One last glimpse of Abraham

      I thought of my grandfather Abraham last week, and of my mother, as I watched a BBC (British Broadcast Corporation) video tour of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
      A good friend sent me the link to the video, which was done as part of the recent 70th anniversary of the camp's liberation.
      My mother and father were among those who survived the Holocaust and their time in Auschwitz. My grandfather -- and the rest of my parents' families -- did not survive.
      Tough video to watch, just to see the ruins of the camp -- preserved much the way it was in the early 1940s. One scene was a little extra harrowing.
      When the camera-equipped drone flew over the space (a "courtyard," I think it was called, as if a concentration camp had a courtyard) between Blocks 10 and 11, it brought to mind a story my mother included in her USC Shoah Foundation interview in 1996.
      That space is where she said she last saw her father, where -- as a prisoner in the infamous Block 10 women's medical experimentation block -- she caught a glimpse of him.
      She didn't know, and he didn't know, that soon he would be sent from Auschwitz to Warsaw, Poland, where his life ended.
      "He went to Warsaw and they [the group of men he was with] had to dig ditches," my mother told the Shoah Foundation interviewer. "I heard this after the war from somebody who had come out, who was in the group with him, who had known him before.
      "Then they shot him and they buried him in the ditches."           
---

Mom's family: her father Abraham, her mother Rachel,
older sister Annie -- and Rose (top right)

      In the records of the Dutch Jewish victims of the Holocaust -- the records at the memorial center in Amsterdam, where all my family lived before World War II, Abraham Lopes-Dias is listed as having died on Dec. 31, 1943. He was 50.
      He was married for 25 years to my paternal grandmother, Rachel (our daughter is named in her honor). Her death is listed as Sept. 10, 1943.
      My mother was 22 at the time. Her sister Anna (called Annie), some two years older, died Sept. 30, 1942, sent to the gas chambers not long after arriving at Auschwitz on the cattle-car train.
      Rozette -- Rose, as everyone knew her -- loved her mother and sister. She adored her father. That is clear from her Shoah Foundation interview and the family history she wrote for us.
      "What do you remember about him most?" the interviewer asked Mom.
      "He was wonderful," Mom replied. "I don't think anybody could have had parents like I had. He was so funny. He was well-liked. ... He was the life of [any] party. He knew all kinds of songs, he would perform, he was just an all-around wonderful man."
       In the family history, she wrote, "Both of my parents had a terrific sense of humor; Daddy really could keep an audience."
       They each loved amateur acting, opera and plays.
       About those songs, the songs Abraham taught his daughters ...
       In her Holocaust interview and her talks to groups over the years, Mom often mentioned that in the years at Auschwitz, she would teach -- or try to teach -- her "camp sisters," as she called them, those songs or would sing them for entertainment or to kill the time.
       They were sung in Dutch, of course. When Elsa and I were kids, we got to hear the great majority of those songs ... when we weren't rolling our eyes or trying to escape the room. Mom wasn't a bad singer (like me), but still ...
---
       The oldest of seven children in his family, her father began working, Mom said, "when he was 10 years old, went to school until he was 14; that was required by law. He was a self-taught man, [and] was well-educated. In addition to working hard, he gave bridge lessons, and also learned and taught Esperanto, a language designed to be universal."

       Founded by Dr. L.L. Zamenhof in the late 1880s, Esperanto was popular in Europe, but never became what its founders -- and my grandfather -- hoped it would be.
       "He spoke very well," Mom said of her father. "... He learned the language and taught it to other people, and corresponded with people all over the world. We had people from all over Europe who came and stayed with us. This was one of his great hobbies. ... Esperanto was a language formed by different languages; it had some French, some Polish, some German, a mixture. ... We really didn't have a choice, we had to study it a little bit. But as children, I had enough. I said, 'I don't want to do this.' "

       In the 1930s and early 1940s, leading up to and after the Nazi Germany occupation of The Netherlands, my grandfather was the manager of a company that bought and repaired second-hand burlap sacks.
       And he was very interested in politics and labor unions.
       He was, my mother said, "the non-salaried president of a union of manufacturers in Amsterdam -- the 'Factory Labor Union.' He strongly believed in better working conditions for people and in the 40-hour work week; he worked very hard for that.
       "He could debate for hours with people about his favorite labor party."

       He was, Mom said, "a Social Democrat," a member of the board of that party in Amsterdam. "He and my mother both worked very hard on getting [fair] laws for children working. At that time, children would work when they were [as young as] ages 8 or 9. They helped pushed through a law -- and my father wanted this -- that children could nt work until they were 14, and they wanted to limit work (for everyone) to 40 hours a week.
       "When that passed, that was frosting on the cake for him."

       Interviewer: "Did you understand what they were doing?"

       "Oh, yeah, we were very involved," Mom answered. "We were in youth groups as children, the Social Democrat youth group. First of May, there were big celebrations and we had a big red flag -- Social Democratic party -- by our house, and an Esperanto flag. Everyone knew who my father was by his Esperanto flag."

---
       My grandfather, Mom said, was not a devout Jew.
       "He was not involved in Jewish affairs," she said. "I always said [one of Mom's favorite expressions], as far as that was concerned, he was ahead of his time. He was a reform Jew.
       "Before the war, there was no reform temples in Holland. It was strictly, strictly Orthodox, the men separated from the women ... and he felt hypocritical if he would go to shul and sit there and listen to things he really didn't believe in. Even his father already, he never learned Hebrew. He would go to shul if it was necessary, like for a wedding, or a funeral; he used to kid and said, 'I have a head for funerals and weddings.' "
       That did not matter to the Nazis when the "arrests" began in 1942.
       Abraham continued to work at his job, but Mom said that the company "was taken over ... by the Germans, and they put a Nazi in [charge]." In April 1942, my grandfather "was picked up and sent to a work camp in Holland."
       There is a lot to the story, and Mom details it in her interview. Here's a condensed version:
       My grandmother, with her husband gone, "got very depressed and very scared"; my mother and her sister each married because, with the curfews in place, it was the only way they could see their then-fiances.
       "My husband and my father didn't come home from work," Mom recalled. "We didn't know where they were."
       Abraham was first sent to a labor camp in Holland, then to Westerbork (the "transit" camp the Nazis established in the eastern part of Holland).
       "And then we got a card from him from the labor camp," Mom said. "My husband we didn't know; we never heard from him.

