AP Reporter Jim Davenport dies
I saw this news first in an article on The State newspaper, which burns a bit.
Jim Davenport was always smiling. Except when he was on a story, and he was dogged and serious beyond belief.
I once had an editor tell me I was an iconoclast. I had to look it up. It's someone who shatters deeply held beliefs. But that was Jim, actually.
Journalists have a saying. "If you're Grandma says she loves you, check it out."
That was Jim. He would work a story to the bone, and if it was true, overwhelm you with the facts. If it wasn't, once he knew for sure it wasn't, he would happily move on to the next, none the wiser probably that they had Jim Davenport on their heels.
So why does it burn to read it from The State? Two reasons.
First, there is a widely held misconception that Gina Smith of The State is the reporter who took former S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford out over his scandalous trip to Venezuela on Father's Day weekend to see his paramour.
Gina Smith is a decent reporter. She was the one at the airport when Sanford got off the plane. But she doesn't flip a coin with a fellow reporter to see who got to drive down to Atlanta to meet that plane if not for Jim Davenport's initial reporting on this story. Jim broke it wide open. He got the first tip about Sanford being missing in action a few years back. He broke open his list of phone numbers and got cranking. In his list was a direct line to the island home of the first family, and he talked to former First Lady Jenny Sanford, who told him she had no idea where her husband was. The direct quotes he got and used were tantalizing enough that it put other reporters on the trail.
Jim Davenport, before and after, owned that story because he got the scoop. He later built a ton of additional scoops on top of it, about Sanford's use of state planes and private planes to travel. In the end,
It's not a knock on Gina Smith. Just the fundamental way I understand scoops and building stories.
Gov. Mark Sanford had to pay what still remains the biggest ethics fine in state history, and that started because Jim Davenport asked questions.
That's all he did, really. Ask questions. If the answers were -- if the truh was -- that Mark Sanford had used those planes and traveled completely in accord with state policy and law, there's no story. But Sanford did otherwise, and Jim's questions led to the truth being revealed. Again.
The second reason it burns, a little like indigestion, is that a prior story run in the The State about Jim Davenport receiving the Order of the Palmetto for his work, written by The State, showed them taking a little pride in Jim's award. Jim used to work for The State, you see.
He started out as a business reporter, but moved over into government coverage. He has made his mark, at the AP, as a government reporter. Why not at The State?
Many years back, as some friends and I gathered, with Jim, to have a night of poker and steaks in remembrance of another mutual friend who had passed on, Jim told me why he had left the state.
I only have his version, but I tend to believe it, having run into, on other occasions, some of the others involved. Let's just say his editor wouldn't let Jim be Jim and ask questions about a political ad being run by former Gov. Jim Hodges. Jim wanted to "truth squad" the ad.
It might not have led to a different result in the election. But the voters would have been better served had the questionable ad been vetted.
Jim was out the door pretty soon afterward, because his bosses didn't back him up. 13 years at the Associated Press have proved The State made a pretty stupid decision.
Jim didn't want to vet the ad because he was a Republican trying to slam a Democrat. There are plenty of Republicans, Sanford included, who would say they are sure Jim was a Democrat because of the way he went after them. But he was never going after them. He was going after the truth. He didn't take sides, ever. He just asked questions, and he sent an example for most reporters in this state that they sadly do not come close to living up to.
That example, through countless stories, was something Jim gave me time and time again.
I can only say I did one thing for Jim. Well, other than helping him proof some pages and copy editing one very poorly written story for Portfolio Magazine at the University of South Carolina, back in the day.
The official story from the AP says that Jim Davenport organized the "first" audit of public officials' compliance with the Freedom of Information Act. That is true, but leaves out important information. Jim Davenport organized ALL the audits of the public officials' compliance with the FOIA. When I was editor at The People-Sentinel in Barnwell, I got a call from Jim Davenport or from Bill Rogers, executive director of the S.C. Press Association, asking if we would be willing to cooperate in a project.
Essentially, our reporters would go to communities that we never covered and would ask for records at police, sheriff's departments, county, city and school government offices. We would ask for records we know would have to be turned over immediately, and see what happened.
Reporters from other communities would come to Barnwell and Allendale counties and do the same. Because while the FOIA exists for the public at large, it is used primarily by media outlets and reporters tend to get treated more favorably than the public at large. That's what we learned.
That was back in the '90s.
In the 2000s, Jim decided we ought to do it again.
They did all the counties in the state except one, because something happened to a person. Because Rogers knew I had worked in Chesterfield County from 1994 to 1997, he knew I would know where to go to get some information. So I drove over to Chesterfield, went to the courthouse, the Sheriff's Office and asked for some routine police reports that would have to be turned over. I did not get them.
It gave Jim and crew another piece of data for the second audit of public officials compliance with the law.
Jim believed in freedom of information, and he didn't just complain about being personally stonewalled at time, which is what most newspapers and most reporters do. He did something about it. He got hundreds of people involved asking questions and proved that the FOIA is not quite followed as it ought to be.
A publisher boss of mine once told me while we preparing some background information on a local humanitarian type fellow who was dying that it issad we always wait for their deaths to run those stories.
"They should smell the roses," he said.
I said I don't have to wait until he died to run it. But I did have some more information to gather and that person did not get to smell the roses, unfortunately.
Jim got to smell the roses, I believe.
The one thing I did for Jim, after participating in that FOIA audit and hearing a couple of names of people that were going to be recognized by the S.C. Press Association, was mention to Bill Rogers that we should do something to recognize Jim Davenport. I didn't know what, but I made my feelings known.
I later heard from someone, somewhere, the SCPA had indeed given a special award to Jim Davenport.
Jim's obituary makes mention he was awarded the Order of the Palmetto. I am frankly surprised Gov. Nikki Haley went to such lengths to award it to him personally. It says she actually went to his house and visited with him for more than an hour before giving him the award. My wife thinks it went so long because Jim probably took the opportunity to grill her about something.
The Order of the Palmetto is the top award that can be given to a civilian in South Carolina for service to the state. With the short shrift given to the media these days, particularly to newspaper folk, particularly by conservatives, it is a stunning testament to his ability to do his job with excellence both in coverage and excellence in being fair.
My college experience with him was of him as the editor of Portfolio. A literary magazine with some reporting in it. His predecessor tried to make it more newsy. He continued that. His successors tried it to. So, as his obit says, he caught the news bug at USC. I can't say I was there when the greatness began. I think I was down the hall a couple of doors, however, when greatness began.
He was this goofball, with this huge smile, his eyes hidden behind the thickest Coke-bottle glasses on the planet. My picture of the man is him sitting at a dive of a rental house, under the water tower in Columbia, just off campus, staring at his poker cards, laughing as he or one of us recited a friend's mantra at the beginning of each hand.
That goofball I remember, that is the man, just a bud among drinking buddies. I can't believe he is gone.
But the byline, "By Jim Davenport, The Associated Press." I am thunderstruck that that awesome one is gone.
South Carolina is poorer for this loss.
When you seem him, Jim, say hello to Son, and I hope you have some nickels.
"Five will get you in the game."
RIP.
Monday, December 31, 2012
Sunday, December 30, 2012
The 2012 Christmas Letter
I've had a long-standing tradition of writing a year-in-review Christmas letter for my cards. Started before I met my lovely bride. Since meeting and dating her, had a lot more stuff to write about.
People on the Christmas card get first dibs, but here it is now.
Merry Christmas and a happy new year.
Friends and family,
Once more unto the breach, dear friends. Once more.
Yes ... the letter at Christmas. We are come to it again.
I’m doing better than last year, at which time I wrote the letter on Christmas Eve. Still, we are days from it.
The year in review for the Guilfoyles has some highs, some highers and a couple of not lows, but not greats.
I remain a copy editor and page designer working in Hickory, N.C., designing newspaper pages for the Florence, S.C., group of papers since October of 2010. That sets a milestone for me. Twice before I had worked in North Carolina, and the longest of those jobs lasted just seven months. The other just three. So in two prior jobs, I had not managed to work a full year in North Carolina. I’ve been at it more than two years now.
It remains a nice job, but it’s a LONG commute with terrible hours. But it keeps me in newspapers until I can figure out a better long term move.
