Life's Sweet Symphony
I once had the incredible luck to interview Al McGuire.
He was a basketball coach who basically invented ESPN�s style before anyone else invented cable. By that I mean, Al was an American original, the trailblazer of the coach who was passionate and quotable and didn�t care what anyone thought. He�d say and do what he perceived needed to be done, anything at anytime.
He road a Harley because he liked motorcycles, not to be cool or karmic as coaches would do later.
He argued with his players; heck, I saw him roll around on the floor grappling with one, long before every word could lead to a lawsuit, much less a hands-on approach. He let a player design uniforms with shirts worn outside of the pants because the player complained of the restrictions of a tight jersey � �Hell, if you can design a better uniform, do it.� � was the line from that adven-
ture. He won the
national champ-
ionship at
Marquette the year after Indiana and a
young Bob Knight
went undefeated
(Al�s team, had been No. 2 the year before). After Al, the championship went back to Kentucky and then Magic Johnson and Larry Bird redefined the idea of a true basketball rivalry in a college finale. After Al, Marquette was just a blip on the radar once more, a delightful once-in-a-lifetime champ never to be back on the main stage again..
Al walked away from hoops after his title year. Notice, I did not say he coached Marquette to the national championship. That brings the thread of this story to the defining line I got from Al.
For all the bluster, he was an intensely private man. He was the TV guy making it up as he went along; almost being Dick Vitale without the clownish preening.
That was on camera, where he was paid.
Off camera, he�d just as soon observe and plan the next three moves. So he came to the town where I was working to interview a Famous Coach who at the time was a friend of mine. She set me up to interview Al as a favor she thought she owed me.
He simply didn�t do interviews. But she made it a condition of him interviewing her. So I got the only newspaper one-on-one newspaper interview he ever did outside of his hometowns of Milwaukee and New York. He made sure I knew that.
He told me he wasn�t really a coach. He was delighted he was National Coach of the Year once. Because he wasn�t a coach and absurdity of an anti-coach named as best coach delighted him.
What he was, he said, was an orchestra leader.
He could talk the talk and do the recruiting. That was a gift and he used it. He was a skinny little New York guy who�d stroll right into the Bible belt and be perfectly comfortable discussing what the heck went into the local barbecue pot to make it taste so good and, by the way, would your son come up to Milwaukee and play hoops with my other guys?
He had two magnificent assistant coaches who did all that prep work. And practice work. One succeeded him at Marquette. The other is still coaching pretty well at Utah. So they handled the coaching, Al said.
What he did was assemble the players, like strings or trumpets or drums to make the sound. He�d let his assistants tune up the instruments. Come game time, lights on, tape machines rolling and he�d be the sideline orchestra leader, listening.
�All I was ever looking for was the right sound,� he said to me. When he heard it, when his team won the national title, that job was done and he walked away form coaching forever.
I have adopted the late Al McGuire�s concept as one of my guiding mantras.
All I am looking for is the right sound, the concert of serendipity in my head translated to these pages. Some days, I come mighty close to hearing it, maybe a note or two off. Sometimes, it�s way off. But we try. Every day, we try.
This is a team here. I can write. That is my gift.
We assemble our work in the editorial department and fill in the blanks every day with stuff we hope you want to read.
The photographers supply wonderful images. The writers write as best they can. I herd the cats toward the daily goal.
As a new day dawns, the pressmen receive the electronically transmitted images of the work we have done and feed it into the presses and we get actual daily miracles, a newspaper. A different one every day. There has been a different one every day long before I arrived and there will be a different one every day long after I leave,
For now, I am doing my part.
These newspapers get trucked to our main distribution points. The symphony of syncopation continues.
The delivery folks do their job. You get a newspaper. A different one every day. A daily miracle,
If one part of that venture fails, you don�t get it.
I have been aware for a very long time that I can write my stories and the pressmen can do their part and, if the delivery system fails, no one knows what we did. If I am late to press, then the pressmen are late to finish and the delivery folks don�t have a fair shot at their job. If the presses have too much ink or too many shredded newspaper rolls and they are late, then my being on time does not matter and the delivery folks can�t get a fair shake, They are the ones you know best and the ones who hear all the observations from readers first.
Every day, we try to make this work.
I am in awe of the other working parts. I admire our delivery folks going out every day, to rural routes and main streets, making sure you get what you expect that day. Snow. Rain. Melting temperatures. Flat tires or missing paper boys. You want your paper and they get it to you.
George W. �Bub� Schroll, Jr., died last week. Chances are, you didn�t know him. If you did, you were blessed.
Most everyone at the newspapers where he worked knew him. If you did not, it was assumed you did because he knew everybody. That�s how I was introduced about 10 years ago, �You know Bub,� said this guy. I didn�t, but I soon did.
He had the delivery part down to an art.
When I arrived here a few months ago, I was delighted to find he had already arrived. It was an instant comfort zone.
We both had started in the business the same way: Tossing newspapers before we hit double-digits, age-wise. I did it in Gary, he did it in Bremen, but it was a shared experience still. Bub had been a volunteer fireman, too, something more gutsy than I have ever attempted.
He liked to fish. He could golf. He was good at wood carving. His drawings were superb.
He could take the pulse of this business from his vantage point of delivering the papers and talking to you. If he told me something needed to be in the news pages, I listened. He was usually right on the mark.
The days of folks who started as 8 or 9-year-old delivery folks and find a life�s calling are fast becoming only stuff of legends. The dedication needed to be part of the magnificent orchestration we attempt every day is a wonderful thing.
Part of newspapering died last week. I shall miss him.
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