In the wake of the Day of Giving, checks go out
 


January 21, 2012: Dan Ficke recently presented hefty checks to four area organizations fighting cancer and helping patients and their families.

More information here. 

Media contact is Jay Clark of Lonewolf Communications, 303-775-0417 or jlc@lonewolfcommunications.net

In this family, it's the Mixed Feelings Bowl

December 4, 2011: Five years ago, we traveled to Orlando, Florida, for the Capital One Bowl matchup between Wisconsin and Arkansas. I still have the hat with both the Wisconsin "W" and the Arkansas Razorback on it. I enjoyed the experience and have affinity for the programs because both schools and their followers treated me well in the research process and after the publication of Horns, Hogs, and Nixon Coming (Arkansas) and Third Down and a War to Go (Wisconsin).

This one -- the Oregon vs. Wisconsin matchup in the upcoming Rose Bowl -- is even more packed with memories and significance for me ... and also my family.

That's my dad, Jerry, on the cover of the 1969 Oregon media guide, when he was the Ducks' head coach for the latter part of his 17-season stint at Oregon. Jerry Frei's teams and those times in Eugene were the basis of The Witch's Season, although I used dramatic license to turn Eugene into Cascade, Oregon, and the team into the Cascade Fishermen. 

And, yes, that's him again in Wisconsin's 1942 team picture, No. 65 in the middle row, between two other sophomores -- Ken Currier (64), his lifelong best friend; and Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch (40).

As detailed in Third Down, this '42 Badgers team won one version of the national championship, then scattered for wartime service. Two of the players in this picture, including Dave Schreiner, their two-time All-American end, Big Ten MVP and co-captain, were killed in the Battle of Okinawa. Virtually all of them served heroically, whether that meant medals or doing what was asked and assigned. My father flew 67 missions as a P-38 fighter pilot in the Pacific before returning to play for the Badgers again in 1946 and '47. Of course, his biography in that '69 press guide didn't mention his wartime service, because men like him didn't talk about those things.

I've rediscovered my Wisconsin roots and become an adopted Badger, so to speak. I've been grateful as the Buckyville community; plus Barry Alvarez, Vince Sweeney, Terry Murawski and Bret Bielema (and others) all have been terrific in acknowledging the program's past -- and the role the '42 Badgers played in it. Five years ago, the names and numbers of two of those players went on the stadium facade, and I was honored to be present when it was done for Schreiner.

And I do have a No. 65 Wisconsin jersey with "FREI" on the back.

So, yes, I'm closer to the Wisconsin program nowadays.

But the Oregon constituency and especially my father's former Oregon players have been very respectful of my father -- and more -- since his departure after the 1971 season (that story, which was far from simple, is pretty much told in The Witch's Season). And there's a part of me that can't shake what I remember from the first 17 years of my life in Eugene. I rooted for the Ducks as if it were life and death. To a coach's son, that's what it can seem to be. I was bad enough then; I know I would find it very difficult being a coach's kid in today's environment.     

If I'm being overly diplomatic here, I hope you understand. I still feel the ties to both programs.  

Now, some other things from Jerry Frei's Oregon days...
  


Note what's missing in the above...what he was doing in a three-year gap. What's significant about that, again, is how typical it was for those who served.


Above: Oregon's 1970 coaching staff. You might have heard of some of these guys. Left to right: Ron Stratten, John Robinson, Jack Roche, Norm Chapman, Jerry Frei, Bruce Snyder, John Marshall, George Seifert, Dick Enright. Gunther Cunningham was a graduate assistant.

Postscript: This just in ... Oregon 45, Wisconsin 38.

Veterans Day Week Tribute
 
See also: Nov. 11 newspaper story on Navy dive bomber radioman-gunner Don Straub, former Colorado A&M and Denver Bears baseball star

November 6, 2011: The Denver Post periodically has been carrying a display ad on its online sports section front for the  Nov. 19 Spreading Wings Gala at the Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum. The event, also called "Red Tails: An Evening With the Tuskegee Airmen," honors the members of the 332nd Fighter Group and the 477th Bombardment Group. 

More information is here.

Update, January 21, 2012: The movie Red Tails opened this weekend, and I'm looking forward to seeing it soon.

In honor of the Tuskegee Airmen, here's part of the "Fourth Down and a War to Go" chapter in my book Playing Piano in a Brothel. That chapter is about the players in the 1942 Colorado-Colorado A&M game and their World War II service, and this passage features A&M's John Mosley, who became a Tuskegee Airman.