       "Then my sister and my brother-in-law were picked up in July and ... my mother had a nervous breakdown. In August, I was fired [from her sewing job]. All the Jews had to get out."

       Did you hear from your sister and brother-in-law?     

       "Never."

        Do you know if they ever met your husband and your father?
        "I don't know. (softly) I don't know."
---

       But there was a reunion with her father. When my mother and grandmother were picked up and sent to Westerbork, they saw Abraham again.
       "When we came there, the tracks from the train didn't go right to Westerbork, it went outside of Westerbork to what they called Hooft-Haaren, and my father helped lay down the railroad," Mom said. "Now my father had worked for a Jewish company and one of the bosses, who was hidden later, put money in a factory in Westerbork, in a mattress factory, and he put my father in charge of this mattress factory. That's why he could stay. He had a stamp, we were spared."
        One side story: My grandfather knew friends who were working in the underground and who had gotten papers for my parents to leave the city of Groningen, where they were [at one point], to go into hiding." But my mother said Abraham and Rachel did not want to leave their kids, so the plan never developed.
        My mother's parents were sent to Auschwitz on Sept. 7, 1943.
        "My mother went straight to the gas chambers," Mom said, "and my father was picked out with another group of people. ...I saw him because a week later my husband and I went [to Auschwitz]."
        "I was in Block 10," she said. "I don't know if you've ever been to Block 10 ... on the right side was Block 11; that was for punishment. We had shutters [on that side], although we could see on the street and we could hear on the other side."

        The interviewer asked her to explain that.
        "Between the blocks, they had streets, and this Block 11 was the punishment block," Mom  said. "And we could hear the screams and we could see through the holes in the shutters, and we would see killings, shootings, we could hear them scream.
        "On the other side, between the blocks, was a street, and the group my father went with, before they got sent to Warsaw, they were there and we could see out and I saw my father with this group."

        Interviewer: "Did you have a chance to talk to him (her father)?"

        "No, I don't know if he saw me. I saw him, you know."

        With that, she smiled at the thought. Maybe it was a rueful smile, but maybe -- this is the way I like to think of it -- it was a knowing smile, a smile that remembered "a wonderful man." A man named Abraham.




My mother to a U.S. World War II veteran: "Thank you"

    I posted this as a Throwback Thursday item on Facebook, and the response was strong enough that I wanted to include it here with some of the comments
---
     Credit to Teresa Davis, who is on staff at Ringgold (La.) Elementary School -- in the town where Bea went to high school -- and sent me this story and these photos. It is a remembrance of one of my mother's speaking engagements on the Holocaust at Martin High School (where Teresa was a social studies teacher then).
      From Teresa ...
      "The man she is talking to is a World War II veteran who died [little more than a year ago]. He ...was on the beaches of Normandy. His name is Ernest Howell. He was very young when he joined the Army. When his time was up to go home, he refused because he had a job to do.
      "His son comes to our Veteran's Day programs. Mr. Howell came to talk to my students about his time during the war. When he and your Mom and Dad were at my school together, Martin High School, it was a very moving time.
      "Your mother sat on the front row after she had spoken to our students and listened to every word he said. He told my students that he was not a hero. He was doing what needed to be done and what was right. Mrs. Van Thyn raised her hand and said, 'To me, you are a hero.' This put the whole place into silence and of course I cried.
      "After the program she walked up to him, and as you can tell she had to look up at him, and said, 'Thank You.' This was one of the most memorable days in my entire teaching career, and I remember like it happened yesterday.
      "They shared a special bond although they had never met one another until that day.
      "I loved your Mom and Dad."
      (Ernest Howell was Coach "Slim" Howell, a coach and teacher at Northwestern State University in the late 1950s and through the 1960s who coached and taught at a lot of places before and after his time at NSU.)
      "Those like your Mom, Dad and Mr. Howell went through so much, and they deserve to be remembered and honored. They have left a lesson for all of us and I take great joy in teaching that to our young people today. There is so much of that era that has long been forgotten. It is so important to teach those coming along who paved the road for them and the great price that was paid."















   

This does not honor Heity's memory

      I did not anticipate writing another blog piece about our friend Kent Heitholt and his murder case. But here it is. I feel compelled to do this.
      First, until Sunday, I had never heard of globaltickets.com -- a ticket broker for all sorts of sports events and concerts -- nor had I seen the Facebook page "Freed Ryan Ferguson." But now I have, and frankly, they make me sad.
      I am writing this while the Super Bowl is being played in Phoenix (I am not watching) while Ryan Ferguson and his father Bill are in the stands, having been provided a free all-expense paid trip by globaltickets.com.
      The New York Daily News, having learned of this trip and this case, ran a lengthy story today about the Fergusons, and Heitholt's Nov. 1, 2001, murder in Columbia, Mo., at about 2 a.m. in the newspaper parking lot.
      Ryan Ferguson, the headline says, was "wrongly convicted" in the case and is free -- thanks to the efforts of his father and many other people -- after some 10 years in prison.
      Here is a link to the Daily News story: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/i-team/ryan-ferguson-heads-super-bowl-wrongful-conviction-article-1.2099220,
      I knew Friday that the story was being done when the main reporter, Michael O'Keeffe, contacted me and wanted to talk about the case. I'm certainly no spokesman for the Heitholt family or his friends, but I wrote a blog on Heitholt a little more than two years ago -- one of my most popular blogs-- and O'Keeffe referenced that.
      Here is the link to that blog: http://nvanthyn.blogspot.com/2012/11/hey-now-heity-big-guy.html
      I want to expand on some of the things I told O'Keeffe that didn't go in the story, my feelings about the case and about this free trip to the Super Bowl.
      Short version: I think it is an ill-conceived idea. That's a nice way of saying it. Not-so-nice: It's a bunch of crap.
      I told O'Keeffe -- who at the time we spoke was not clear about the sponsoring source but obviously found out -- that this is a "twisted" idea. The wrong people are being rewarded.
---
      What the heck are Ram Silverman, the director of operations at goldentickets.com, and his cronies thinking? Why are the Fergusons being "rewarded" -- my opinion -- for this case?

The Kent Heitholt photo the New York
Daily News ran with the story Sunday.