I won three design awards in the S.C. Press Association annual contest, including a first place, so I’ve still “got it.”
Patricia is now firmly ensconced in the Diocese of Charlotte N.C. She is the editor of the Catholic News Herald. She is considered pretty valuable, though sometimes I don’t think she realizes how much. But I see the way some folks react to her and what they say to her. I don’t say it often enough, but I’m pretty proud of her. She actually, just days before, got a pretty major scoop on a story related to the HHS mandate. Her web reporter says her story became the primary source for it on the Google. Maybe on the entire Internets.
Her website is really taking off, thanks to the redesign she did, and the reporter she hired. Her other reporter twice went overseas, one time on pilgrimage and another time on an “ad limina” visit our bishop made with others to visit the pope.
One of the biggest things for both of us professionally brought something we never thought could happen -- we worked together, somewhat. She got a credential for her paper to cover the Democratic National Convention, which was held in Charlotte this year. In her preparations, she wanted someone who is, unfortunately for his eternal soul, more of a reporter than a Catholic, but Catholic nonetheless. And so I freelanced to cover the convention.
She wrote some stories as well, and we tried to get the Catholic take on issues as locked in stone as abortion and contraception but others with more common ground such as immigration and health care.
I had take time off from my regular job to do this project for her, but I loved it. I have links to all my stories on my blog (address below) but I summed the whole experience up in my essay, “How I spent my summer vacation.” I spent it working. But it was a huge event to cover, and I wrote a ton of stories in a short period of time. Spending a lot more time doing just editing and design, I sometimes wonder if I can still do the reporting that I love so much. This proved I can.
Normally I just write to comply with AP Style, but this time Patricia and the rest of her staff had some extra work making sure that what I wrote also confirmed the catechism.
I wrote a couple of other stories from some S.C. papers, took a few pictures here or there. I live tweeted and took Internet video, the most interesting an interview with a woman, a man and a polar bear. You read that right. It’s on my blog.
On the health front, I had surgery on my right eye in April and was out of work for about a month convalescing. Got to watch “The West Wing” on DVD. All of them. And I was stir crazy after a week. The right eye still has a stitch in it, but the vision is much better. That, coupled with a new special contact lens for my left eye led to my seeing a meteor, HUGE one, on my way back home in December. A Geminid meteor. Never seen one really before. It was amazing.
Now with all the career junk out of the way, we turn to the most important topic of our family life. We have to say that sometimes it seems like our days just run together and we don’t get to do much. But then we look back and realize it has been a pretty amazing year for our son, Stephen Christopher. He has been on a few adventures with Mommy, and he has embarked on new chapters.
He is now 6, if you can believe it. He got a party from his aunties and uncle in Spartanburg, then one with a few friends here.
He “graduated” from his pre-school, Field of Dreams, and started kindergarten in September.
His teacher, Mrs. Knox, remarks frequently how bright he is.
Another adventure for him was a recent trip he took with his mommy. In July, he went down to Florida to visit his cousins, Grandma and Grandpa Larson and aunt and uncle.
But a couple weeks back, he made the same trip, but this time he rode down on an Amtrak train. The hours of the train trip are not great, leaving Columbia at like 1 a.m. to arrive in Palatka, south of Grandpa’s house, around 8 a.m. And coming back, it’s leave at 10ish to arrive at 4 a.m. But it removes a lot of worry I have about them driving. It also is about the same cost as it would be paying for gasoline down and back. He enjoyed it.
Patricia is really good about framing trips like that as adventures, and he responds well to them.
She also took him to the mountains to go panning for gold and jewels. He got some really shiny ... rocks. But they are treasures to him.
As I wrote last year, he continues to amaze us, all the time. On top of everything else, he is basically a sweet, sweet kid.
Harry and Annie are doing well, though Harry continues to get a little bit more cranky, a little bit more lazy every day.
We know we haven’t been around or been in touch as much as we could. We are doing well, but our life is just non-stop hectic most days, so that when we get some free time together, we just generally want to do something quick and easy and together. But never doubt our affection.
Have a merry Christmas. (Email still the best way to reach me. I check it every day.)
We love you.
Stephen, Patricia, Stephen Christopher, Harry and Annie
December 20, 2012
Monday, October 29, 2012
The FIRST Rule of Editing
In promulgating your esoteric cogitations or articulating your superficial sentimentalities and amicable, philosophical or psychological observations, beware of platitudinous ponderosity. Let your conversational communications demonstrate a clarified conciseness, a compact comprehensibleness, no coalescent conglomerations of flatulent garrulity, jejune bafflement and asinine affectations. Let your extemporaneous verbal evaporations and expatriations have lucidity, intelligibility and veracious vivacity without rodomontade or Thespian bombast. Sedulously avoid all polysyllabic profundity, pompous propensity, psittaceous vacuity, ventriloquial verbosity and vaniloquent vapidity. Shun double-entendres, obnoxious jocosity and pestiferous profanity, observable or apparent.
In other words:
In other words:
Say what you mean and DON'T USE BIG WORDS!
This is the first-ever rule of editing I got, from my father, years ago, before I knew I would be a writer.
It actually comes from the pages of his little black book. In the days before smart phones and such, heck, before transistor radios, men had little black books. Most used them to keep phone numbers for the gals they knew.
Not my dad.
He had jokes, lots of them. An occasional photo of an Air Force bud. Things like that.
And the above rule of editing.
Throughout my career, it has been a problem with most of the writers with whom I have worked.
Shared credit
In his latest column, which is carried by the Morning News of Florence, Michael Reagan, adopted son of the former president, tries to make the point that it is President Barack Obama's self-aggrandizing style and share-no-credit attitude that has kept him from, in his words, failing to accomplish anything in his entire life, not just his first term.
He asks;
Did you hear how many times the president said “I” or “me” during the last debate? Did anyone hear a single “we”?
Yes. I heard President Obama say the word “we” in the debate. So I checked a transcript. He used the word we.
19 times, actually.
In answering the FIRST question.
Some were the “royal” we, but all Presidential candidates do that. In fact, Gov. Romney did the same thing in his response to the President. Some were the collective we. Some it could truly function as an I or an us.
But there was one definitive, non-royal use of the word We by the president in that first response.
We stand with them, he said. The Libyan people are the “them.” The We? Not him.
The American people.
It is safe to say the president believes in sharing credit.
Mr. Reagan, too, is someone who definitely believes in the concept of shared credit. He’s built a career on it. That is, on him sharing credit with his father for the things his father did and he had no part in.
Monday, October 8, 2012
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Waiting for Dabo
My work schedule is not conducive to being a Gamecock football fan. When I drove up, I lost the radio signal for the broadcast at about kickoff time, and had another 30 or so minutes to go. Couldn't watch much.
But a slight benefit is a Spartanburg station carries Clemson and it comes in the whole way, almost.
Nice on a night like tonight.
Was also listening after week one, when Will Merritt said, after beating the mighty Auburn Tigers, "I don't want to get too far ahead of myself, but we are maybe looking at a team that can go 15-0."
After week one. After Auburn.
Anyway, tonight, the game ended, and it took me like 20 minutes at least to get to the car and put it on.
And Yanity said they were waiting for Dabo.
So they chit chat, said despite the result, there were still some good things to talk about. Talk about some. Will says there so many good things, probably 50 plays to talk about. Then says, unfortunately FSU had 60 plays to brag about. Nice.
So Yanity says they are still waiting for Dabo.
Chit chat some more.
Merritt says the good things were so good that if you took away a couple of stalled drives and a couple of mistakes, Clemson "certainly" could have won this game. But, he says, unfortunately that is all "locked in time."
So, I think, Clemson would have won if they had only had a time machine. Poor Clemson.
Yanity says again that they are waiting for Dabo.
There is so much to report on what they said, but, unlike Godot, Dabo finally shows.
Don't know if this was during the interview or not, but another GREAT point they made was that, let's not forget FSU is a great team. They have threats at every position. Just like Clemson, they have awesome threats at EVERY position.
Will and Pete say hat Clemson actually got a taste of what they have been handing out (against Furman, Ball State and suck-ass Auburn) to others. And I think about that for a second and realize what they are REALLY saying. They are saying it is almost like Clemson played itself. And what a shame the other Clemson was SO good that it beat the real Clemson.