Number 14 John Mosley, Guard

 

Many of the players in the 1942 game came from Denver, and one of them was a trailblazer. Aggies guard John Mosley was raised in a home on Marion Street, across the street from Whittier School. John Sr. was porter on the Union Pacific Railroad and his wife, Henrietta, was a housewife.

 

"The old expression was that it takes a village to raise a child," John Jr. told me. "Denver was actually a village at that time, so all the neighbors and community people in the area helped raise the children. We couldn't go two or three steps without someone saying a word of encouragement or criticizing us for what we were doing or not doing."

 

Significantly, the Aggies' program was integrated long before the University of Colorado's. I came across Mosley while researching my book Third Down and a War to Go.

 

At the time, covenants and standards essentially prevented black families from living anywhere other than extreme northeast Denver. "The types of things going on in Denver were quite similar to what was happening down South, in terms of drinking fountains and the various department stores," he told me. The segregated lunch counters in downtown Denver included those at Kress and Woolworth, and he took pride in being part of the movement that led to their integration in later years.

 

I asked how those experiences couldn't have left him embittered.

 

"I didn't look at it that way," Mosley said. "I looked at it as an opportunity to move ahead. I really didn't have any bad feelings about who was responsible for the segregated activities and the types of discrimination we experienced. I was too busy trying to ensure that I got everything I possibly could out of school and also to participate in athletics."

 

Mosley also was active at his church and with the Boy Scouts, the all-black Troop 150, and sang in a quartet called the "Junior Mills Brothers." The quartet appeared in many of the Denver theaters and also on KLZ radio. Mosley laughed and remembered with wonder that they once were paid $5 for each gig.

 

He often went fishing for crawdads at City Park, using pieces of liver as bait. "We'd go down to Lafayette Street and sell crawdads to people," he said. "Crawdad meat was considered very tasty at the time." He also visited the old National Guard field on what is now Park Hill Golf Course and watched planes land and take off. "I pretended I was flying," he said.

 

A National Merit Scholar at Manual, Mosley went to Fort Collins with his childhood buddy, Charles Cousins, also the son of a Pullman porter, and enrolled at A&M. "I wanted to go to school with my buddy," Mosley said. "He went up there with the intention of going to veterinary school."

 

Mosley was an all-city fullback at Manual, but he wasn't pursued to play collegiate football, even under the limited recruiting practices of the times.

There were nine black students at the school. Most of the time, six men shared a small house off campus. Four of Mosley's housemates were Harry Martin, Eugene Combs, Jesse Douglas, and Junior James. "We called ourselves, 'The Lonesome Boys,'" Mosley said.

 

Most of the Fort Collins restaurants wouldn't serve blacks. "We would load up on food in Denver, as we came down on weekends," Mosley said. "Our whole existence was cooking for ourselves. We could eat at the student union and there was an ice-cream parlor where we could get ice cream. All the rest had signs up. Some of the things were so demeaning, I didn't want to recall them, but I do remember, 'No Niggers allowed,' or, 'We don't serve Niggers here.'"

 

Cousins and Mosley went back and forth from Denver to Fort Collins during their college years. "As a result of working on the Union Pacific railroad in the summertime, Charles and I were able to acquire Model A Fords," Mosley said. "We went up in tandem because if one broke down, we were able to have the other pull or shove or render some help to make sure we made it down from Fort Collins to Denver or back up."

 

Housemates nicknamed him "One-Tea Bag Mosley," because he tried to nurse a single bag through a month. They saw no humor in him trying out for football as a freshman in 1939. "I just showed up and asked for a uniform," Mosley said. To reemphasize: before that season, there wasn't a single black player in the Mountain States Conference, which included CU.

 

Nearing his thirtieth anniversary as the Aggies' head coach, Harry Hughes welcomed Mosley. "I guess he felt that he knew he was retiring soon and to have a black on his football team was no big deal because they couldn't do anything to him," Mosley said. "And he recognized that I could contribute to the team."

  

His teammates' reactions, especially at first, were mixed.

 

"I had to sell myself not only to Harry Hughes and the coaches but to the players," Mosley said. "There were many players from Texas and the Western slope, farmers and so forth, who didn't like black people. That was quite an experience to gain the support of my teammates. My first night out for football, one of the players from the Western Slope tackled me, and in doing so, he slapped his hands down on my helmet at the ears. That actually knocked me out. When I came to, Eugene Combs was there on the sidelines watching and he was laughing. He said, 'I told you not to go out for football. I told you these guys weren't going to treat you right.' But the fact that I could play football and block and tackle was productive in showing what I could offer to the team. I won't call out any names now, but there were several players on my team who never accepted me. But most did."

 

He played fullback until he was switched to guard as a senior.