 

      Quickly, let me add: I don't know these people and I am looking at this strictly from the viewpoint of Kent Heitholt's family and friends. I suspect they feel much the same way I do.
      Wish we didn't have to re-live all the case entails. Wish we didn't have to read the painful details again.
      And I want to try to be fair. The law is the law, the courts are the courts, and I am no attorney; I was a sportswriter, just as Heity was. Ryan Ferguson was found guilty, then -- after a long process -- found wrongly convicted. So be it.
       I can't blame the New York Daily News for doing this story; it's an unusual angle. It needed all the details to explain the case.
       I can't blame Bill Ferguson for battling for his son's release. I can't blame the attorneys who helped him, or CBS News' 48 Hours program that first examined this case and started the impetus for Ryan's freedom.
       I can't blame Ryan for trying to live his life, for starting over after 10 lost years in prison. He seems to be doing well; he has written and released a book, a "fitness survival guide" about his time in and after incarcaration. He is promoting it on the Facebook page mentioned above.
      He has lots of support, and that's fine. And here is where globaltickets.com comes in.
      When I looked up its web site, honestly I was dismayed to see that it is located in Plano, Texas -- and that's where Silverman lives, according his Facebook page. Plano is a place we visit.
      On the "Freed Ryan Ferguson" Facebook page -- one of Silverman's "likes" -- it repeatedly says it was "a crime he didn't commit." The attorney most responsible for helping free him builds a good case tearing up the investigate process of the crime and the lack of substantial evidence. But she also implicates or questions -- repeatedly -- the sportswriter who was the last known person to see Heitholt alive.
      The claim is that Heitholt was critical of this guy's writing, so there were hard feelings that night.
      I can tell you this, and I believe all his friends will agree, that was not Heitholt's way. He was one of the easiest people to work with, a non-critical co-worker.
      Who is to judge on this case, really? Who knows what happened? It was a mystery, and it is a mystery. I'll let my attorney friends sort it out.
      But the young man, Charles Erickson, who two years after the murder had a dream in which he envisioned the murder scene and then implicated himself and his underage-drinking buddy of that night, Ryan Ferguson, remains in prison.
       My view: Erickson's conscience might have been talking to him. Whether Ferguson was there or not -- and Ryan has insisted all along he wasn't -- well, no one else knows.
       So my problem is the glorification of Bill and Ryan Ferguson, globalticket.com's promotion of this trip, the publicity-seeking angle by that company and by Ryan.
       But, yes, if you're offered a free trip to the Super Bowl -- quite a reward for their travails -- and you've always wanted to go, take the trip. But when you brag about it, flaunt it, when it's publicized on your Facebook pages and on Ron Silverman's Facebook page, it just seems to me to laugh in the Heitholt family and friends' faces. It is disrespectful.
       Our hearts always hurt for the Heitholts. Their loss is unchangeable, immeasurable; their grief is forever. A story likes this just pours it on.
       So to globaltickets.com, you want to do something grand, something nice, do it for the Heitholt family. Show them some love. Give Deb and Vince and Kali a great trip, built them a house, pay their house note, whatever. That would be some really positive publicity.
       I know the Fergusons, their friends and supporters don't see it this way, but what you did here stinks. That's just my opinion. It is a matter of respect.                       
     

Da Bears gave us a Super memory

     Read a story last week about the three sportswriters who have covered all 48 previous Super Bowls, and will be there again Sunday.
     Hey, I'm 1-for-48. I was there for the day, and the crowning, of Da Bears. It is the only Super Bowl I've seen live, and likely the only one I ever will see.
     It also was the only live Super Bowl for our son Jason, who was 11 -- nearly 12 -- that day at the Superdome in New Orleans. His recollection: "Sat in the end zone where The Fridge scored his touchdown."


A victory ride for Bears coach Mike Ditka (right) ... and
defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan (Chicago Tribune photo)

