less than that.
The Courier department has climbed. Like I
say, I was third in 1949. Early '60s, we went
to four. Late '60s, to five. Maybe early
'70's, to five. And that is all we had when I
retired in '90. Very shortly after I retired,
I guess they figured they had to have two
people to replace me. I don't know. But they
ended up with six people.
Q: What was your final salary at the end of
your career in 1990?
A: I believe five hundred and eighty a week.
Somewhere in that vicinity. Ironically, when
the Courier was sold from the local owner to
the person out in California, the sale
occurred in January. My recollection is early
January. I had just been given a raise for
the following year that put me somewhere
slightly, like six hundred and five dollars.
I was over six hundred dollars a week. When
the new management came on, that got reduced
drastically, by eighty bucks. I got some of
it back before I retired.
Q: What do you think of the new management?
A: I think they put together a good paper. An
excellent paper, probably. They have done
what every newspaper has done, I suppose.
There is no such thing as a composing room
anymore. A pressroom, but no composing room.
We don't have people sitting in front of the
machines anymore. The newspaper...the stories
are written in the newsroom and the papers
are assembled in the newsroom. When I left in
1990, I set my date. I told my boss that I
was going to retire. I became sixty-five in
June of '89. And I told him shortly after
that that I was going to retire on January
6th , next year. I had one thing in the back
of my mind. January 4th, a Thursday, would be
the first day that the University of Iowa
basketball team would ever play Northern Iowa
in Cedar Falls. They did. I covered it. I
reported it accurately. The result was a
victory for UNI. [laughs]
Q: Do you remember what happened
the day you and I talked last fall? You were
on your way to watch UNI and the University
of Iowa play again.
A: Yeah, I certainly do. That was the second
time that they won. Of course, other than you
and I, nobody around here probably cares a
darn, but they played...they are 4-0 in Iowa.
They beat Iowa and Iowa State once each and
Drake twice. Couldn't beat anybody else.
Q: I want to go back before we leave this
issue. What is it about sports that it would
require a man to dedicate his life to them?
What is it about sports? Talk about sports.
Why would you...to a lot of people, sports is
just a bunch of people running around,
chasing after something. What is it about
sports that it was so strong a magnet that it
changed your life. You dedicated your life to
it.
A: Well, I love to play it and I love to
watch it. Then I got paid for watching it. I
think we have got some severe problems. I
think things are getting out of control. It
has been written, hinted and sometimes spoken
real loudly, but the colleges have got to
demand more from their athletes academically
then they are getting. Now, you hear about a
player, this is facetious, but a football
player scores a touchdown so he wants to be
selected in next spring's draft. Sometimes,
players do get selected. And I feel that if a
kid is on a scholarship and has played a
season or two on that scholarship, and then
leaves the school for whatever reason other
than that he got kicked out, I think he owes
the school whatever they paid him when he
leaves. --
Section 3:
Q: Can you talk a little bit about the growth
of women's sports during your career?
A: Well, when I started, as I said, there
wasn't any such thing. For some reason or
other, and this I don't have an answer to,
the smaller schools had women's basketball
and supported it well at a time when none of
the larger schools had teams. Now they do, of
course. Many of them have successful
programs. I mean, not only successful that
they win all the time, but they attract
people to the games. Yeah, there is no reason
on earth why the women shouldn't have the
same opportunities to play that the men do.
However, whether or not they accept these
opportunities, I don't think what they do
should be reflected by the men. In other
words, you shouldn't be able to come and say
that we have only got thirty-five girls on
athletic scholarships, so we have got to cut
so many boys. What you need to do is get more
girls. If you can't, tough. There is no
reason to make the boys pay because the girls
won't.
Q: Could you go back to 1949, to
the newsroom. Could you explain what your day
was like. Inside the newsroom, what kind of
atmosphere it had. What went on.
A: It would be a little bit hard to make it
very dramatic, I guess. The boss sits there
with the "dummy" in front of him. Pending out
where he is going to put this story, that
story. He hands the papers around the desk.
It didn't have very far to go because there
were only two people otherwise, at that time.
So, he would write the headlines. They would
write the headlines. When everything is done,
he sticks the thing on a spindle and a young
man or a young woman comes by, picks it up,
takes it out to the composing room, and the
next time you see it, it is in the paper.
Q: So, what went on in the
composing room?
A: They had...my modern voice won't name what
they...