It is worth the listen. I recommend buying one, if you have the means. so choice.
So Dabo is devastated, and says he has told the team the "season starts next week." Can they win the ACC only playing seven games?
A big key is to put the loss behind them and "not let the loss beat you twice."
Dabo leaves, they pivot to player interviews and Tajh and the senior lineman they interviewed both talk, one at length, about not letting the loss beat you twice.
So guys. ...
If Clemson loses again, I'm waiting for Dabo.
But a slight benefit is a Spartanburg station carries Clemson and it comes in the whole way, almost.
Nice on a night like tonight.
Was also listening after week one, when Will Merritt said, after beating the mighty Auburn Tigers, "I don't want to get too far ahead of myself, but we are maybe looking at a team that can go 15-0."
After week one. After Auburn.
Anyway, tonight, the game ended, and it took me like 20 minutes at least to get to the car and put it on.
And Yanity said they were waiting for Dabo.
So they chit chat, said despite the result, there were still some good things to talk about. Talk about some. Will says there so many good things, probably 50 plays to talk about. Then says, unfortunately FSU had 60 plays to brag about. Nice.
So Yanity says they are still waiting for Dabo.
Chit chat some more.
Merritt says the good things were so good that if you took away a couple of stalled drives and a couple of mistakes, Clemson "certainly" could have won this game. But, he says, unfortunately that is all "locked in time."
So, I think, Clemson would have won if they had only had a time machine. Poor Clemson.
Yanity says again that they are waiting for Dabo.
There is so much to report on what they said, but, unlike Godot, Dabo finally shows.
Don't know if this was during the interview or not, but another GREAT point they made was that, let's not forget FSU is a great team. They have threats at every position. Just like Clemson, they have awesome threats at EVERY position.
Will and Pete say hat Clemson actually got a taste of what they have been handing out (against Furman, Ball State and suck-ass Auburn) to others. And I think about that for a second and realize what they are REALLY saying. They are saying it is almost like Clemson played itself. And what a shame the other Clemson was SO good that it beat the real Clemson.
It is worth the listen. I recommend buying one, if you have the means. so choice.
So Dabo is devastated, and says he has told the team the "season starts next week." Can they win the ACC only playing seven games?
A big key is to put the loss behind them and "not let the loss beat you twice."
Dabo leaves, they pivot to player interviews and Tajh and the senior lineman they interviewed both talk, one at length, about not letting the loss beat you twice.
So guys. ...
If Clemson loses again, I'm waiting for Dabo.
Thursday, September 13, 2012
DNC: IL delegate enjoys experience
http://www.carolinagatewayonline.com/content/il-delegate-enjoys-experience
This one might be the last I put up, but I might get just one more, if I can get through.
This one might be the last I put up, but I might get just one more, if I can get through.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
USC Sports: Calling out Coach Spurrier
I'm going to start this by saying that I believe, unequivocally, that Steve Spurrier is the best thing to happen to USC football since Joe Morrison laconically stalked the sidelines of Williams-Brice Stadium.
He has, to use a cliche, forgotten more about good football than I will even learn, and he has reshaped USC football into something that is feared by opposing teams at present, and perhaps will be feared for years to come. All things to be desiered, and he has delivered beyond the epectations of many.
But he said something that I cannot, in good conscience, let lie unchallenged.
A lot of fans bailed on the Gamecocks when they were up 21-0 at the half against East Carolina on Saturday.
He thought the fans should have stayed to the end, because there was a lot of football yet to be played.
I am generally one to stay to the last tick of the clock, and being a Gamecock, it has usually been a very bitter tick of the clock. I would tend to agree, though I have no idea how hot it was in Williams-Brice, nor if there was indeed a shortage of bottled water by the half.
But the way Spurrier said it bears challenging. He said he hoped Gamecock fans were not going to "return" to being one of those fan bases that shows up for a half and no matter what, heads off to party sometime around the beginning of the second half.
My USC experience began in 1984. I went with fellow students to the very first game of that storied year of Black Magic. So I was in the game when, USC trailing, told a friend, we need a "trick play, perhaps a halfback option pass," to get a quick score.
On the very next play, we had a trick play. A halfback option pass. For a quick score. We went up and went on to beat the Citadel. But that was in the fourth quarter of a packed Williams-Brice.
I didn't know much about football at the time, and to be honest, I was just trying to sound more informed than I was. I admit it was a lucky guess. But there was a lot of luck involved with USC that year.
In 1986, I remember sitting there, watching as time was almost near off the clock, in a game against Georgia, in which Coach Morrison was disputing a call that pretty much gave the game to the Bulldogs. It was odd, just standing there, for a LONG time, with an almost packed house, waiting for a reversal that never came. Coach Morrison kept the players on the field when Georgia guys were headed to the locker room.
I was there on a different night, in 1987, when we beat Clemson 20-7, the crowd just hazing Clemson QB Rodney Williams without mercy. I was doing that myself. Packed house. All night.
I was there under very different circumstances. In 1988, USC played Florida State, and the Seminoles must have been pissed about something. They shut us down completely on offense and roared over us on their offense. I think the final score was 59-0.
That was the first time I saw something: Fans leaving early. The performance on the field was pitiful, and I couldn't blame those who left, but I also couldn't join them.
We knew what ws going to happen and we had a little fun chanting, Jimmy Crack Corn.
"Jimmy Crack Corn, and I don't care, Jimmy Crack Corn, and I don't care, Jimmy Crack Corn, and I don't care .... We ain't gonna score tonight."
FSU was a perennial national powerhouse and we were breaking in a new quarterback. We weren't taunting our players, though they might have thought so. Just a grim acknowledgement that we weren't where we wanted to be.
But it was a first time. And it was a first of a few rare times. USC fans had a reputation for being among the best in the nation. Students caused the upper deck on the east side of the stadium to sway, and it became a catch phrase, instituted by our head coach. "If it ain't swaying, we ain't playing."
While Spurrier and Morrison have to my mind been the best things to happen to USC football since I have been a fan, the absolute worst thing, in the entire history of the program, was Brad Scott's tenure. It came to a head with me when I attended a game in 1998 where Mississippi State beat us 33-0 or 39-0.
And that's the second time I really saw it. USC fans left en masse, starting in the middle of the third quarter.
I was sitting in the new South Upper stands. I had binoculars and I trained them on the sidelines. The players were laughing it up, having a grand old time. They did not care. In that instance, I almost bolted myself. If the players don't care, why should I?
But I had my own reasons for caring. I was a graduate of USC and loved the Gamecocks.
I thought then that Brad Scott had to go. Depsite winning our first bowl under him, I never much cared for him.
That was the second time in following the Gamecocks in 14 years where I had seen a mass exodus of fans, early. While I agreed not with those who did it, both times, I could understand.
Lou Holtz was hired and gave us some initial success. He was then followed by Coach Spurrier, who turned us around. I pray that, whenever he leaves, the success he has brought has been institutionalized.
Both Spurrier, to some small extent, and Holtz, to a much greater extent, thought they had to teach the fans how oto be fans. While I think they were right to beat out and kill any "traditions' inside the locker room that might have cost us over the years, USC is a program rich in tradition and history.
The only thing it has lacked over the years has been winning, which can be laid at the foot of the many, many coaches we have had over the years. When we had a small moment of success, it was not sustained.
Through it all, we have had an extremely loyal fan base who have been with the team through thick and a lot of thin over the years, almost always, to the very bitter end. Only in extreme provocation have fans bailed out early on the team. That is NOT something in our history. Not never, but not often. Just once or twice. I believe fans bailed on the Gamecocks when Clemson beat us 63-17. We honestly weren't trying for some reason, that year under Coach Holtz.
The one thing USC has been known for, forever, Coach Spurrier, is a fanatical and absolutely loyal fan base. On occasion, we have bailed on our team. But it has been so rare an occurence to my mind that it just isn't in us.
I don't know why the fans bailed Saturday. I wouldn't have, had I been there.
But don't sell us short. It's not in our nature.
Lastly, I haven't been to many home games in a while. Tickets are too expensive for my family's tight budget. But I have heard some reports of fans leaving early since a certain fellow from Tennessee took over. Not a lot of fans. But a noticeable amount of fans.