     Yep, "The Fridge" -- William "The Refrigerator" Perry, the 335-pound behemoth whose 1-yard TD run was one of the bizarre twists of a Super Bowl -- and a Bears team -- that was as wacky as any in history.
     The 1985 Chicago Bears were great ... and they were nuts. They were unique.
     It was one of football's greatest teams ever, nearly perfect (one loss in 19 games) and on Jan. 26, 1986, destroyed the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XX, the most one-sided Super Bowl to that point. The 46-10 score still is tied for second-largest margin, exceeded only by 49ers 55, Broncos 10, four years later.
     It was the Bears team of Iron Mike Ditka as head coach, the famed "46" defense that was equal to any defense in any Super Bowl, its brash and mouthy coordinator Buddy Ryan, the NFL's then all-time top rusher (Walter "Sweetness" Payton), the NFL's all-time quirkiest quarterback (Jim McMahon), a world-class hurdler/sprinter/receiver (Willie Gault), the Super Bowl Shuffle video ... and The Fridge, the largest but not really all-that-important parts of that awesome defense.
     Fridge was the circus act. That he scored, and Payton didn't, was a joke.
     The AFC champion Patriots that day were a huge surprise to be there. Let's say that the six-time Super Bowl participant Patriots of the 2000s were much more legit.
---
     I was 38 when I covered the game for the old Shreveport Journal; it was one of the smallest papers to have a representative there, so I didn't get a seat in the main press box. I was in the auxillary press box, which actually was a section of seats high up in the stadium and -- as I recall -- across the field from the main media area (I did get a seat there for several games I covered at the Superdome).
     It wasn't the media crush of today -- no Internet yet, not many TV or radio sports talk shows -- but there probably were 200 of us in that area, and one memory is that a couple of rows above me and to my right sat Chris Berman.
     ESPN was still young (maybe in its sixth year) and he was not yet the omnipresent Swami he would become, but he was already a loud and visible presence there.
     More media memories in a moment.
     A pregame memory: It was Super Bowl XX, so the NFL brought in all past the Super Bowl game MVPs: a great group including Bart Starr (who, representing the group, tossed the ceremonial coin), Joe Namath, Len Dawson, Joe Montana, some of my Cowboys heroes (Chuck Howley, Roger Staubach, Harvey Martin, Randy White) and our Woodlawn/Louisiana Tech hero, Terry Bradshaw.
     The game referee was Red Cashion, so we heard him drawl his trademark "First dowwwn!" several times that day.
---               
     Ditka had been the star tight end of the last Bears team to win an NFL championship, in 1963 ... also a tremendous defensive team. He was a personal favorite because he came to the Cowboys late in his career and helped them reach two Super Bowls -- the awful loss to the Colts and then (finally) the long-awaited first championship when he caught a pass for the final TD against the Dolphins.
     Then he joined the coaching staff for nearly a decade -- the clipboard-throwing, screaming assistant coach. That he did not learn from Tom Landry, who must have rued those 15-yard penalties Ditka sometimes earned.
     When he returned to Chicago to take over as head coach before the 1982 season, he promised a championship. They delivered in four years.
     One huge reason, no question: Buddy Ryan was his defensive coordinator. He was already on staff and he had been part of the staff for the New York Jets' Super Bowl winners and three Minnesota Vikings teams that lost in the Super Bowl. He knew how to put the pieces together.
     So Ditka had Payton, one of the classiest and greatest running backs; McMahon, who made all the right plays that year at QB and led a productive offense; and that defense.
     They were big and strong and fast and quick, and overpowering. Mike Singletary was the most dominant middle linebacker in football and, to think, maybe not even the best middle LB in Bears history (that Dick Butkus guy). But those defensive names that year ... Richard Dent, Dan Hampton, Wilber Marshall, Leslie Frazier, Otis Wilson, Gary Fencik, Steve McMichael, Dave Duerson, etc.
  (OK, I had to look up some of them.)
     They gambled fiercely, blitzing from everywhere and usually succeeding. They pulverized opponents, such as -- yikes -- the Cowboys. I do remember that 44-0 score -- Ditka's team beating The Man in the Hat's team.
     The only loss -- the only game that kept the 1972 Miami Dolphins as the only unbeaten team in NFL history -- was a Monday Night Football loss to Dan Marino and the Dolphins in Week 13. McMahon was hurt and didn't play and at halftime of what became a 38-24 loss, Ditka and Ryan had a shouting match.
     They did not like each other (but then, other than his family and players, did like Ryan?) This set up a storyline for the end of the Super Bowl victory.
     In the playoffs, the Bears shut out the New York Giants 21-0, then shut out the Los Angeles Rams 24-0. So who really gave New England much of a chance in the Super Bowl?
---
    The Patriots, like the Bears and Ditka, also had a Hall of Fame player as their coach, and Raymond Berry, who as a receiver made Johnny Unitas a pretty good quarterback (kidding), was one of the NFL's class acts. The man from Paris, Texas, and SMU brought the Patriots a long way that season.
     They barely got in the playoffs, with an 11-5 record giving them an AFC wild-card spot on a tiebreaker. But it was a talented team -- John Hannah and Andre Tippett were Hall of Fame players, and Stanley Morgan, Irving Fryar and Craig James were familiar names -- and they got to the Super Bowl by winning three road playoff games.
      No Patriots had won a playoff game in 22 years and the closest the Patriots ever got to a championship was a 51-10 loss to San Diego in the 1963 AFC title game. Not much of a history.
      The Patriots' QBs were the forgettable Tony Eason, who started the Super Bowl, and Steve Grogan, who replaced him. And here is one of the funny things about this game: New England had a 3-0 lead after just 1:19 -- the quickest lead in SB history. Payton lost a fumble on the game's second play.
      The Bears scored the next 44 points.
      Looked this up: Chicago set Super Bowl records for sacks (seven) and for fewest rushing ayrds allowed (seven). Seven yards on 11 runs; think New England just conceded it was not going to run the ball? At halftime, when it was 23-3, New England had minus-19 total yards. It finished with 123 -- a bonanza.
      Payton ran 22 times for "only" 61 yards and -- notably -- did not get into the end zone. No, Ditka had been using "The Fridge" all season as a short-yardage battering ram, and it had worked. In this game, Fridge was going to try a pass and got smothered. But late in the third quarter, with the Bears on the Patriots' 1, he scored.
      It was a pigheaded and thoughtless call by Ditka, who could have let Payton score in the most important game of his brilliant career. But Ditka -- not yet the TV commentator/ad pitchman of future years -- was all for showing off.
      But showing off, that was McMahon's speciality -- his crazy punk hairdos, his fiery on-field demeanor (he argued with Ditka, teammates, refs, etc.), his out-of-whack off-the-field antics, his "message" headbands and, the week of the Super Bowl, his comments about calling New Orleans "sluts" and then mooning a helicopter above the Bears' practice field.
      (A story about those incidents prompted Ed Cassiere of our sports staff at the Shreveport Journal to write this award-winning headline: "No if, ands, or sluts about it.")
      A media memory: When McMahon came sauntering into the interview room post-game, wearing his usual dark shades, he was instantly surrounded by about 300 media people. That was a sight.
      Another memory: Ditka, too, was besieged by reporters. But so was Ryan, who soon was leaving to become head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles. In an unforgettable postgame scene on the field, Ditka was given a ride of his players' shoulders ... but, only a few paces behind, so was Ryan.
      They did not embrace each. They did not hold a joint news conference.
      The Bears, in subsequent regular seasons, went 14-2, 11-4 and 12-4, but they lost to the Redskins in the playoffs twice and the 49ers once ... and that group, that fearsome defense, McMahon and Payton, never got to another Super Bowl. Injury luck wasn't the same, and neither was the aura.
      Maybe Ryan did give them that extra edge. But was he lovable? No, no, no.
      One final media memory: After the game, Payton sat on a podium and faced wave after wave of reporters, Most of the questions were about The Fridge's TD and how Payton felt about it. I got close enough to hear the questions and answers, and he stayed calm and just kept saying how happy he was to be on a championship team.
      It was quite a team and quite a day. Like Payton, I was happy to be there, and it was a good memory for our Jason.
      Payton died far too soon; I'm glad to be able to write about Super Bowl XX 29 years later.