 

"Naturally, there was name-calling and that type of thing," he said. "I had no problem in my responses, because I didn't respond. It was my teammates, Dude Dent and Woody Fries, who were quite vocal in ensuring that those voices didn't get out too much. The way I responded was through my ability to tackle and to run the ball hard. I never had to 'fight my own battles' on the football field. There were some things that were said, and that was constant, but if anyone tried to challenge me any other way, all my teammates would come and get in their way. I always backed off. I got several awards for being a good sportsman, and that was one thing I didn't have to worry about. The way I got around that was on the next play or subsequent plays, if I was blocking someone or tackling, they knew that they got hit and blocked. So you always had a chance to get back at those who weren't too polite."

 

During the 1940 season, when Mosley was a sophomore, the Aggies traveled to Salt Lake City to play Utah. On Friday, they went to a movie theater. An usher told Mosley he would have to sit in the balcony.

 

"As the team went in, Coach Hughes asked the players, 'Hey, where's Mosley?' Somebody said, 'They sent him upstairs.' He told the assistant coach, 'You go in there and make this announcement: All Aggies, get the hell out of this damn theater!' The team came out and they were asking, 'What's wrong?' And Coach Hughes said, 'We're not going to that damn theater because they wouldn't let Mosley sit downstairs.'"

 

By the time the 1942 season began, Mosley was down to one roommate, Harry Martin, who was majoring in chemistry and went on to be a physician. They lived near the campus. Mosley considered CU the enemy on the playing field and noted that while the Buffaloes' football program hadn't yet been integrated, he had friends attending the school. "We used to go down to visit them, and they were restricted, as we were," Mosley said. "They were off campus, on Water Street. That was the black district down there and they lived with black families."

 

At A&M, Mosley was named vice president of his class as a junior and senior and hoped to become the first black in Advanced ROTC at A&M. "I had the correct academics and was well-known on campus, and I thought it was a shoo-in for me," he said. He took a physical at Fitzsimons Army Hospital.

 

"Understand, I had been playing football for six years and wrestling and taking physical exams every year," he said. "I went back up to Fort Collins and was awaiting my assignment for Advanced ROTC, and they said, 'Sorry, you didn't make it; you didn't pass the physical.'"

 

Doctors told him he had a heart murmur.

 

I asked Mosley if he was an angry young man at that point, given what he was going through in Fort Collins and in football and wrestling. "Very definitely, but I had had some very good white friends and buddies up at CSU," he said. "I certainly wasn't angry at them. I was angry at the system. The president up there was a guy named [Roy] Green. I never will forget Green. He was a racist S.O.B."

 

When the door was shut to Advanced ROTC, Mosley sought an alternative.

 

"They were starting up a program called civilian pilot training, and it was at most of the colleges around the United States," he said. The civilian pilots ferried military aircraft to bases around the country or even to bases overseas. "So I decided, 'This is the way I am going to beat this game,'" Mosley said. "You had to get your own flight physical and pay for it. I got my money together, went to the flight physician, and he examined and passed me."

 

He started taking flying lessons in Fort Collins.

 

"When you signed up for civilian pilot training, you had to either sign up for the Army Air Forces or the Navy," he said. "At that time, the Navy wasn't even thinking about having blacks fly their airplanes. The only thing that was left was this experimental group, down in Tuskegee."

 

The all-black 99th Fighter Squadron was formed at Tuskegee in June 1941. By late 1942, the 332nd Fighter Group was considered the umbrella organization for the Tuskegee Airmen. Mosley made it his goal to join the Airmen.

 

Before he entered the service, an experience as his graduation ceremony approached left him reluctant to return to Fort Collins for many years. Fort Collins businessman "Sparks" Alford clumsily tried to congratulate Mosley.

 

"Sparks was really the sponsor of the team," Mosley said. "He went on all of our trips and he owned the Burlington, the bus run from Fort Collins to Denver. He did give me a job of mopping up the bus station, which was just a little cubbyhole down by the train station. I worked for Sparks for two years, I guess, maybe three, and we were good friends because he was a sponsor of the team. Whatever the team needed he would certainly work very hard to try and give the team that type of support. In getting my diploma, I was the happiest person in the world, thinking, 'Boy, I really have it made,' and that type of thing. I saw Sparks, and Sparks came up to me and said, 'Hey, John, very good, if you every get in jail just give me a buzz and I'll get you out.' That to me was the most disappointing thing, to suggest that I might be a candidate for jail. I'd never been to jail in my life and certainly hadn't been involved in any problems up in Fort Collins. For him to think that the only thing I could do was to get involved in trouble some way left a very bad taste in my mouth."

