Dinner with my Guidance Counselor

             Many years ago I was required to meet with my high school’s guidance counselor. I don’t recall his name now and this blog is not about him. In a round about way, this is about my mother. It is also about how things can work when they go well.

            I began my high school matriculation with a low opinion of anything ending with the word ‘school.’ School meant rules and dogma and lots of people bossing me around. But my first high school class of my first semester was a ten-week class called Guidance. We took a lot of tests in that class and wrote stuff about our interests. My primary interest then was sports. That hasn’t changed. And while reviewing my score on a stanine test (I got an 8 out of a possible 9 for having a big mouth and the willingness to use it), I saw a list of occupations that might be fitting.

            One of the suggestions was ‘Broadcasting.’ I instantly transposed the word ‘Sportscasting.’

            Boom. My future was determined. I would someday become the radio play-by-play man for the Los Angeles Rams. The remainder of my high school matriculation was nothing but the marking of time. History classes? Pointless because I already knew the history of the Rams. Math? Unneeded because I could already determine average yards per rush and pass completion stats. Biology? I already knew that knees, elbows and shoulders are made up of bone, ligaments and cartilage. English? One of my high school teachers told me that it was clear that I had no talent, so it was hard to have much faith in that individual. Hell, broadcasters talk more than they write anyway.

            Okay, fine. I did my time. Finally, on that day three years later, I went to the office and saw the counselor. His job, I think, was to point students toward a college with good programs for their interests or perhaps reliable training programs for the trades. He asked what I wanted to do and I said I was going to be a sportscaster.

            “Forget it,” he told me. “You’ll need to know every statistic about every player and team.”

            I looked at the idiot (yep, I still carry the grudge) and I said, “I already do.”

            At dinner that night, I told my mother about the encounter with the counselor. I told her what he said and what I said. And my mother slowly raised her eyes to meet mine. That usually meant I was in trouble. A lot of trouble. The more slowly she raised her eyes, the deeper the trouble I was in.

            But what my mother said this time was, “You’re right, Lee. You already do.”

            My mom never stopped believing in me. She asked me to run through my decision-making process once in a while, but she never stopped supporting my choices. And she was perfectly happy with my desire to become a broadcast journalist.

This month I’ll observe the first month of August I’ve ever gone through without my mom. It hurts. But what I carry with me is the memory of the words from the dinner table that night all that time ago. They gave me the freedom to chase my life’s desire. Those words started me on the path I followed for the next five decades.

“You’re right, Lee. You already do.”

Thanks mom.

 

                I write to recommend Joe Zagorski’s book, The 2003-Yard Odyssey: The Juice, The Electric Company, and an Epic Run For a Record. This book tells a story that had to be told but hadn’t been until now. It tells the story of Buffalo Bills running back O.J. Simpson’s run to a record during the 1973 NFL season.

            Any book about Simpson faces scrutiny. The controversial nature of Simpson’s post-football years can’t be – frankly should not be – erased from public memory. Zagorski addresses that issue, briefly, early in the book. “This is a football book, first and foremost,” Zagorski wrote, “And it should be kept in that vein of thought.”

            Joe Zagorski is a fellow member of the Professional Football Researchers Association and an author of several books. He has been awarded the PFRA’s Ralph Hay Award for Lifetime Achievement for Pro Football Research and Historiography. A respected researcher, Zagorski is currently working on a biography of Pro Football Hall of Fame lineman Larry Little.

            For Odyssey, Zagorski delved deeply into how the Bills and Simpson generated the first-ever 2,000-plus yard season for a running back. In 1973, NFL teams played 14-game regular seasons. The Bills did not reach the playoffs that season.

Using a wide assortment of first-person recollections and contemporary accounts, Zagorski uses the words of the players to bring the reader to understand how it all happened. Prince among the interviews was Zagorski’s 2022 conversation with Simpson. That alone ensures that Odyssey will be a prime source for researchers in the future. The reader will see that Simpson discussed a variety of football topics, including the effort the other members of the Buffalo offense had to make for Simpson to surpass the 2,000-yard barrier. Yes, Simpson was a controversial interview subject. But the story could not have been so effectively told without his participation and, as noted above, Zagorski checks an historic box.