Another Super Bowl ... I'll be at the Abbey

     I wrote a blog piece 53 weeks ago about the Super Bowl, and how I wouldn't be watching. As you might have read last week, I haven't changed my mind.
     Downton Abbey, a series that is one of PBS' jewels, is on Sunday night, and I must keep up with the latest developments. The football game be damned.   
     I will do all I can this week to keep from reading any Super Bowl stories or watching any of the news. I will leave that to the rest of the uncivilized world.
     How would I feel if the Dallas Cowboys were playing this week? Not much differently, but at least I'd have someone to root for ... in my silent world.  (Yeah, now I know you're disbelieving.)
     Last I looked Dez Bryant was one of the Cowboys' biggest stars, and what a fool he appears to be. I know he can play; I know he's a special talent. But one of his talents is running his mouth on the sidelines, on the field, and acting out. I've seen the games (on replays, long after the live event).
     Find it difficult to root for him, or -- as I've written often -- the guy who owns the team.
     I have talked to reporter friends who say Bryant has grown up some off the field and that Mr. Jones is fine to deal with, but my problem -- again, I'm repeating -- is the NFL itself these days.
     Deflategate" was last week's example. Marshawn Lynch is this week's example. With each controversy, the people in charge of the NFL look dumb and dumber.
     I don't care to revisit the deflated footballs issue except for this: (1) I want to use the photo-shopped artwork designed by my friend Roger S. Braniff Sr. of Shreveport; (2) I want to reiterate that I think Bill Belichick is the most clever/wicked manipulator of the NFL rules, his players, his system and team formations of any NFL coach in history; and (3) maybe quarterback Tom Brady isn't quite the class act I claimed he was in last January's blog.
     Let's say that I cannot root for the New England Patriots or Seattle Seahawks (as I can't root for many other NFL teams). I don't care who wins.
     Two low-class organizations in a low-class league, thank you.
     But other than the devious Patriots, Lynch is what is despicable about the Seahawks. Last year it was cornerback Richard Sherman who turned much of the world against Seattle with his big mouth. He would not shut up about how good he was and how good his team was.
     Lynch doesn't want to talk -- not to the media. (More on that in a moment)
     Here is a guy known as "Beast Mode." He might be the baddest running back in the NFL; he certainly acts like one of the baddest.
     He has, on his record, a misdemeanor weapons, a hit-and-run charge with his drivers' license revoked, and a DUI charge. But there are people out there who admire him.
     In his first playoff game, in a 2011 NFC wild-card game against the Saints, he had a 67-yard touchdown run on which he broke nine tackles -- one of the great runs in league history, an instant legend.
     He is a remarkable football player. He also is remarkably deviant.
     This season he has taken to grabbing his crotch after a couple of touchdown runs, one of the grabs on a backward dive into the end zone. The NFL loved that. He was fined $11,050 for that; $20,000 for his "grab" after the game-winning TD against the Packers in the NFC Championship Game two weeks ago.
     In the past, he has been a reluctant media interview. In the 2013 season, he flat-out refused to talk to media, and the NFL fined him repeatedly. He did go through Super Bowl Media Day, petulantly, explaining that "I'm just here so I don't get fined."
     This season more of the same. He spent one interview answering every question with "yeah" and another one by repeatedly saying "thanks for asking."
     Look, athletes and coaches not wanting to deal with media -- or screaming at/threatening media members -- is commonplace. In the 1970s, Duane Thomas (Cowboys) and Steve Carlton in baseball happily went silent.
     And some coaches and athletes, and team officials, talk far too much. I give you Jerry Jones, and with our Yankees, Reggie Jackson. No one ever talked more than Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali, and some of us loved it and many despised it and him.
     I had my battles with coaches and athletes, and I gave as well as received. So that's part of the game. I don't think the media should hang on every word from team officials or coaches or athletes, and it so often all gets overblown. Do we really need to hear from them that badly?
     Super Bowl Media Day, as with many things about the Super Bowl, is pretty much a joke. But I guarantee you that -- unless Bill Belichick or Tom Brady or someone blows their stack about underinflated footballs -- what Marshawn Lynch does or does not do, says or does not say, on Tuesday will be the "news" of the day.
     It's not that Lynch can't express himself. I saw a video in which he narrates the great run against the Saints, and he's funny. And some people think his "yeah" interview was funny, too.
     I don't, but I will say that if he doesn't want to talk to the media, the NFL should let him be. Don't make a spectacle of it.
     The NFL has warned the Seahawks that if Lynch, or other players, do the crotch-grabbing or some other weird celebration, the team could be hit with a 15-yard penalty (and fines). So what? Think they care? Money and fines mean little to people making millions.
     Wonderful role models in this league, in this game, right?
      If the NFL really wants to punish teams and players, I say -- as I did in the previous blog -- to send a really strong message. Tell Bill Belichick he can't coach in this game; he can't even be in the Phoenix area. Tell Marshawn Lynch he can't play or eject him from the game first time he acts improperly.
     They can watch the game from elsewhere. Or they can be like me and watch Downton Abbey, which has so many story lines going that it's infinitely more interesting than the Super Bowl.
              
                 
          
            
          

It's been a deflating week in the news

     Let's mix politics, sports and movies today, and I'll begin by saying it's been a week of contentiousness. I'm seeing and hearing lots of anger out there, and I never like that.
     I especially don't like it from myself, and this week we had to endure debates about underinflated footballs -- how stupid a subject -- and the State of the Union address and a movie about a sniper.
     That leads to me writing this blog piece because I can say -- enough already.

Leave it to the New York Daily News' clever 
headline writers for the right touch