Some of the fans have been eager for success so we can be like all those other big time programs.
But real USC fans are like the ones who were there for you when you beat No. 1 Alabama. They were there from the opening kickoff to the happy end. They were loud and raucous and helped the team be at the Crimson Tide.
Those are the same fans who were there in a raucous game against Alabama when Coach Holtz stalked the sidelines. I was in the west upper for that game, and I could swear the stands were swaying, just a little. The score kept trading back and forth, but QB Phil Petty prevailed. Being up there for THAT Alabama game made me recall all the games I went to as a student at USC, when the upper deck swayed to the beat of "Louie, Louie."
Saturday, coach, was not the true USC fan base.
I appreciate your time, hope you reach the 200-win mark on Saturday and add at least 11 more this season, if not more. But whatever mark you and the Gamecocks reach, I am proud of you all.
He has, to use a cliche, forgotten more about good football than I will even learn, and he has reshaped USC football into something that is feared by opposing teams at present, and perhaps will be feared for years to come. All things to be desiered, and he has delivered beyond the epectations of many.
But he said something that I cannot, in good conscience, let lie unchallenged.
A lot of fans bailed on the Gamecocks when they were up 21-0 at the half against East Carolina on Saturday.
He thought the fans should have stayed to the end, because there was a lot of football yet to be played.
I am generally one to stay to the last tick of the clock, and being a Gamecock, it has usually been a very bitter tick of the clock. I would tend to agree, though I have no idea how hot it was in Williams-Brice, nor if there was indeed a shortage of bottled water by the half.
But the way Spurrier said it bears challenging. He said he hoped Gamecock fans were not going to "return" to being one of those fan bases that shows up for a half and no matter what, heads off to party sometime around the beginning of the second half.
My USC experience began in 1984. I went with fellow students to the very first game of that storied year of Black Magic. So I was in the game when, USC trailing, told a friend, we need a "trick play, perhaps a halfback option pass," to get a quick score.
On the very next play, we had a trick play. A halfback option pass. For a quick score. We went up and went on to beat the Citadel. But that was in the fourth quarter of a packed Williams-Brice.
I didn't know much about football at the time, and to be honest, I was just trying to sound more informed than I was. I admit it was a lucky guess. But there was a lot of luck involved with USC that year.
In 1986, I remember sitting there, watching as time was almost near off the clock, in a game against Georgia, in which Coach Morrison was disputing a call that pretty much gave the game to the Bulldogs. It was odd, just standing there, for a LONG time, with an almost packed house, waiting for a reversal that never came. Coach Morrison kept the players on the field when Georgia guys were headed to the locker room.
I was there on a different night, in 1987, when we beat Clemson 20-7, the crowd just hazing Clemson QB Rodney Williams without mercy. I was doing that myself. Packed house. All night.
I was there under very different circumstances. In 1988, USC played Florida State, and the Seminoles must have been pissed about something. They shut us down completely on offense and roared over us on their offense. I think the final score was 59-0.
That was the first time I saw something: Fans leaving early. The performance on the field was pitiful, and I couldn't blame those who left, but I also couldn't join them.
We knew what ws going to happen and we had a little fun chanting, Jimmy Crack Corn.
"Jimmy Crack Corn, and I don't care, Jimmy Crack Corn, and I don't care, Jimmy Crack Corn, and I don't care .... We ain't gonna score tonight."
FSU was a perennial national powerhouse and we were breaking in a new quarterback. We weren't taunting our players, though they might have thought so. Just a grim acknowledgement that we weren't where we wanted to be.
But it was a first time. And it was a first of a few rare times. USC fans had a reputation for being among the best in the nation. Students caused the upper deck on the east side of the stadium to sway, and it became a catch phrase, instituted by our head coach. "If it ain't swaying, we ain't playing."
While Spurrier and Morrison have to my mind been the best things to happen to USC football since I have been a fan, the absolute worst thing, in the entire history of the program, was Brad Scott's tenure. It came to a head with me when I attended a game in 1998 where Mississippi State beat us 33-0 or 39-0.
And that's the second time I really saw it. USC fans left en masse, starting in the middle of the third quarter.
I was sitting in the new South Upper stands. I had binoculars and I trained them on the sidelines. The players were laughing it up, having a grand old time. They did not care. In that instance, I almost bolted myself. If the players don't care, why should I?
But I had my own reasons for caring. I was a graduate of USC and loved the Gamecocks.
I thought then that Brad Scott had to go. Depsite winning our first bowl under him, I never much cared for him.
That was the second time in following the Gamecocks in 14 years where I had seen a mass exodus of fans, early. While I agreed not with those who did it, both times, I could understand.
Lou Holtz was hired and gave us some initial success. He was then followed by Coach Spurrier, who turned us around. I pray that, whenever he leaves, the success he has brought has been institutionalized.
Both Spurrier, to some small extent, and Holtz, to a much greater extent, thought they had to teach the fans how oto be fans. While I think they were right to beat out and kill any "traditions' inside the locker room that might have cost us over the years, USC is a program rich in tradition and history.
The only thing it has lacked over the years has been winning, which can be laid at the foot of the many, many coaches we have had over the years. When we had a small moment of success, it was not sustained.
Through it all, we have had an extremely loyal fan base who have been with the team through thick and a lot of thin over the years, almost always, to the very bitter end. Only in extreme provocation have fans bailed out early on the team. That is NOT something in our history. Not never, but not often. Just once or twice. I believe fans bailed on the Gamecocks when Clemson beat us 63-17. We honestly weren't trying for some reason, that year under Coach Holtz.
The one thing USC has been known for, forever, Coach Spurrier, is a fanatical and absolutely loyal fan base. On occasion, we have bailed on our team. But it has been so rare an occurence to my mind that it just isn't in us.
I don't know why the fans bailed Saturday. I wouldn't have, had I been there.
But don't sell us short. It's not in our nature.
Lastly, I haven't been to many home games in a while. Tickets are too expensive for my family's tight budget. But I have heard some reports of fans leaving early since a certain fellow from Tennessee took over. Not a lot of fans. But a noticeable amount of fans.
Some of the fans have been eager for success so we can be like all those other big time programs.
But real USC fans are like the ones who were there for you when you beat No. 1 Alabama. They were there from the opening kickoff to the happy end. They were loud and raucous and helped the team be at the Crimson Tide.
Those are the same fans who were there in a raucous game against Alabama when Coach Holtz stalked the sidelines. I was in the west upper for that game, and I could swear the stands were swaying, just a little. The score kept trading back and forth, but QB Phil Petty prevailed. Being up there for THAT Alabama game made me recall all the games I went to as a student at USC, when the upper deck swayed to the beat of "Louie, Louie."
Saturday, coach, was not the true USC fan base.
I appreciate your time, hope you reach the 200-win mark on Saturday and add at least 11 more this season, if not more. But whatever mark you and the Gamecocks reach, I am proud of you all.
Monday, September 10, 2012
A bunch of overachievers: More reflections on 1984 (and 1969)
Starting offensive linemen for the 1984 Black Magic squad -- a bunch of overachievers.
The Chief raised his arms to a sparse pregame crowd, ran away from the circle of his fellow teammates, and shouted.
Wildly pumping his left arm, punching it twice as if he was celebrating another many bone-crushing tackle, he yelled to the crowd, “Get UP.” Some did.
But it’s a new Carolina, one different from the days when a wild man, a butt-kicker named Kevin “The Chief” Hendrix prowled the field at Williams-Brice Stadium and made opposing offenses pay.
He was in black, wearing his old No. 98. Even though the hair was gray, he’s a still a giant. How much bigger would he be if he suited up in full pads and helmet?
He was one of about 40 members of the 1984 Black Magic squad, the team with the best-ever record in USC history, to take the field before kickoff on the 25th anniversary of the epochal season.
His on the field antics Saturday night begged the question: Is the defensive end with a reputation for hitting hard might still a wild man?
“No,” he said. “I’ve got a ballcap that says, ‘Ex Wildman,’ on it.”
But he obviously thought somebody needed to be shown a thing or two.