Q: Linotypes?
A: Yeah. They had linotype machines. And the
headlines, especially the larger ones, they
still put them together by hand. In a cup or
in a panel. If they had some problem out
there, if something that we sent out to them
didn't fit where we said it should, they
would call us out and we would have to make
an adjustment, of course. That is about all.
I am telling you what we did. Our deadline
wasn't essentially different from what it is
now. Ten or ten-thirty in the morning - we
have got to have everything out there.
Saturday night, we don't have a paper on
Saturday, but we do have a morning paper on
Sunday. Saturday night, we got to have pretty
much everything in the pressroom by
ten-thirty or so to get the thing going. In
the daytime, when we are done at ten-thirty,
I, for the life of me - of course, it has
been fifty years ago - I don't remember what
we did until three or four o'clock in the
afternoon. I suppose some of us probably had
advance stories to write for the next day,
which we might do by telephone. And we might
still do it the same way. We might do it at
home. Or, we might even get in our car and go
out to the gym or the school and talk to the
people. But, there were things we could do.
The boss, the sports editor, might have
written a column for the next day. That sort
of thing.
Q: What time did you start
working?
A: Around six o'clock in the morning. And,
they still do. But, for some reason or other,
despite the modern conveniences, they
actually expect our paper to be put together
before...by ten o'clock, which would be
earlier than we used to think.
Q: Two questions. One, was there any attempt
to organize workers at the Courier?
A: The Courier printers and the press
operators did belong to a very strong union.
As far as I know, the press operators still
do. I don't know for sure, but I think they
do. Of course, there are no printers anymore.
There were some newspapers whose newsrooms
were members of some labor association.
Frankly, I can't remember that ever being
discussed in the Courier newsroom. I don't
know why.
Q: The second question is, would you talk
about the transition for you from using a
typewriter to using a computer?
A: Tough. It was tough. I think I maybe
mentioned some of this before, but my
recollection is that we had four different
computer systems while I was still there.
Basically, what you do, you get a system. You
learn how to handle it. Before you actually
get the real touch, it is out of style. It is
archaic and you need another one. So, they
order another one. The good thing is that it
usually takes them a year or two to get it
after they order it. But, my recollection is
that they had four different computer systems
in my last fifteen years there. Maybe less
than that. The last one that they had came in
September or October before my final days,
which were the following January. So, I never
touched the thing.
Q: I noticed when you wrote me, you wrote on
a manual typewriter.
A: Yeah, I did. And I made an awful mess of
it, apparently. I don't know what I did when
I re-copied it. I did a lot of editing on the
original and then I went back and re-copied
it. It looks like it is even worse than the
original was. Plus the fact that we put it on
some kind of a system that was supposed to
print it, re-proof it, and it is terrible.
But, I don't know what I did. It was no good,
I am sure.
Q: What kind of manual typewriter
is it?
A: It is fairly ancient.
Q: What is the brand name?
A: I don't remember even.
Q: Royal?
A: I don't think so. It sits on my desk and,
as far as I am concerned, it works fine. But,
it depends on me to make it work and,
apparently, I was off-schedule on that day
somehow or other. --
Section 4:
Q: When you started out, what was
the circulation of the paper and was there
any other paper in the town? Was there
competition?
A: I can't tell you what our circulation was
then. In a matter of fact, there was another
paper. Cedar Falls had a daily.
Q: What was it called?
A: The Cedar Falls Record, I believe. The
Courier bought the Cedar Falls Record.
Possibly, the new organization bought it. If
that is true, they bought it within the last
sixteen years. But, I think maybe it was
longer ago than that that the Courier bought
it. So, there isn't one now. And, as I said,
there is no division now. Waterloo and Cedar
Falls are one insofar as the Courier is
concerned and that is good. Our circulation
is around fifty thousand. It has been as high
as the mid-fifties. I would say it is a
struggle now. They are not gaining. I don't
think they are losing rapidly, but it is a
struggle.
Q: Which area do you serve? Just
Waterloo and Cedar Falls, or do you go out to
the other towns around there?
A: We have, I can't tell you the number of
counties. They have got the figure and they
publicize it regularly. But, there is a
Butler, Bremer, Fayette, Chickasaw, Buchanan.
South of us - Tama, Grundy. That isn't
enough. There are about thirteen or fourteen.
Q: Did you cover sports in all of
those counties?