     I also must admit, I have paid little attention to any of it, haven't read stories on any of the subjects or stopped to listen to the TV "experts" ... and don't really care that much. I'm just in my own world, right?
     But my world includes Facebook and Twitter, and so I do see people's rants/criticisms. That unavoidable ... and also a good reason why I should leave social media for a week or two. Except I do like the updates on the teams I follow and I like to know when there's actual news out there.
     However, all these opinions, all this bull ... I'm trying to ignore it and not be angry about it.
     Excuse me, but I don't like the NFL -- National Foolish League -- at all these days. I root, as I always have, for the Dallas Cowboys (but not their owner), but I don't watch the games live. I record them and watch later ... less stress that way.
     I am one of the millions who will not be watching the Super Bowl. (When I told a friend that, he corrected "millions" to "hundreds.") I have not watched the Super Bowl, or any other NFL game, for the past two seasons.
     I have had a half dozen friends ask my opinion of "Deflategate" in the NFL, and then offer their opinion. Quickly, I will say: This is one of the most overblown stories of several football seasons. Underinflated/overblown. (I will return to the issue in a moment.)
---
     You can put the State of the Union address in the same "overblown" category. I stopped watching that about three Presidents ago. But I do like watching the President's entry into the House of Representatives chamber and the civility/pomp displayed as he makes his way down the aisle, shaking hands and hugging admirers and the constant applause, and once the speech begins ... forget it.  All civility ends.
     Members of the President's party applaud everything they can, jump to their feet and cheer; members of the other party often just look grim-faced, especially if -- as President Obama proved Tuesday -- he makes a remark that zings the opposition.
     When he's done, the pundits and the critics take over and here's my view: The State of the Union accomplishes nothing except stir up the rancor. Many proposals have little or no chance; the possible "compromise" issues are rarely compromised.
     It is pointless, but it's tradition. So if you choose to watch or choose to comment, go for it. I think it's foolish.
     Look, I don't like writing about politics here. It is not my field of expertise (I know a little more about sports subjects). But I just find it laughable to read that I live in a socialist society and that the President is a "liar." Maybe he twisted the facts, as his opponents claim, or he's "giving away the store" to Cuba, or he'd be a fool to use his veto to stop the other party's approved bills.
     I just keep thinking, didn't some of us feel the same way about the previous President and his top people
     I see these statements and "debates" from both sides of the aisle and my feeling is that no one ever changes anyone else's mind. My friends who have opposite political views from mine sure as heck don't change my mind, and I'm not trying to change theirs.
     So much for politics. Let's go to the movies.
 ---
     American Sniper is getting much attention and very-liberal moviemaker Michael Moore used the word "cowards" in a general comment about snipers, not per se about the movie's hero, the late Chris Kyle. Of course, that set off a mountain of critical remarks about Moore and a spirited defense of Kyle and the movie's director, the legendary Clint Eastwood.
     Obviously, Eastwood has starred in and directed/produced many great films. I've even enjoyed a few.
     Honestly, though, I've never been much of an Eastwood fan -- not even when he was Rowdy Yates on Rawhide when we first saw him five decades ago -- and I'm not much of a movie goer. Movies about guns and wars don't interest me at all.
     You can debate the role of snipers all you want. Maybe they're heroic; that's for certain when the other side also is firing live bullets. I see it as a necessary evil, just as wars are necessary evils.
     I'm not as pro-military as many folks, but I appreciate what the military does and what it stands for. I would not agree with the "coward" view; I'd never go that far. And I see Michael Moore -- even though I slant toward liberal views -- as an American crackpot, as an opportunist and self-promoter.
     But Clint Eastwood's "performance" at the Republican Party convention in 2012 was about the worst political theater I've seen. Even the Republicans were embarrassed at his impromptu act.
     So if you ask me, a Michael Moore vs. Clint Eastwood debate is two empty chairs going at each other. But it might draw better ratings than the State of the Union address did.
---
     Now, about "Deflategate" ... the talk, the stories are everywhere -- from the White House to the network news shows to the late-night talk-show comics having at it.
     This is about as stupid as "Spygate" several years ago. Leave it to Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots. If the rules can be bent, they can do it.
      If they can deflate the footballs -- who knows who did that exactly? -- then they could twist the rules on salaries and the salary cap, on injuries, on drug testing, practice time, uniform regulations ... pick something.
      It's clear that Belichick -- in my opinion, the most successful NFL coach in history as a defensive coordinator and head coach (just look at his record) -- also is the biggest coaching "cheater" since the Cowboys' best friend, George Allen, all those years ago.
      It's also clear that no matter how the footballs felt, that 45-7 score in last week's AFC Championship Game meant the Patriots were a little better than the Indianapolis Colts. As a friend, a former NFL player, pointed out, underinflated footballs can be caught much easier by receivers ... that's the big advantage, even more than Tom Brady throwing them.
      But you have to wonder about the NFL, how it can let the separate teams be in charge of inflating the football? Why don't the game officials take charge of that, and why did they not notice how those underinflated balls felt during a game?
      It's just another in a bunch of "black eyes" for the NFL lately -- the growing evidence of players' brain damage leading to suicides, the Ray Rice female-abuse case and others like it, the "stomping" by he-man linemen, the "football move" controversy of a catch/no-catch by Dez Bryant that took care of the Cowboys' playoff chances.
      The NFL, I think, might be the most overrated, overwatched sports entity today. I'm sure my NFL writer friends will tell me it's not as overrated as World Cup soccer.
      (Incidentally, there is an NFL game Sunday -- the Pro Bowl in Phoenix. Those who watch that really don't have anything else to do. What a waste of time. If you care about that one, I feel sorry for you.)
---
      One more observation about "Deflategate": Belichick was fined $500,000 by the NFL for "Spygate" when he had the New York Jets' defensive coaches' signals videotaped in 2007. That was the largest fine for a coach in NFL history at the time, part of a package of punishment for the team.
      Of course, penalties were even more severe for the New Orleans Saints and coach Sean Payton (a year's suspension) after the bounty scandal -- bonuses paid for players for injuring opposing players during the 2009-11 seasons.
      I think, after the Patriots' previous transgressions, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell should suspend Belichick from coaching in this Super Bowl game, and he could suspend Brady from playing, too. That would serve them right.
      Won't happen; too much money at stake, too big an advantage for the Seattle Seahawks. But maybe they should make the Patriots play with overinflated footballs, or -- as other people have suggested -- with bricks or big bars of soap.
      And as my friend O.K. "Buddy" Davis suggested, if Belichick -- known for his ho-hum (sloppy) sideline garb -- is allowed to coach, they at least should make him dress in a suit and nice dress hat, like my favorite coach of all, the classy Tom Landry.
      Nah, classy and Bill Belichick don't go together.
      They should make him debate Michael Moore and Clint Eastwood about snipers and inflated footballs. Or have him give the State of the Union address. He's used to the criticism.

A case of mistaken identity, etc.