He wasn’t the only one.
 |
| Members of the 1969 championship Gamecocks, including quarterback Tommy Suggs (12) and Tommy Simmons (34). |
Tommy Simmons stood on the sidelines in a plain garnet jersey, with only No. 34 written on it. He was watching Spencer Lanning, bedecked in all-garnet uniform, with a fancy, striped jersey that said “Carolina” on the front, “Lanning” on the back, also wearing No. 34
Lanning was practicing punts.
“Don’t be giving this number a bad name,” he shouted.
Simmons, of Buffalo, S.C., was a fullback on the 1969 Gamecock squad. The team went 7-4 that year, but was a perfect 6-0 in the Atlantic Coast Conference. It remains to this day the only conference title in the football team’s history.
Not quite the wildman that Hendrix was, Simmons went and stood by the kid who now bore his number, smiling widely.
There have been many changes at Williams-Brice Stadium since Simmons was in the backfield.
Two upper decks have been added to the east and west stands. There are significant changes even since when Hendrix played. The South “Zone” has been added, upping the capacity. But the pregame crowd in the stands was probably the smallest crowd he’d ever seen at Williams-Brice.
It was probably the biggest crowd the 1969 crowd ever saw in the stadium too.
They were supposed to move to their seats after the ceremony, but most stayed around. The 1984 guys wanted to see it again. The 1969 guys prepared to see, and hear, something they never had back then.
2001.
Ken Wheat stood by old friend Dickie Harris, still in the USC record books as one of the most prolific return men to field a punt or a kickoff.
The listened, looked up, and at the appropriate place, threw their arms up.
“Unbelievable,” said Harris. “If you can’t get fired up by that, than nothing will. It’s something to behold.”
 |
| Former USC defensive back Dickie Harris listens as 2001 is played over the Williams-Brice Stadium loudspeakers and phones it on his cell to family. He is still a record-holder for returns at USC. |
The guy who brought 2001 to the USC loudspeakers and made it the most exciting 2:31 minutes of “awesome,” n college football, the 1984 head coach, Joe Morrison, wasn’t there.
He died in 1989 of a heart attack. But he was represented.
His daughter Lisa was among those joining the players. She was flocked by the 1984 offensive line on the field.
“Your Dad loved us best,” one said.
They still have camaraderie, as if they see each other and drill each week.
“You’re always freaking late,” one said to another as they lined up for a picture at Gate 12 before taking the field.
USC shifted the guards and tackles a bit back when coach Frank Sadler was running the veer here.
“Is it a left formation or a right formation?” one asked.
“It’s a wide formation,” another joked.
Del Wilkes (62), Bill Barnhill (67), Jim Walsh (77), Carl Womble (57) and Tommy Garner (55) surrounded Lisa as if she was a quarterback calling a play.
Walsh, now a football coach in Hinesville, Ga. says he wouldn’t trade his experience at USC for anything.
“This was a great place to play football,” he said.
There were no stars on the 1984 he said.
“Just a bunch of over-achievers,” he said. They tend to avoid taking much individual credit. They played like a team throughout the year.
Actually, just a few days earlier, one of the quarterbacks he and his linemates had protected, gave guys like him credit for the season.
Most of them were seniors, and they gave leadership to the team, former USC quarterback Mike Hold said.
Walsh got to see some great things. His career ended with 1984, but he played under not just Morrison, but Coach Jim Carlen. He got to help George Rogers win the Heisman Trophy in 1980.
“It was a great time, a great period,” he said.
When asked for his personal best achievement in 1984, he couldn’t even do that.
He laid a trap block, but it was part of a double team effort to contain Clemson’s star defensive end, William “The Fridge” Perry. The effort helped the Gamecocks cut Clemson’s lead and eventually win the season ender to go 10-1 in the regular season.
 |
| Frank Sadler, the wizard of the veer, offensive coordinator in 1984. |
They players were special, said Frank Sadler, the offensive coordinator in 1984. He’s still known as the wizard of the veer. He had a visit from Georgia Tech Head Coach Paul Johnson at Sadler’s Troy, Ala., home, where they shared offensive philosophy.
Johnson is running it more as a three-back set, “where we ran a two-back set,” but it’s that same veer.
“We lost just that one game,” Sadler said. “I wish we hadn’t, because we would have played for the national championship. But sometimes, it isn’t in the cards.”
The players said they appreciated the ceremony and the efforts of the Athletics Department to remember the teams.
One of the reasons the university hasn’t excelled over the years, they said, was the lack of tradition.
Even they mistake USC’s history on the field. There isn’t much history of winning, but there is also not a complete lack of such traditions.
Ira Hillary, who wore the No. 1 jersey for USC for years, a star receiver for both USC and later in the pros for the Cincinnati Bengals, who has a nephew on the USC squad right now, said USC honored the 1984 squad five years ago, and that was special. But this was different. This was better.
This time, they brought both winning teams together at the same time. Putting both squads on the field at the same time was significant.
“It was great to see those champions,” Hillary said.
 |
| In the center, in garnet sport coat, Paul Dietzel, head coach of the 1969 ACC champion Gamecock squad. |
Almost a hundred men who wore the garnet and black took the field together, the only ones in the football programs who can make a claim. They were the first. They did something special, something no one else had ever done before.
The ones in garnet won a conference title.
They got ACC championship rings as well as a Peach Bowl ring, though few wore them Saturday.
“Most of us have a hard time getting into the rings any more, “ said Dave Lucas, a defensive end on the ’69 squad. “The jerseys too.”
The ones in black won the most games ever won by Gamecocks. They were the best winners ever on field.
There’s not much tradition at USC — no one can deny that. But a lack of tradition?
These guys prove it. This program has its history. More than one group has done things no one else had done.
The problem is, no one has done it
since.
Sunday, September 9, 2012
RIP Allen Mitchell (Blast from the past: Another wasted opportunity)
Allen Mitchell in 2009 with one of his sons at a reunion for the 1984 and the 1969 Gamecocks.
According to media reports, Mitchell is dead, having committed suicide. I don't know what his pain was, but looking at that young child's face, it is almost unbearably sad news.
I wrote the below column at the time of the reunion, having met many of the players for both teams.
USC: Another wasted opportunity
I keep putting 1984 first in my
discussions of this event Saturday because it was not only my first year at
USC, but also, honestly, my first year as a college football fan. My
expectations for USC were set that year. So I've had a mostly disappointing quarter
of a century (did I really write that?) as a college football fan.
We all want this program to
succeed, some of us desperately.
We've had such heartbreak the
past few years that we forget, while we've stumbled often, more often than not,
this program has had a slightly better than winning record.
We were reminded on Saturday that
living breathing young men once won a conference title for this school. There
was an article that indicated we won another title, but it was vacated.
We've had conference football
success. Not a lot. Just a tiny bit.
But not nothing.
In 1984, we went 10-2. We rose to
the No. 2 ranking in the nation. We set the college football world on fire for
most of the regular season.
So do you think the hundred or so
guys who took the field in the pregame might have actually had a little wisdom
to impart to our current team? Maybe just a touch?
I spent more time talking to the
guys in black from the Black Magic year.
They were selfless, they said.
They had no real superstars, not even any stars. They just worked. Together.
They had senior leadership that
had been there. Some of those linemen had blocked for a guy who won a Heisman
trophy.
I'm not talking about exchanging
schemes, not Xs and Os.
They played with desire. With
heart. They cared almost more for the excitement of the game than for the win.
As a result, they got the W all but two times.
They did their jobs and they
stuck together.
So I asked. And asked. And asked,
and kept getting the same disappointing answer.
Did they let you speak to the
team at any point?
No. Not once.
These guys were treated like
boosters or recruits in the access they got to practice and pregame and
sideline. But a few of them said they were owed something different. Better
treatment over the years, perhaps. I happen to agree.
See, these guys had to pay for
their own tickets to the game, past the two they were allotted. They had to pay
$25 bucks a pop to go to the barbecue dinner on Friday night in the zone.
Our Athletics Department never,
ever learns.
There is a perception that
there's no tradition, no history at USC in football, Because of it, we continue
to distance ourselves and alienate the living breathing tradition that we
actually have.
In basketball, it is acknowledged
that we had a pretty good run under an Irishman named Frank McGuire, but we
have distanced ourselves from that program as well, with a couple of
irreparable tears.