 

Mosley was astounded when he wasn't drafted after graduation. "My peers were given their degrees early so they could go in," Mosley. "I got my degree, and my process was sitting and waiting. September came along, and nothing. I thought for sure I would be going down to Tuskegee." He complained to the draft board, and he was told that there had been a mix-up and his draft board believed he already had been called up. Soon, he was called in to the Army.

 

Instead of being sent to Tuskegee to fly, however, he was dispatched to a segregated field artillery unit at Fort Sill.

 

"I started writing letters, along with my parents, to congressmen and the White House," Mosley said. "I said, 'Look, I have actually been trained in flying, and why haven't I been sent down to Tuskegee?'"

 

He got his wish two months later.

 

"When I was going through," he said, "they didn't graduate any more pilots than they needed with the 99th [Fighter Squadron]. If they lost two people in the 99th, two people would graduate. They would eliminate you for anything-shoes not shined or for any attitude you had that wasn't appropriate. I often tell people I'm the best pilot in the world, but there were pilots better than I was who got washed out for nothing because they didn't realize they had to demonstrate they could out-strategize their white instructors. Those were the kinds of things we had to go through.

 

"The one goal I set for myself was I wanted to get those silver wings. I knew I had to do everything in the world to scrap and to prove myself. Although we had black instructors through primary training, they were all white instructors at basic and advanced. That's where the washouts were frequent. We used to say, 'How many did we lose in Europe, three or four?' And three or four would graduate from the next class. It was that sensitive and [there was] quite a bit of trying to outdo your fellow classmates so you would be selected to advance. That wasn't very pleasant, either, because you were fighting against other blacks down there trying to make it. I didn't tell my flight instructors that I already knew how to fly."

 

Why not?

 

Mosley said the word was that instructors would feel threatened by that and find a way to "wash out" that Airman.

 

Following pressure from black-owned newspapers and from the White House, the first black airmen served in combat, flying fighters in North Africa and Europe. In 1945, Mosley was one of the first blacks trained to be a bomber pilot. "They didn't trust us with B-17s, with bombs," Mosley said. "They thought the first thing we'd do was head for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. They really had to sell Congress with 'we think we can trust those guys now,' so we were permitted to fly B-25s."

 

Part of the training was at Tucson, and then at Freeman Field in Indiana.

 

"They had a provision that there would be no black officer above the rank of captain, and there wouldn't be any white officers below the rank of major," Mosley said. "The white officers were all considered instructor personnel, and they had an officers' club they called the Instructors' Club. To ensure that we as black officers recognized that we weren't supposed to use it, they had two MPs standing up there. We discussed this and said, 'This is not right.'"

 

The angriest was pilot Daniel "Chappie" James. Mosley said James announced that the pilots should just storm into the officers' club. Eventually about forty of them did just that and were arrested, but Mosley was on a training mission to South Carolina at the time.

 

"The commander of the airfield used to carry around a swagger stick and put it under his arm," Mosley said. "We used to mock him by picking up a stick and carrying that. He decided to court-martial everybody involved. He had issued a statement that we were supposed to sign, that we understood we were not supposed to go into the officers' club. Of course, nobody signed it. We were sent back to Kentucky by Fort Knox. They thought by moving us back there, it would be a more secure thing. They thought there might be a revolution."

 

While the insurrectionists were awaiting their court-martials, Mosley said, they were under confinement at the Kentucky airfield in a barracks behind barbed wire. "German prisoners also were housed there, and they had the complete run of the base," he said. "They could use the PX. The airfield was somewhat separate from the Fort Knox unit, but the Germans had assignments over there, picking up the trash and things like that. It was most embarrassing to watch those German prisoners and then to look over there to the barracks that housed the guys who were under arrest, and the German prisoners had the full run of the base, it seemed like. So you knew what they thought of us. That was really disturbing."

 

Mosley said that the court-martial was held in the base's theater. Future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall was one of the defending attorneys.

 

"It was a comical show for all of us blacks on base because we had to get there at six in the morning to get in line and get in the theater, because everyone wanted to crowd in there to watch this court-martial," Mosley said. "It really was the white base commander who was on trial. It was embarrassing to him and to the armed forces and the War Department, and following that, only about four people received a very minimal reprimand and letters in their files."

 

By then promoted from copilot to pilot, Mosley and others were ticketed to fly in Pacific combat had the war continued into late 1945. As a reservist after the war, he was asked to write a position paper about the possible integration of the armed services and was told it would it would reach President Harry Truman's desk. He doubts that it did. But that report also is part of the reason why he always felt he had at least a small role in Truman's decision to integrate the military.