A: Yes. Yes, we do. We say we cover them and
we do. But on a Friday night in the fall, we
would bring a group into the newsroom and
they would answer the phone. All these people
out in the area have been trying to call us
and tell us how their game came out. Not only
tell us the score, but give us the figures.
How many points in each quarter, total score.
Then, anything like who had big yardage and
so on and so forth. And we would make stories
out of that. We would cover an area team with
a staffer once a week. It could be anyplace.
We would look around and whichever game we
would think had the most significance and is
apt to be the somewhat exciting, we would
send a photographer and a writer to. We have
now five high school football teams in the
Waterloo and Cedar Falls area and we cover
them home and away all season. Then, when the
tournaments come around, of course, we
continue to cover the area teams wherever
they play. But, as the tournaments progress,
and the field trims down, if we have got
somebody that is about ready to go to the
state tournament, we cover them, too. And
probably with a photographer. --
Section 5:
A: I have a story that I have felt compelled to
tell you. I don't know if you will have
interest. Raffensperger. Is that a name that
hits everybody here?
Q: Gene.
A: Gene. Well, I was thinking Leonard. He was
football coach here for two years. He came
here from Waterloo where he was a highly
successful coach. And, his son, Gene, grew up
about a block and a half from my house. I was
about five years older than him so we were
never actually in school together. Went to
the same schools. I think he graduated from
the University of Iowa, didn't he?
Q: I don't know.
A: At any rate, for a period of time in the
late '70's and early '80's, Gene
Raffensperger and I and another guy by the
name of Mike Chapman were sports editors of
the three largest daily newspapers in the
state of Iowa. The Des Moines Register, the
Cedar Rapids Gazette, and the Waterloo
Courier. And we were all graduates of East
High in Waterloo.
Q: Tell us about some of the most memorable
events that you covered.
A: I will get this out. Pick that name up
from the top there.
Q: [Unintelligible.]
A: I wrote this book. This is the second
edition, which is about seventy or eighty
pages longer than the first edition. But, I
watched him for a long time. The strange
thing about this is, I think back to my
career, I was named Wrestling Writer of the
Year in 1963 after two of our Waterloo
athletes had wrestled each other for the
national championship. I think at one hundred
and thirty-six pounds. At Kent State
University in Ohio. It was an overtime match
won by Bill Dotson, who is now coaching the
University of New Mexico. Lost by Tom Huff .
He is a dentist that served his entire dental
career in the armed forces. I covered that
tournament in Kent, Ohio. I covered it
because I always covered the national
tournament. That is all. But, when it got
down to the final match at that weight, here
we have got two Waterloo kids wrestling each
other. So, I did a play-by-play and submitted
that. I don't know whether that is what
impressed them or what. But, anyway, I got a
trophy. Pass it around if you want to. I got
that trophy one year before Dan Gable got to
high school. The next year, of course, he was
a sophomore at West High. He never lost a
match until his last match as a senior at
Iowa State University. Of course, I saw them
all. That was quite an experience and Gable
is still a very close friend.
Q: Did you think he would retire?
A: I thought he had it. Yes. I didn't know
whether he would or not, but I thought there
was a great and good chance. Strangely
enough, when he first retired two years ago,
his family, at least his wife, wasn't so
enthusiastic about it. But, after he had a
year off, she was really the one that put the
heat on him. Asked him not to go back.
Following his career was fun, but, like I
say, why I won that trophy had to do with the
championship match at Kent, Ohio. It
certainly had nothing to do with Gable. --
Section 6:
A: Then I had another experience before I became
the sports editor. We had a Legion junior
baseball team that was scheduled to go to a
regional tournament. They had won the state
championship. They were scheduled to go to a
regional tournament out at Hastings,
Nebraska, I think, if there was such a place.
I wasn't sports editor, but my boss said I
should go with them. The American Legion was
their sponsor. The Legion should have
provided somebody to go along and be their
supervisor. But they couldn't find anybody
that would go. Nobody wanted to go. So, they
put a uniform on me and said I was the
supervisor. I was also covering the game. We
went out to Hastings, Nebraska, and lo and
behold, instead of coming home in two or
three days, beaten, we won. Two days later,
the national tournament started in Little
Rock, Arkansas. They loaded us right on the
airplane and headed for Little Rock. We,
including me, had two or three days of
clothes in the sack and that was it. When we
got through at Hastings, most of them were
dirty. So, we went down to Little Rock and
the next day, our kids went out and looked
for a laundry to wash their clothes. They
found one and it wasn't too long before two
of them got kicked out. Two black kids. They
got kicked out by a black officer who told
them they had no business being in there.