            Odyssey is well constructed, and the research is top-notch. Zagorski devotes a chapter to each offensive position group; the line’s center and guards, the tackles and tight ends, the receivers, quarterbacks and running backs. Zagorski even includes a chapter about Buffalo’s defense. Each game is reviewed and each one of Simpson’s 332 carries are noted by down, distance, yard line, the type of play and the result. Those statistics are not stuck in the back of the book. They are included in the chapter which reviews each game, making this an easier book to read. Too often in today’s world, important information is noted at the end of books. That makes it unlikely that some readers will ever see the data. In this book, those stats are right where the reader is. When Zagorski wrote that this is a football book, he was exactly correct. Even the hard-core fan will gain a better understanding of what happened in each game, rush by rush.

            It is a tribute to Zagorski that Marv Levy, a Buffalo Bills legend who was not involved with the Bills in 1973, wrote the forward for this book. Levy wrote, “I mean, where else would you rather be, than right here, right now, reading this great book about Buffalo’s great past?”

            That’s how I feel about this book. I remember watching the highlight shows in 1973 to see how Simpson did each week as his yardage piled up. I wondered at that time how any back and any team could run the ball so well against NFL defenses every week. I’ve read Odyssey and now I know the answer.

I recommend that you do the same.

 

Lee Elder

Executive Director

Professional Football Researchers Association

 

WE HAVE LOST THE COMMISSIONER

 

One week, years ago, when I was the Sports Editor of a newspaper, I devoted my weekly column to the proposition that my mother should be named the Commissioner of Major League Baseball.

          My pal and sometimes co-worker Mickey Dale liked the column. In fact, when we speak nowadays, he’ll ask my about mom. But what he’ll say is, “How is The Commissioner?”

          Mom, I wrote, was an uncompromising disciplinarian. As a retired second grade teacher, she had the right training to handle the modern athlete. I wrote about a theoretical meeting with a player appealing a suspension. The player would get no sympathy from ME, I want you to know. I’ve been with The Commissioner when she was riled up. In my column, that make-believe player served his COMPLETE suspension.

And friends, my mother knew baseball. Do you understand the Infield Fly Rule? Mom did. She explained it frequently to anyone who didn’t know the rule. Too bad the umpires didn’t listen. With mom on their side, they’d have won more arguments.

          Do you remember when the Dodgers moved to LA? Mom did. She was in the Coliseum for Roy Campanella Night. She said Campy was the best catcher the Dodgers ever had. Want to argue? It’s a little late now but you had no chance of winning anyway.

          In my column, I wrote that the then Commissioner was little more than a fund-raising yes man for the owners. That’s pretty much what they have now, come to think of it. But mom would have run the show. Judge Kennesaw ‘Mountain’ Landis served as commissioner from 1920 through his death in 1944. Landis was a stern overseer of the game. He did the game a great service during his tenure. But Landis would have seemed like a baby kitten compared to my mom. Leo Durocher once won an argument with Landis. Leo would have stood no chance against mom.

          None.

          Well, we lost The Commissioner this week. She was 92. I harbored a small hope that she might be game for one more season with the Dodgers, one more shot at winning the World Series. That was not to be. She may have watched as last year’s bunch floundered around and lost in the first round of the playoffs again. Mom may have said, “The heck with this.”

          Mom is with her ancestors now and I envy all of them, even as I grieve. They are joyously together. But I don’t envy Judge Landis. Sooner or later mom will track him down. She’ll chew the Judge up one side and down the other for not seeing to it that MLB was integrated before the end of World War II. She’s right, he was wrong and he’s going to hear about it.

          And then my mother will sit down and prepare her 5 X 8 index cards so that she can keep score of the next Dodgers game. Where mom is now, the Angels are the home team, but I’m sure she’ll find a way to watch out-of-market games.

          “At this level,” mom will say, “I’m sure I can watch my Dodgers.”

          The Big Cable Guy in the Sky had better get that squared away before the season starts. The Commissioner will be waiting impatiently.