I say this because I love my alma
mater. College was a precious experience. I made friends while we watched and
tailgated before game after game under Joe Morrison. Some friends I've kept for
a lifetime. I also got an education on the side, though it came as much at The
Gamecock newspaper, as in the classroom.
For the whole time I've been
associated with this program, the Athletics Department has done OK raising
money to build facilities. It has been up and down in hiring coaches.
But it's been dismal and almost
destructive in preserving the integrity of the history that this program has to
offer. It raises money, but it razes spirit.
There's nobody up at the Sports
Information Office, now that Tom Price has died, who knows the history well
enough to respect the history. Nobody. I don't know who could do the job. But
we need someone there who, if they can’t master Gamecock sports history, can at
least protect the legacy of what we have really done.
Some might laugh and think,
"Is he serious? Isn't the Athletics Department USC sports?"
No. They've gotten too big for
their britches down there in the Rex Enright Building. So big I wonder if they
know anything about the guy for whom the building is named.
This program can be big. It has
been big. The 100 or so guys in garnet and black, though aged, a few of them
stumbling slowly on crutches to the Block C at midfield are the biggest thing
to ever happen to USC.
Yeah, we fed them Friday, let
them see a practice. Showed them around. Put them out at midfield before the
game when "no one would see them," more than one former player said
to me.
It's amazing how USC can
ostensibly honor, yet shush them aside at the same time.
And I'm not talking a
metaphorical shushing. Once the ceremony at midfield was over, more than one
guy tried to “direct” them to the seats provided for them.
The 1984 guys, as shown by Kevin
"The Chief" Hendrix, still have the fire. They deserved to hear 200I
from the field one more time.
The 1969 guys had never heard it
before, and they wanted to.
"Awesome," said USC
record holding return man Dickie Harris after it was over. "Unbelievable.
If that doesn't get you fired up, nothing can."
It's awesome because it's loud,
but it's awesome because it's a quarter of a century of a tradition. To the
outside world, that entrance and the rocking, bopping upper decks are the
biggest things about USC football.
But not to me.
Those guys in garnet and black,
they're as big as it gets in USC. They are awesome. They are unbelievable. If
you walking among them and talking to them doesn’t get you fired up, nothing
can.
They had something to tell our
current players. They could teach teamwork, leadership, perseverance and drive.
A million tiny things.
Unfortunately, no one bothered to
ask them.
How I got ready for my summer vacation
@FakeDNC2012, #FakeDNC2012
That was me.
I wanted to practice live tweeting, getting bunches of things into my head and onto the iPad real fast.
So I created this Twitter account to have a little fun.
Some jokes were pretty good, but it didn't gain much traction. 18 whole followers.
But 338 tweets in about a week and a half, most designed to take advantage of Joe Biden.
It was also fun.
I see ways of continuing it. But the initial inspiration for that kind of thing, a bit about Sasha or Malia not being allowed to come to the convention because she was found in the sit room, finger perched precariously, asking, "What does this red button do?" That never actually made it to the site, because FakeDNC shut almost completely down once real DNC started.
Check it out, if you want. It was fun.
How I spent my summer vacation
For the Catholic News Herald, links on here abound:
- No Papers, No Fear Story. 2 pics, Mayor Anthony Foxx
- DNC: Catholics Among Greeters, Greeted, 1 pic, Villairagrossa
- Former Rep. Stupak says HHS mandate illegal
- DNC Platform
- Catholics Front and Center:
- Polar Bear, 1 pic, 1 video (TwitPic)
- Julian Castro
- Can you be pro-life Catholic, Democrat, 2 pics, (Stupak, protestors at Convention) Center)
- Sister Simone Cheered, Twitter SIDEBAR
- Biden next to last Catholic to speak, SIDEBAR, short
- Dolan's prayers
- Dems for Life plan summit
14 stories (two are sidebars) not separate, six pics. That does not include the two preview stories I did in advance of the DNC.
Also for the Catholic News Herald of Charlotte, N.C.
Three nights, live tweets including the following TwitPics
- Fr. Schmidt picture.
- Fr. Schmidt, video
- Stupak Pic
- Nosebleeds pic.
- Nosebleeds 2 pic
- Sebelius pic
- Joaquin Castro pic
- Julian Castro talks about grandmother video
- FLOTUS pic
- FLOTUS video
- Street singers video
- Polar bear video interview video
- Short DNC entertainment video
- Clinton "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow" overheard video
Seven pics, seven videos to Twitpic
With the exception of the greeted, greeters story and most of the No papers no fear article, all of the above was done over three days. The polar bear twitpic/story kind of overlap. The picture for the story was lifted from the video. That was the most fun interview.
Also,
DNC story on Gilda Cobb-Hunter for The Times & Democrat of Orangeburg, picture of her. I also later submitted a kind of standalone picture of the Orangeburg County state Senator, John Matthews, riding on the light rail up to the convention.
Also, they used my story, quoting me and not the story, as the guts of an editorial So that's two story items (only one I can get paid for) and two pics for Orangeburg.
I wrote a feature for The Lancaster News/Carolina Gateway and sent two pictures.
The Fort Mill Times was doing a story on the same person. I sent them another pic of the same woman.
I sent a story, which the Fort Mill Times might use, to the SCNewsExchange website and put up six DNC pictures for the SCPA.
18 pictures, seven videos, 18 stories, with the exception of the two preview, over the course of three days.
In the words originated by the incredible Jack Donaghy, "I need a vacation from my vacation."
Still, a productive effort for a guy who actually didn't get around very fast.
The damage from it? Well, in the downpour that came on Thursday, I was stuck outside, ON the phone, so my cell phone got killed. And my feet still ache a bit.
Saturday, September 8, 2012
DNC: Obama accepts nomination in smaller venue
Obama accepts nomination in smaller venue
In addition to covering the convention for the Catholic News Herald, I also agreed to send a short nomination story to the S.C. Press Association, and some pics.
In addition to covering the convention for the Catholic News Herald, I also agreed to send a short nomination story to the S.C. Press Association, and some pics.
Friday, September 7, 2012
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Monday, September 3, 2012
DNC: Do more than welcome; Stand in solidarity with needy
http://www.catholicnewsherald.com/component/content/article/198-news/roknewspager-vote/2321-do-more-than-welcome-stand-in-solidarity-with-the-needy
This story is interesting. Both my wife and I share a byline on it. She did the first half, and I came back to knock the rest out of the park.
This story is interesting. Both my wife and I share a byline on it. She did the first half, and I came back to knock the rest out of the park.
Sunday, September 2, 2012
DNC: Yup, I'm going
I am on vacation, starting at just about 11 p.m. Saturday.
But it's going to be a working vacation.
My wife asked me a few months back if I would like to cover the Democratic National Convention as a freelancer for her paper, the Catholic News Herald, which covers the diocese of Charlotte, which is the western half of North Carolina.
Thinking she was pulling my leg, I said, "Sure."
She put in for credentials for me and for all her people. She got one. (It can apparently be shared, but she got ONE.)
And she's giving it to me.
This is what is referred to as a niche publication, so I'm not going to be doing straight up, gavel-to-gavel political coverage. I might get a little of that in there.
No. I'll be covering the mayor of San Antonio, a Catholic Latino. It's the first time a Latino has given the keynote speech at the DNC. DNC keynoters have gone on to become presidents. Guys by the name of William Jefferson Clinton and Barack H. Obama are the two most recent. Might be a glimpse at the future.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, my "native" diocese, where I was born and my "bread" was buttered as a "ute," will give the closing benediction, as he did this past week at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla. There are meetings in between.
It will be different than anything I've ever covered before. Certainly the biggest meeting I've ever gone to. That Barnwell County Council five-hour barn-burner will pale. This is three days of official time, five days plus of coverage.
And I'll be walking all over downtown Charlotte. I'm pitifully out of shape.
But I plan on making it through. Just don't know what shape I will be in when I'm done.
Anyway, pray for me, if that is what you do. Think good thoughts if not.
It will be fun, regardless. But I realized, talking to my brother tonight, about carrying my laptop, iPad, an Android phone for twitpics, a digital camera and a portable wireless hub, that I will be the "One-Man Mobile News Crew" that was such a famous bit on Saturday Night Live, as portrayed by Al Franken.
