Good evening, 919 Gang. I’m alerting friends and relatives:
The NFL draft starts at 5 p.m. Thursday. Please be so kind as to schedule any
emergencies or tragedies so they can be over by that time.
CARL LARSEN
writes:
The
big news out of Chicago -- from where I've just returned -- is that the city
today hosts the NFL draft, something that has not happened for 51 years. The
draft this year revives the city's storied pro football history.
Civic
boosters say the extravaganza will bring millions of pairs of eyes to the
city's Auditorium Theatre, an architectural masterpiece designed by Frank Lloyd
Wright mentor Louis Sullivan. The event may be the biggest thing to rock the
town since Jimi Hendrix appeared on the theatre's same stage and the turmoil in
Grant Park, just down the street, that surrounded the 1968 Democratic National
Convention.
Credit
for all this hoopla goes to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the former top Obama
aide who lobbied NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell mightily. Emanuel borrowed the
mission statement of legendary Chicago urban planner Daniel Burnham: "Make
no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood...Make big plans, aim
high in hope and work."
(Note to SD Mayor Kevin Faulconer: If
you want the Chargers to stay in San Diego, you should be more like the
irascible and arm-twisting Rahm).
“I
was after him (Goodell) about Chicago, the heartland of America, the most
American city with 11 teams within a four- or five-hour drive. Bring it here
and we will show you a way for your fans and everybody to experience the draft
like never before," Emanuel told the Chicago
Sun-Times.
"Here’s
my goal: When you get on the plane and put your first foot on the step when you
start to leave the city, you’re gonna think one thought: ‘Why did we not do
this sooner?’ And I said, `Remember. You’re in your mother’s arms. We’re gonna
take care of you,’” the mayor told Goodell.
By the time the last player is picked,
Emanuel said he expects “north of 100,000 people” will take advantage of the
free concerts and other hands-on events associated with, what the NFL is
calling, “Draft-a-pallooza,” reported the newspaper.
To
mark all this growing football-draft hoopla, I suggest that from now on we at
919 proclaim the first day of the NFL draft Joe Stein Day.
 |
| Joe Stein |
Jack
Williams, who wrote Joe's obit, tells why:
"Some
people knew him best as the ultimate fan-turned-guru, a savvy newspaperman
whose projections and analyses of the annual National Football League draft
gave readers the inside scoop....
"Mr.
Stein's fascination with the NFL draft preceded ESPN and the proliferation of
sports talk radio shows, which glamorized the event as a high-stakes media
circus.”
“‘Mel
Kiper (an ESPN draft analyst) and all those draft nuts on TV today have Joe to
thank,’ said Rick Smith, a former Evening Tribune sportswriter and St.
Louis Rams and San Diego Chargers publicist. ‘He was kind of an early
incarnation of Kiper.’
"Each spring, Mr. Stein shared his expertise on sports
radio shows previewing and reviewing the draft. He was no stranger to radio,
having joined Jerry Gross in 1979 as co-host of an early sports talk show on
KCBQ-AM."
Indeed, Joe was a national authority on the draft, boning
up all year on hot prospects, whether they be from Kutztown University's Golden
Bears in Joe's home state of Pennsylvania, or from Alabama's Crimson Tide.
Joe died too early -- of a heart attack on May 5, 2004, at
age 65, a year before he planned to retire.
A good friend of our editor, Jack Reber, Joe was one of
those guys who could do it all. From the Copley Training Program, he played the
course over 40 years as news editor, TV critic, sports editor (of the Tribune),
and, at the end, a U-T Sports copy editor.
He was a natural as TV critic; it's said his house, with a
battery of screens and remote controls, had more video power than the Channel 8
control room. But it was his knowledge of the draft prospects for which he'll
be most remembered.
So, around 5 p.m. today, I'll be toasting Joe with a shot
of Bushmill's, adding a second libation for Jay Berwanger, the University of
Chicago Maroons halfback who in 1936 was the first player ever picked in the
NFL draft, also held in Chicago.
Berwanger is one of those asterisks in the record books. He
had just won what was to become the first Heisman Trophy (his award is on
display at the U. of Chicago) and was the first to be picked in the first NFL
draft -- by the Philadelphia Eagles. But then the Eagles traded his rights to
the Chicago Bears. Berwanger met with Bears' owner George Halas...
"He asked me what I wanted," Berwanger told The New York Times years
later. "I said $25,000 for two years and a no-cut contract. We shook
hands, said goodbye, and he and I have been good friends ever since. They just
couldn't afford to pay that kind of money. But if I was getting out of school
today with the publicity I had then, I'd be playing pro." Berwanger said.
Berwanger went on to found an automotive parts company with
$30 million in annual revenue that he sold in 1992. "It turned out
okay," said Berwanger, who never played a down of pro football.
Beyond winning the first Heisman, and being the first ever
draft pick, Berwanger holds another asterisk: He's the only Heisman winner ever
to tackle a future president of the U.S. -- U. of Michigan player Gerald Ford
in 1934.