They had a rather rough time down there. I
don't remember the guy's name, but you will
remember, in those days, the governor of
Arkansas...
Q: Faubus.
A: Yeah, Governor [Orville] Faubus. He was a
real something. In fact, the opening day of
the first game, our kids were in the dugout
ready to start the game and, lo and behold,
here comes the governor, right across in
front of the dugout. Those two black kids
were looking for a place to hide, of course,
but nothing happened on that particular
occasion. Another time, this was earlier yet,
we had a dinner and New Orleans had a team
involved. One of the kids leaned over, I
think it was a player, I am not sure, and
says, "Have you got more than one school
here?" I said, "Yeah, we do." We had a
couple of kids that were from Columbus High
School, the Catholic school. It so happened
that the two black kids both went to East
High along with everybody else, but they
didn't know that. At any rate, there they
are.
Rick Folkers was our star. He was our
pitcher. A left-handed pitcher. He won us a
game, but that is all we could get. We came
home after we had gotten beat after the next
two. Rick went to college and then he played
in the major leagues, in professional
baseball, for about six or seven years.
Q: How did you deal with that editorially?
How did you write about that? Did you write
specifically about that as a case of latent
discrimination?
A: I think I did, but I am not sure just how
I did deal with it. The story goes even
further and it has got another angle on it.
We went to church the following Sunday,
everybody. The whole group, including the two
black kids. A Lutheran church. We were
treated cordially. I don't know who chose the
church or how we chose it. Whether it was
because it was close to where we were living
or what. Not everything was bad. But, that
was a strange area in 1964. --
Section 7:
Q: Could you talk a little bit
more about covering girls' basketball in
Iowa. A lot of the people here didn't grow up
in Iowa and don't know what girls' basketball
used to be like here. You mentioned the small
towns having basketball.
A: Actually, the tournaments were probably
every bit as exciting when the small town
girls were having their basketball
tournament. One thing that helped make it
exciting was that they had sixteen teams come
to the state tournament. And they are all the
same...they don't have different categories
and classes. They all play each other and the
winner take all. Now, of course, they have
got about four classes, both men and women,
in each tournament. I think the women's
basketball here in Iowa is a gem and I think
it is getting better all over the country. We
covered it. We cover our city teams just like
we do the football teams, both men and women.
A: We don't cover them on the road. We do
cover them at home. In fact, the fact that we
cover the wrestlers at home is another reason
we don't have enough people to cover the
basketball players on the road.
Q: How did you cover the
six-on-six girls' basketball? Are you happy
there is no six-on-six anymore? As a
reporter, you saw that.
A: Yeah, I am happy and I think the girls are
now, too. I think they are excited about
where they are. I can't say that I like the
six-on-six basketball. A lot of people did,
however. Actually, my recollection, I have
heard this debated before, the crowds were,
at the state tournament, when they had a
single team champion come out of the field,
six-on-six, the crowds were probably as big
as they are now at the girls' state
tournaments. Now there are fewer people
involved in each specific game than there
used to be. I am glad they went to
five-on-five. I didn't dislike the
six-on-six, but it was a different game than
we were familiar with. Than what we called
basketball. And, of course, as you may
recall, it changed gradually. The college
team went to a deal where, for a while, a
couple of years, not more than that, they had
it set up that one player, they didn't
specify any specific one, but any one player
could cross the line each time. So, you could
have four offensive and four defensive
players in front of the basket on any given
play. It didn't make any difference who they
were. Just so there were no more than four.
Then, after they diddled with that for a year
or so, they went straight five-on-five.
Q: Could you talk a little bit about alcohol
as imbibed by journalists. The "watering
hole" is a pretty standard venue for
journalists. It is always the bar around the
corner. And, also, if you could talk about
alcohol among athletes. This isn't a new
phenomenon.
A: No, it isn't. I don't know that I can be
very specific. I do not use alcohol and never
have. I would say our staff now is not...most
of them will drink it, but not regularly. Not
every night and every day and so on. We had a
sports writer who was canned when they
changed management back in 1982. I don't know
how the new manager got the word or why he
got the word, but he was my assistant. He was
assistant sports editor. He had been around
for quite a long time and they fired him. His
problem was alcohol. How they knew it and
why, I don't know. Ironically, the sports
editor now, and he is a guy, I might add,
that never had any college experience of any
kind, is his brother. He will drink a glass
once in a while, but not frequently, and I
have never known him to get intoxicated.