     In a recent column on LSU football, one of my writer friends -- one of several talented and knowledgeable writers who have covered the Tigers for years -- had the wrong quarterback throwing a touchdown pass.
     I saw the column link on Facebook and sent him a private message -- didn't want to post it publicly -- pointing out the error.
     "Sure did. Don't know how that brain fart slipped through. And you are the first [person] that noticed," he answered.
     It's the copy editor in me. But as I replied to him, "Hey, I have had hundreds of those."
     I have. I assure you that I have a hundred "brain fart" awards.
     When I was telling someone about this, they asked, "What was the biggest mistake in your career?" I had to laugh at that. Other than the career itself, gosh, I don't know. Too many choices. I'll let you decide.
---

This is Chad Campbell (I know that now, but a decade
 ago, you could have fooled me ... and did). See story.
 (photo from www.ryder cup.com)
 

     In my freshman year at Louisiana Tech, my first semester on the school newspaper (The Tech Talk), I was assigned the education department beat. The paper's advisor,  the most-often crotchety Mr. Kenneth Hewins, told me to go talk to the head of the secondary education department. I went to the education building and -- I thought I had the right guy -- did the interview, came back and wrote the story, quoting Dr. Bobby Tabarlet.
     When Mr. Hewins saw the story, before it went in print, he came into where I was working -- in Pete Dosher's sports information office -- and he was not happy (he was never all that happy). "The head of the department," he said sternly, "is Dr. John Cawthon." He suggested (ha!) I go back over and do the correct interview.
     One of my friends was victimized in the Shreveport Captains' clubhouse one night when Don Robinson (who would be in the majors the next year) pitched a great game and the very young writer went to interview him. Asked the player in front of his locker if he was Don Robinson, he was told yes and he conducted the interview, quoted him in the story.
     Next day, we found out the guy he talked to wasn't Robinson, who was either in the shower or training room. It was a prank. The team's P.R. director, learning the story, blasted the offending player. The P.R. director doesn't remember doing that, but it sounds like me.
---
     I can say I never had the incorrect score in a game story. I also can say that in my first year as a fulltime sportswriter at The Shreveport Times, I covered a Fair Park-Southwood football game and the next day, the sports editor, Bill McIntyre (one of the people I most admired) asked me what the score of the game was. Yes, I had omitted it.
     Lesson learned. (Later, sports section would begin publishing the score as an insert or lead-in to stories).
     Well, lesson learned until my last year of work at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram when one night, writing a late game story off a TV game, trying to get it ready on deadline, I had the score as XX-XX (going to fill in the score at game's end). Oops, forgot to do it. We "slammed" the story -- no second read, no proofing -- and the page went in.
     About a minute later, I realized what I had (or had not) done. "Uh, Steve," I said to the night sports editor, "I screwed up. ... " Steve rolled his eyes, we re-did the page and hopefully not too many readers had to fill in their own score.
---
     But I have seen stories with no score or the wrong score. I have seen headlines with the wrong team winning. I managed to avoid that one, but a friend last summer sent me a story on a 1967 American Legion baseball game I had written in which a pitcher (Ronnie Botica) pitched a no-hitter with 17 strikeouts for Kay's Cookies in a 4-0 victory against Royal Crown Cola. Fine story, I got the facts right. Headline (not written by me) had R.C. Cola winning the game.
     I've had my headline errors, one a misspelled word in 48-point type, lead headline in the sports section of the Shreveport Journal one Saturday afternoon. I worked by myself that day -- and I was careless.
     And for careless and "brain farts," here are two examples of my work at The Shreveport Times in the early 1970s:          
     Bethune High School's football coach was Henry Taylor, a soft-spoken, friendly man. Its basketball coach was Huey Turner, a loud, brash guy. Both very good coaches. People were leery of Turner, including -- I believe -- Taylor. I'm convinced Turner did not like me or trust me.
     In writing about basketball, I referred to Turner a couple of times early in the story, then switched and wrote "Taylor: the next two or three references, then went back to Turner.
     Next day at the office, I answered my phone and heard a gentle voice, "This is Coach Henry Taylor at Bethune. You know, I'm the football coach. ..." My apology was sincere.
     A year later, I'm writing about Jesuit High School baseball. The coach was Frank "Champ" Cicero, a terrific classroom teacher (my friends from Jesuit all told me that) and a good guy to deal with and very successful coach (two state champions). Writing a story on his team, I somehow went from Cicero to "Sardisco," as in Tony  Sardisco, then the school's football coach and athletic director. I'd known both of them for years; how I did that, I don't know.
     But I have a friend who, in writing about the Atlanta Braves, had Ralph Garr in mind, but instead called him Ron Gant, who was about a decade behind Garr with the team.
---
     Ever do an interview using a tape recorder and find out, when you want to transcribe the tape and get correct quotes, that the tape recorder didn't work? It's happened to me; it's happened to friends. It's always good if or when the person you interviewed agrees to do it again, or if you can remember some or all of the quotes. And if not, you just make up the quotes.
     Typos in stories are common, and you probably have seen some awful ones. If you mistype "shot," it can be embarrassing. Be sure you get the "p" on pass. Be careful typing puck or suck or buck. I know of a case -- in a paper where I began my career -- that the word "count" was spelled without the "o." One omission, one bad keystroke, and you can be shot out of luck.
     Often, in headline writing, I would mess around and put in slang words or off-color expressions. Co-workers would warn me: You better be careful. And I always was, honestly.
     We did have a case at the Shreveport Journal where one day a co-worker was trying out the search/replace function. He took "team" and made it say "mulebutts." Thought he had reversed the process, but the next day a football story include the team "area mulebutts." (We had a laugh about that in the sports department, but kept it quiet.)
     And I have a friend -- again, in the paper where I began my career -- who messed around with a high school football schedule one week and put in an explicit sexual reference to a female. A week later -- obviously by mistake -- someone picked up that schedule and it ran in the paper (in agate type, but it was there). There was a big price to pay for that episode.
---
     Photo IDs can be really tricky. In my first year at the Star-Telegram, I wrote a photo cutline misidentifying someone in a photo with Cowboys owner Jerry Jones (there were several people in the photo). I could blame that one on an unclear ID by the photographer.  
     A couple of months later, I was doing the golf roundup and the PGA Tour tournament first-round leader that week was Chad Campbell, who lived in the Fort Worth area. Somehow the page designer picked the wrong photo. Next day we found out it wasn't Chad Campbell in the photo. I took part of the blame because I didn't know Chad from a can of Campbell's soup. But I damn sure knew what he looked like after that day.
     But, photos ... here might be my career screw-up, one that my buddies at The Shreveport Times in 1988 never let me forget.  On the first Sunday in May, we had a story in the middle of our sports front on the Kentucky Derby, a photo of the winning horse. At the bottom of the page, we had a story/photo combo on "A Day at Fair Grounds Field (with the Shreveport Captains)." But ...
     The photos were the same size ... a stupid page design of my doing. In the first edition, they were in the wrong place -- a guy in the Captains' video room with the Kentucky Derby story; the Kentucky Derby-winning horse with the Captains story.
     Good grief. Luckily, it was a first-edition mistake, not that many people saw it. Still ... Brain Fart Central.
---
     Woodlawn-Louisiana Tech people can laugh at these ... I have a friend who, in a story, had Tommy Spinks -- not Ken Liberto -- catching the 82-yard "miracle" touchdown pass from Terry Bradshaw to beat Northwestern State in the final seconds of the 1968 State Fair Classic.
     And, Shreveport sportswriting legend Jerry Byrd -- not one with too many "brain farts" -- did a story once in which he confused Spinks with another '60s Woodlawn receiver star, Jim Hodge. (Spinks and Hodge did look alike and their talents and careers were very similar.)
     Byrd, in his book Football Country (on North Louisiana), refers to Pat Tilley at one point as "Collins," as in Pat Collins. Easy mistake; both were from Fair Park High and Louisiana Tech, and Collins was on the coaching staff when Tilley played.    
     So, as I was thinking of writing this and doing some checking, I came across the Sports Illustrated "Sportsman of the Year" issue, which included a correction up front from the Dec. 8 issue. Instead of using a picture of Melvin Gordon -- Wisconsin's star running back, arguably the best RB in the country this past season -- it used a photo of a teammate.
     "SI regrets the error," the note concluded. Yep, even SI screws up.
     It became part of newspaper routine to publish "corrections" or "clarifications" for mistakes of some magnitude. We didn't do this in the first half of my career, but as time went on, I had my share.
     I'm just lucky they didn't label them "brain farts." I regretted the errors. But they happen, even on this blog.
           