And I might also bump into SEN. FRANKEN!
Now, how cool is that?
Practicing my question already so I can get paid for the encounter. "Sen. Franken, I know you are Jewish. Have you ever considered Roman Catholicism? It's an up-and-comer."
Lastly, I thank my lovely bride for making this possible. I thought it was a goof, but two days out, it's very real.
Love you.
But it's going to be a working vacation.
My wife asked me a few months back if I would like to cover the Democratic National Convention as a freelancer for her paper, the Catholic News Herald, which covers the diocese of Charlotte, which is the western half of North Carolina.
Thinking she was pulling my leg, I said, "Sure."
She put in for credentials for me and for all her people. She got one. (It can apparently be shared, but she got ONE.)
And she's giving it to me.
This is what is referred to as a niche publication, so I'm not going to be doing straight up, gavel-to-gavel political coverage. I might get a little of that in there.
No. I'll be covering the mayor of San Antonio, a Catholic Latino. It's the first time a Latino has given the keynote speech at the DNC. DNC keynoters have gone on to become presidents. Guys by the name of William Jefferson Clinton and Barack H. Obama are the two most recent. Might be a glimpse at the future.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, my "native" diocese, where I was born and my "bread" was buttered as a "ute," will give the closing benediction, as he did this past week at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla. There are meetings in between.
It will be different than anything I've ever covered before. Certainly the biggest meeting I've ever gone to. That Barnwell County Council five-hour barn-burner will pale. This is three days of official time, five days plus of coverage.
And I'll be walking all over downtown Charlotte. I'm pitifully out of shape.
But I plan on making it through. Just don't know what shape I will be in when I'm done.
Anyway, pray for me, if that is what you do. Think good thoughts if not.
It will be fun, regardless. But I realized, talking to my brother tonight, about carrying my laptop, iPad, an Android phone for twitpics, a digital camera and a portable wireless hub, that I will be the "One-Man Mobile News Crew" that was such a famous bit on Saturday Night Live, as portrayed by Al Franken.
And I might also bump into SEN. FRANKEN!
Now, how cool is that?
Practicing my question already so I can get paid for the encounter. "Sen. Franken, I know you are Jewish. Have you ever considered Roman Catholicism? It's an up-and-comer."
Lastly, I thank my lovely bride for making this possible. I thought it was a goof, but two days out, it's very real.
Love you.
Friday, August 31, 2012
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Awards
Don't know why I didn't post this when it happened.
But I won some design awards in the 2012 S.C. Press Association contest.
Awards.
From the story: "Designer Stephen Guilfoyle, who designs page for both the Morning News and its affiliated weekly papers, won three awards, including first in Page One Portfolio for work on the Hartsville Messenger."
List of awards:
Page One Portfolio-Hartsville Messenger (1st),
Single Page Design-All Dailies (second),
Page One Design-Dailies 20,000- 50,000 (3rd)
The daily awards were in competition against the medium-sized dailies in South Carolina. The first place award was against two-three times a week publications.
Awards.
From the story: "Designer Stephen Guilfoyle, who designs page for both the Morning News and its affiliated weekly papers, won three awards, including first in Page One Portfolio for work on the Hartsville Messenger."
List of awards:
Page One Portfolio-Hartsville Messenger (1st),
Single Page Design-All Dailies (second),
Page One Design-Dailies 20,000- 50,000 (3rd)
The daily awards were in competition against the medium-sized dailies in South Carolina. The first place award was against two-three times a week publications.
Comeuppance?
Years ago, I wrote an editorial about a slightly veiled white supremacist being appointed to the S.C. Board of Education. It was mind boggling at the time.
The editorial is one of a package that helped me win an editorial writing award. It's the first one at this link here.
Turns out, that in addition to his charming white supremacy and lack of proper grammar in making public statements, another delightful aspect of his personality is criminality.
Ex-councilman pleads guilty in Ponzi scheme.
I'm not saying I told you so.
Writing it down instead.
The editorial is one of a package that helped me win an editorial writing award. It's the first one at this link here.
Turns out, that in addition to his charming white supremacy and lack of proper grammar in making public statements, another delightful aspect of his personality is criminality.
Ex-councilman pleads guilty in Ponzi scheme.
I'm not saying I told you so.
Writing it down instead.
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Sunday, June 17, 2012
For Father's Day: Last blast from the past
After a year, time for review
To: Stephen Christopher
From: Mom and Dad
Re: Performance to date
We’ve decided to sit down with you now, a little earlier
than normal, and review your performance.
We know your official anniversary date isn’t until tomorrow,
but your mother and I aren’t sticklers for full formality.
We’ve been for the most part pleased with your performance,
so you’ll be happy
to know we’ve decided to keep you on with the organization.
And we believe the positives outweigh the negatives, so we
believe there is room for advancement in the organization.
But we also believe in setting goals. We’ve allowed you in
this first year to kind find your way with the organization.
We were really pleased you were able to join us a year ago.
It was an intense,
nine-month negotiation before the deal was clinched, and
that last session —
what a whopper.
Started at 10:45 p.m. on a Thursday night and didn’t finish
until 6:32 p.m. the next day.
As noted, we’ve been extremely pleased since.
You’ve shown a real flair for making people smile,
particularly your grandmothers.
But I think you made your Grandpa Guilfoyle almost cry a
couple of times as well — one of those “happy cry” type things — but you need
to watch that in the future.
Your strengths? For one, you are doing very well at keeping
a schedule. Like your father, you have a real talent for sleeping. Also like
your father, you can almost walk a straight line. You like to prop yourself up
on the biplane your Grandma and Grandpa Larson bought you, but you are beginning
to move away from needing that.
You have shown a talent for sucking up in specific ways to
your Daddy.
You kissed him three times on Father’s Day, but really
haven’t that much since. You also said “Dada” first, and meant it. but you gave
it up after a couple of days.
You perk up with a smile whenever you are around your
mother, and she can make you laugh like no one else can.
That’s a more generic way of sucking up. Both your mother
and I don’t mind the sucking up.
We aren’t criticizing. We just want to make a note of it
now, so you’ll know, later on, that we were on to you from the get-go.
Yes, this memo is going in your permanent file with the
organization.
You already can throw very good. A small ball gets tossed across
the room with either arm. You roll your big ball with your mother, playing a
roll-y kind of catch which she thinks is brilliant.
Your Father wants you to be a major league pitcher sohe can
sponge off you in his
dotage. Unfortunately, his dotage is probably going to start
next week, so you might have to grow up kind of fast.
You crawl with speed. You are active and fast.
There is some room for improvement in several key areas,
however. You haven’t said “Mama” yet, and we’d really like to see some movement
in that area.
You have steadfastly refused to settle on a hair color, but
what little colorless hair you have is getting almost long enough to need a
trip to the barber shop.
You do seem to catch a lot of colds. But when you go to the
doctor’s office, you are
almost uniformly a good boy.
You do seem to fuss a lot when you have a cold and your
mother and I have to
suction your nose.
Let’s set a timetable for you to learn how to blow your own
nose, and thus we won’t have to keep doing this unpleasant task. We won’t feel
guilty making you cry, and you will get your nose cleared out that much sooner.
It will be a win-win for all involved.
We’d like to see some more movement in the teeth area as
well. A little girl born just one week before you has more than twice as many
teeth as you.
Your mother believes in this area that whatever pace you are
on is fine.
Your father is too competitive for his own good. You not
only need to catch up, you need to get ahead and stay ahead.
We’re not just talking incisors. We’d like to see some
cuspids and molars within the next year.
You haven’t noticed, but we have —you have actually stood on
your own a couple of times without holding on. but you snake your arm back to
daddy’s leg or the ottoman or the couch or whatever you are leaning on.
When you don’t think about it, you can stand.
When you think about what you are doing, you fall on your
butt. Boom.
We don’t want you to not think, but you need to not think
about this area a lot
more.
I’ve started working with you on standing a little bit.
But this is another thing where you are going to have to do
most of the work.
Once you stand on your own, you’ll quickly be walking on
your own.
Your mother wants to see this as much as possible.