Q: Did you see that this guy's
performance was being affected because of
alcohol?
A: Yeah. Not his performance on the job, but
the fact that he didn't want to be on the job
a good deal of the time. One thing he did. He
liked to fish and he wrote an outdoors
column. As far as he was concerned, he would
do that and that was his week's job. Week in
and week out. And drink the rest of the time.
He did a good job with the column, but we had
to have more help on the desk than that. --
Section 8:
Q: Before you became sports editor, how did
you view your boss, the sports editor?
A: The guy that hired me to the part time
job, and gave me these jobs, was the director
of the kids' summer programs and things like
that that I mentioned earlier. I never worked
for him very much because, before I really
found a good place to sit in the newsroom, he
was gone to the military. When the war was
over, he came back as an officer and he got a
job up in Wisconsin some place. The next, as
far as I can recall, and the last time I ever
saw him was in the casket. Not too many years
later than that. I was a pallbearer. But the
two sports editors I had after that, I got
along with just fine. I liked them both. They
were both competent, good men and I enjoyed
their company. The one we had when I thought
I was going to be a sports writer [sic], and
they made me high school sports editor, and
gave him the job, he was from someplace else.
He wasn't even from Iowa. I don't know where
they found him. I can't say that I had any
problems with him. He was not a bad guy. He
was not real light and fluffy. He couldn't
picture us having fun doing the job. He
didn't last long and I don't know why he
left. But, when he did, that is what made me
sports editor.
Q: Did you implement any changes when you
became sports editor? Did you do anything
differently?
A: No, I didn't essentially. And I tried my
darndest to stick with it and I don't know
whether I am right yet or not, but I do know
they have changed. But they all thought I was
wrong at the time and still I didn't change.
But, of course, one of my jobs as sports
editor was to make assignments and I assigned
people to do something different every
weekend. And what I am speaking primarily
about is football season. We had, I suppose,
four people at that time which is one more
than we needed because we had three college
games. But I rotated it so that everybody got
a chance to see all three of the college
teams. Most people got a chance to see each
one of them three or four times a year. I
thought that was a good idea and I still do.
But the new boss thinks we ought to assign
one person and tell them they are working
with them. You cover their football in the
summer, basketball in the winter, baseball in
the spring, whatever. You do it and that is
it. Well, they are going to probably know the
last word on each one of these teams, which
maybe we didn't know. But, on the other hand,
they won't get to know all the other teams
like we got to know them.
Q: I was wondering if, in the
world of sports, there were a lot of
controversies. Like behind the scenes kind of
stuff. That you got to see or like uncovered
for whatever reason or you got to cover.
A: Controversy, you mean?
Q: I am just thinking in terms of
sports like coaching and coaches.
Q: Scandals.
Q: Yeah. Personal scandals. Things
like that. I just think that athletes aren't
often really too nice and...
A: I don't know if I can answer that
question. What you say undoubtedly happened
and sometime, somewhere along the line, we
probably knew it. But I don't think we
regularly...I will put it this way, I don't
think we regularly broke the scandal. If the
thing broke from the university, then, of
course, we wrote the story. But I don't think
we regularly would go out looking for a
scandal.
Q: Do you remember stories that
you didn't print after hearing about them?
A: Not offhand. I wouldn't say that we didn't
have any. I just, offhand, can't think of
what might have been. Of course, you know,
UNI is hiring a new basketball coach right
now. Maybe hired him today. Probably did, if
the news stories are correct. You may know
more about this than I because I haven't seen
the evening news or anything. But, the man
who covers UNI sports, like I say, now we
have got one that covers UNI, one that covers
Iowa, I don't buy that but that is the way it
is, but he is a good man. He covers them
fairly well. And he has done a good reporting
job on each of these candidates that came in
to be examined. He didn't get to go to the
meeting, apparently, so anything he hears
beyond that is just hearsay. He doesn't write
hearsay. If he wrote a story today saying
that Joe Blow was hired as coach and it
hasn't been announced as coach and then two
or three days later, it comes out that Joe
Blow was hired as coach, I suppose, more
power to him. But if it turns out somebody
else was hired, then that is not so good.