One more thing: Why is it that the good guys -- Joe Stein,
our editor Jack Reber, 919ers David Farmer and John Gilmore -- come from
Ramona? My apologies to anyone I inadvertently left out.
REBER: Well, it’s true of
course. Ramona men all have bulging muscles, keen intellects and
Hollywood-style good looks, but Joe’s move to Ramona was rooted in what you
wrote about his TV addiction. His widow told me he stockpiled VCRs; had the
boxes sitting around in case he ever needed another one.
Before
Ramona, Joe lived in a condo complex just off Friars Road. Nice place, great
location, but there was no place to put the giant TV dish Joe wanted. So, he
moved in with his brother Ed, who lives just north of Ramona. Plenty of room
for a 5-foot satellite dish. Then he met Janiece, got married, and he and the
dish moved to her house on the south edge of town. Don’t get me started on Joe
Stein stories.
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ROB HANLEY
writes:
When I worked for the Los Angeles Times in Orange County
(1985-1987) I used to help out Metro on election nights punching returns into
tables late into the evening. (I worked for Fred Muir in Business.) Around 8
p.m. copy kids would start wheeling in carts laden with pizza and beer. (Sports
guys would materialize from nowhere.) And, whenever the paper won some sort of
prize, there would be cases of bubbly. Kind of surprising when I joined the
staff of the Union in early 1988 and found Prohibition in force. We did manage
to strike a few blows for liberty during the holidays when I was at the
Crabtree bureau in the early '90s.
REBER: The Copleys had a yearly
luncheon to honor 25-year employees, and I have heard that alcohol was served
there in the early days. I wonder if some of the employees didn’t overdue it.
Or maybe the company figured out they had some sort of liability if an inebriated
employee had an accident on the way home.
--------------------------------------------
ROSEMARY ENG
writes:
Regarding the Oceanside office, I think Pat DeGraw (Winter)
worked there for the Union for a while, and Jim Loveland and I put some time in
there. Unfortunately a photo of Loveland and I looking tough with cigars
clenched in our teeth got sent downtown and I was yanked back to the downtown
newsroom.
The only story that comes to mind from those days was a
feature I did about the officer in command (can't remember rank) at Camp
Pendleton. He was a bachelor, and I described how the long dining room table
was formally set with service for one. He was driven to his residence in a limo
with flags on the hood, like the President's car. I was young, I was impressed
watching the car drive up. He wasn't a good interview because he would barely
talk.
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OTTO KREISHER
writes:
Several mentions of the TRS-80, struck a chord. I
considered the TRS-80 - the performance of which greatly exceeded its common
title of Trash 80 -- a war reporter's best friend. And, being a relative cave
man with no computer skills (a condition that exists today after 40 years of
working with multiple generations of computers) I found the simplicity of it
wonderful. It also had attributes that most of the current generation of
laptops cannot match. For one, it used AA batteries, which a traveling reporter
could carry with him and not have to worry about local electrical currents or
availability. It also was nearly indestructible, another great attribute for
covering conflicts. I used it through the heat and talcum powder sand in Saudi
Arabia and Kuwait in Desert Shield/Desert Storm and in the primitive conditions
of Somalia and Haiti. With the worldport modem it would send copy over poor
long-distance phone lines of weak satellite connections that stymied reporters
with more modern laptops.
With my limited computer skills - aggravated by lack of
training - I found it challenging every time Copley News Service would give us
a new laptop or PC. It seemed every "improvement" made our work
harder. I still recall fondly the simplicity of DOS.
REBER: Yes, simplicity
was a great asset. Pull the thing out of the box, insert batteries and you’re
in business. Not nearly so simple with the “real” computers the U-T bought to
replace the aging Model 100s and 200s. As I recall, we bought 105 portable
computers from Computerland. We piled them in my office, and I started loading
the software. Nothing but problems. I could not get the communications software
to work. I finally figured out the computer had no I/O card. It was simply
incapable of talking over a phone line. Well, that was not a big problem for
most folks in those days, but it was a killer for a reporter. So, we shipped
all 105 computers back to Computerland for replacement, and the corporate guy
who sold us those computers was fired.
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EMMET PIERCE
writes:
Congrats to Patric Petrie, an excellent musician, for
having her image displayed along El Cajon Boulevard.
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ROGER CONLEE writes:
What is considered proper delivery time for the U-T? Lately
mine has been arriving after 7 a.m., which I consider too late.
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BRIAN CLARK writes:
Judging by the rambling Rick Steves' paragraph from the
Chicago Tribune that Carl Larsen sent in about the bird that collided with a
train, I'd definitely say he might well have been stoned. Not that I'd know
anything about that, of course...
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REBER: Tonight let’s wish Larry Ross
and Marcus Stern a Happy Birthday on April 30.
P.O. Box 2239
Ramona, CA 92065
U.S.A.