Your father is afraid he definitely won’t be able to keep up
once you’re really moving along.
This review, of course, comes after the positive reviews you
got at your three-month and six-month probationary periods.
As per organization policy, at this stage, with the good
reviews, we have indeed decided to make you a permanent part of the
organization.
From now on out, there will just be annual reviews.
In other words, we guess we’re going to keep you.
For Father's Day: Another blast from the past
I wrote this for my dad's birthday in 2000.
Dad taught me to be who I am
News Editor
Stephen Guilfoyle
When he was born –
• a man named Franklin Delano Roosevelt was
not yet president.
• the greatest epoch of the 20th Century,
World War II, was nine years in the future;
• a small man full of hatred was legally
forbidden to speak in Germany, but Adolf Hitler, not yet elected to anything,
was gaining influence and backing from powerful industrialists of that country;
• there was a 40-foot deep pit on the corner
of Fifth Avenue and 32nd Street, where, 18 months later, would rise the grandest
building ever built, the Empire State Building; and
• the New York Yankees were the greatest
baseball team ever, with a lineup that included Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.
I’m a mean kid at times and sometimes I make
fun of my dad for being old.
But I look back on the world into which he
was born and I realize that he has indeed somehow, behind my back, really
gotten old.
I’ve never much written about my dad because
it’s more fun to make fun of Mom, because her sense of humor is always taxed.
I often wonder why someone like Dad, who
always jokes, ended up with Mom, who almost never does.
Dad and I go to movies. That’s what we do. We
talk football now.
I am whatever kind of man one might think I
am because of what I learn from him.
But I learn not from him telling me what he
wants to teach, but from my watching what he
does.
I picked the historical markers, because they
all have some significance to either his life or my
view of it.
Roosevelt, well, that’s my joke. “Geez, Dad,
you were born before Roosevelt was President.”
And Roosevelt was president for a long time.
The Empire State Building, well, I connect
that with Dad because he’s always seemed to
me a New Yorker. He’s settled down fine in
South Carolina these past 20 years, but it’s just not his natural place.
If someone were to put him in an alien zoo
and were to create his natural habitat, there would have to be canyons made of
concrete and glass and subways.
Hitler is not included because Dad was a
tyrant. Dad is a gentle man. But Dad took a little trip to Ireland when he was
a youth and got stuck there for years because of World War II.
He was raised over there by his aunt.
It shaped him to be a very different sort
from his brother and his sister.
I include the Yankees because, despite being
born in the Bronx, the Yankees were never his team.
But it is important to note that the greatest
team of all time was the Yankees of the ’30s.
When my father was born in 1930, those
Yankees were a segregated team, white men only need apply.
One of the most important lessons I learned
from my father, and about my father, came unspoken
but etched in deep.
My father’s favorite baseball team was dem
Bums, the Brooklyn Dodgers. His favorite player
was Jackie Robinson.
My father loved Jackie Robinson’s ability to
make a play out of nothing, score a run after getting
walked to first base.
It taught me all I ever needed to know about
race relations and how to judge people. You judge a man by his ability, not by
the color of his skin.
What a fabulous teacher he was. I gained a
core belief in justice and fair play and fundamental human equality, just because
Dad said, “Jackie Robinson was my favorite baseball player.”
So my Dad turned 70 Tuesday.
I wish there were someway to stop it, but I
can’t. Instead, I’ll remember again all that he’s taught me.
And I’ll feel humbled, because I’m not half
the man he is, but I’ll feel lucky that I know to keep trying to measure up
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Monday, April 2, 2012
Camera happy? How funny is that?
The other day I saw in a Google tag for a column by someone on one side of the gay marriage amendment, a describtion of Charlotte N.C. Bishop Peter Jugis as "camera-happy."
Sure, the column was commentary about a video the Bishop had made on the amendment in which he described the church's position on the amendment.
But "camera-happy"?
At first, I just laughed and laughed at the ignorance the description displays. Hell, I've probably been in more Internet vidoes than the Bishop. As for TV and such, he is sought ought on occasion, certainly. Don't think he goes after TV cameras.
It's hard to imagine a guy so shy rising to his position, but he did.
And I thought it was amusing, so I asked him aboubt when I saw him after Mass on Sunday. He did not seem to take it in the way I did. It's obvious he is pained by, probably not the description, but the response as a whole.
For the writer to ascribe such venality to an opponent, just because he or she can, doesn't strike me as good journalism, nor honest commentary.
Disagree with him if you must. The Bishop is going to disagree with you, forever, on this issue and a few other on which the Church simply cannot compromise. But don't hurl asinine insult.
The description isn't in the column, just the preview you get when you come upon it in a Google search. But it was put there, deliberately, by someone.
To me it proves only that the writer has not met the man. That's not opinoin, but fact.
My opinion is that it also proves the writer will go out of his or her way to avoid the man, and as such, will never have an honest debate of this or other important issues. Nope. It was a simple hurling of invectives at an opponent because he doesn't think as you think he should.
Sad, sad, sad.
Here's the bishop's video --
Can you watch that and think that this descriptor on Google,
"Charlotte's bishop takes lights, camera, action against gay marriage ...
clclt.com/.../charlottes-bishop-takes-lights-camera-action-against-gay-...
Mar 15, 2012 – Peter J. Jugis, Charlotte's camera-happy Catholic bishop, throws the church's weight behind Amendment One. ... Creative Loafing Charlotte "
is at all fair?
Even if you take out the "camera-happy," a blatant lie, it's still not an accurate description. He's not throwing any weight around. He's just explaining the Church's position.
But in the interest of fairness, here's the commentary.
http://clclt.com/theclog/archives/2012/03/15/charlottes-bishop-takes-lights-camera-action-against-gay-marriage
I could go on and on about that, also. But it's just more of such sad,poor commentary. It is rife with things such as ,aking erroneous assumptions because it vilifies a perceived opponent, saying if X must be true, than Y, similar to X, must also be true. But Y is not true.
Sad, sad, sad.
Sure, the column was commentary about a video the Bishop had made on the amendment in which he described the church's position on the amendment.
But "camera-happy"?
At first, I just laughed and laughed at the ignorance the description displays. Hell, I've probably been in more Internet vidoes than the Bishop. As for TV and such, he is sought ought on occasion, certainly. Don't think he goes after TV cameras.
It's hard to imagine a guy so shy rising to his position, but he did.
And I thought it was amusing, so I asked him aboubt when I saw him after Mass on Sunday. He did not seem to take it in the way I did. It's obvious he is pained by, probably not the description, but the response as a whole.
For the writer to ascribe such venality to an opponent, just because he or she can, doesn't strike me as good journalism, nor honest commentary.
Disagree with him if you must. The Bishop is going to disagree with you, forever, on this issue and a few other on which the Church simply cannot compromise. But don't hurl asinine insult.
The description isn't in the column, just the preview you get when you come upon it in a Google search. But it was put there, deliberately, by someone.
To me it proves only that the writer has not met the man. That's not opinoin, but fact.
My opinion is that it also proves the writer will go out of his or her way to avoid the man, and as such, will never have an honest debate of this or other important issues. Nope. It was a simple hurling of invectives at an opponent because he doesn't think as you think he should.
Sad, sad, sad.
Here's the bishop's video --
Can you watch that and think that this descriptor on Google,
"Charlotte's bishop takes lights, camera, action against gay marriage ...
clclt.com/.../charlottes-bishop-takes-lights-camera-action-against-gay-...
Mar 15, 2012 – Peter J. Jugis, Charlotte's camera-happy Catholic bishop, throws the church's weight behind Amendment One. ... Creative Loafing Charlotte "
is at all fair?
Even if you take out the "camera-happy," a blatant lie, it's still not an accurate description. He's not throwing any weight around. He's just explaining the Church's position.
But in the interest of fairness, here's the commentary.
http://clclt.com/theclog/archives/2012/03/15/charlottes-bishop-takes-lights-camera-action-against-gay-marriage
I could go on and on about that, also. But it's just more of such sad,poor commentary. It is rife with things such as ,aking erroneous assumptions because it vilifies a perceived opponent, saying if X must be true, than Y, similar to X, must also be true. But Y is not true.
Sad, sad, sad.
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