             

Oh, Stuart, we hardly we knew you

      I am writing about Stuart Scott, the ESPN anchor/announcer whose death on Jan. 4 sparked an avalanche of tributes, memories and condolences that -- frankly -- surprised me.
      That is surprises me says more about me than him, that I didn't appreciate what he offered sports viewers for 22 years on ESPN. Fact is, I missed about 20 of those years.
      But quickly, let me offer this: I feel for anyone who has to battle cancer and I feel for their loved ones, their friends and their colleagues. In Stuart's case, he had a seven-year battle and he had the world rooting for him.
      He fought it publicly, he fought it courageously ... and I never even realized it. I paid no attention to Stuart Scott.
      We aren't supposed to speak ill of the dead, but I'll be honest. As I told a friend Monday, I could not stand watching him or listening to him. I thought he was a clown. He was too "cool" for me, too hip. I'm just an old-school guy.
      Again, that says more about me. I put a lot of announcers on the turnoff list. See them on TV, turn them off. Or I flip them off; flip the channel.
      I have written about TV announcers/talk show personalities a couple of times previously, so you might know that Skip Bayless is at the top of the "turnoff" list, and Keith Olbermann -- despite taking sports and political positions I agree with -- is right there. I never liked Tom Brookshier a few decades ago and I try to avoid Brent Musberger now.
      Look, I have a long list of "likes" and "dislikes" in announcing (see previous pieces).
      But, of course, no announcer will ever be as totally irritating to me -- and millions -- as the king of bombastic pomposity ... How-ard Co-sell. What he was, mostly, was a name-dropper. In my opinion, he commented so ignorantly so often on football and especially baseball, a thought verified completely in a chapter of fellow announcer Al Michaels' new book.

Stuart Scott (from ESPN Images)

      Seems to me that the emergence of ESPN as an every-day, world-wide sports voice spawned this proliferation of announcers who had to have a shtick. Chris Berman only preceded the snarky, opinionated Olbermann, and then along came Stuart Scott and Rich Eisen as ESPN2 anchors.
      I didn't like them from the start. Sorry, I was never a "Boo-Yah!" guy. So after about a year, I just didn't watch them much.
      Eventually Stuart was everywhere -- the main guy at the NBA championship presentation, a Super Bowl mainstay, someone who had his own language and catchphrases. But I never caught on. If I saw him on, I hit the "mute" bottom or changed channels.
      The past couple of days I have read several beautiful tributes to him from ESPN people, and I watched the 15-minute ESPN remembrance -- with comments from his bosses and co-workers. I'd never seen his speech at last year's ESPYs accepting the Jimmy V Perseverance Award and, honestly, watching that had me choked up.
      President Obama released a statement with his appreciation for Stuart's work and humanity. Twitter was filled Sunday with comments from athletes, administrators, coaches, media people ... it was overwhelming.
      So I was ignorant about his place in the sports world. I asked a few friends what they thought. A couple my age thought what I thought. But one said, "I really believe he was much deeper in his thoughts/outlooks on sports than all of the silly stuff he would say." Another friend, some two decades younger, said he didn't really have much an opinion, but was surprised at the strong reaction.
      Another friend, 10 years younger, said, "He was the anti-Chris Berman. Berman is contrived and tired. Scott was hip and unpredictable."
      Tim Brando, our Shreveport-based national media personality, worked with Scott at ESPN in the mid-1990s and wrote a tribute in The Shreveport Times this week.                      
      "Stuart’s heart was always in the right place," Tim wrote, "and if ya didn’t know him but you formed opinions (as people often do) by watching him on television, you simply didn’t get it, and certainly didn’t get him!"
      That would describe me.
      Tim also added that Scott (and Eisen) were "misunderstood by many" and that he (Brando)
"as a baby boomer, I didn’t always connect generationally."
      That, too, would be me.
      Valid point also that we -- the media, fans -- make judgments on people (coaches, athletic directors, politicians, sports columnists) based on what we see on TV or on one- or two-time meetings. I know I do. Pretty shallow, but also a human trait ... and not necessarily a good one.
      It's good to know that Stuart Scott was a friendly, loyal person, good to most everyone he met and dealt with, a loving father of two young daughters, a guy determined to do things his way -- no matter the criticism.
      So I never liked his style; I wasn't cool with it. But the evidence is in: Stuart was cool, like the other side of the pillow.