 

"The integration of the armed forces was really a prelude to all the kinds of civil rights activities that took place in this country," Mosley said. "That's why I use the Tuskegee Airmen as being the basis for all of this developing and making America what it should be. You asked why I wasn't bitter. It was because I was part of the movement to prove that we were capable of making a contribution to the development of this great nation. We had the foresight to know that this would be the best nation in the world. And it is the best nation in the world. The Armed Forces would have never been integrated had it not been for the Tuskegee Airmen proving they could fight, wanted to fight, could be relied on to fight, and were not afraid of giving their lives to accomplish their missions and goals."

 

During the Cold War years, Mosley spent reserve stints in the new U.S. Air Force flying supplies to West Germany and North Africa and also worked for the YMCA. During the Vietnam War, he was an operations officer in Thailand as U.S. pilots flew bombing missions over North Vietnam. He retired from the Air Force in 1970 as a lieutenant colonel and served as special assistant to the undersecretary in the Department of Health, Education and Welfare in Washington before returning to Denver. He worked at the regional office for the Department of Health and Human Services until he retired.

 

Mosley was inducted into the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame in 2009, and I was honored to introduce him at the banquet.

Last Surviving Member of the first NCAA Basketball Champions Passes Away 

September 23, 2011: Earlier this year, when I was trying to decide on a next book project, I had the pleasure of speaking on the phone with retired Admiral John Dick, the lone surviving member of the NCAA basketball tournament’s original champions — the 1939 Oregon Ducks, affectionately labeled “The Tall Firs.”

I did a lot of preliminary “first-wave” research, and I even had a title for a possible book: The First March Madness.

That team’s lore was part of my upbringing.

My father coached football at Oregon for 17 years, so when I was young, I spent many hours in the ivy-draped McArthur Court, attending games and youth athletic summer camps, hanging around, or even playing in recreational games with coaches and their families. (We had the keys and knew how to turn on the lights.)

The Mac Court display cases on the floor level were history courses, touching on all Oregon sports programs, including football and the storied track and field teams.

The “Tall Firs” always had honored spots there.

Dick was a pilot during World War II before his military career took a turn, so to speak, and he was the captain of the super-carrier USS Saratoga during the Vietnam War era. Even while in the service, he stayed in touch with his alma mater, periodically visited the campus and was considered an ardent Ducks booster, so he knew my father — his fellow World War II pilot. Admiral Dick retired and moved back to Eugene in 1973, after my family had moved to Denver.

When I was with The Oregonian in Portland from 1985-93, I was reintroduced to the Tall Firs’ coach, Howard Hobson, by then a revered elder statesman on the state’s sports scene, and was fortunate to get to know him better in his final years. He wrote a book, Shooting Ducks, an omnibus look at the history of the Oregon basketball program that touched on the Tall Firs … but not enough. I think “Hobby” was excessively modest.

So I’ve always felt I knew a little about the Tall Firs, and this year, I fooled around with the idea of finding out more. A lot more. And doing that book.

I’m old school in my record keeping, and one of the drawers in my den filing cabinets now is labeled “First March Madness.”

Although far from complete, that surface research convinced me there likely was a compelling story to be told, especially as a contrast to what the NCAA tournament and basketball itself have become over 70 years later.

I didn’t want to do a book that representing a roundup and rewriting of archival and previously published information. There are a lot of books, about sports and everything else, out there like that nowadays, and some of them do very well. But I wanted it be a fresh telling, going beyond what could be found in the newspapers of the time, and in subsequent accounts, and that’s where interviews with John Dick would help.

The book would have been about that team; its young and visionary coach; that first NCAA tournament (actually put on by the National Association of Basketball Coaches) and how it came about; the different game of those times; and what happened to the players after their collegiate careers. Even the stories about Dick over the years merely mentioned the barest facts of his military service … but provided no details. I wanted to ask him about all of that … and more. Admiral Dick was honored at the Ducks’ nationally televised spring football game, but he subsequently suffered a fall at home and was hospitalized. He was back home when I finally spoke with him. I had sent him a letter expressing my interest and enclosed a copy of Third Down and a War to Go, saying my approach with The First March Madness probably would be similar. He was enthusiastic and said he would be more than willing to cooperate with me if I went ahead and did the book. I told Admiral Dick that if we moved forward, I’d like to do come out and see him in Eugene. He said when he felt better, he would give me a call and we could see if we could work out a timeframe for the visit. It went beyond a possible book. I wanted to sit down with him and listen. I wanted to get to know him, whether I did a book or not.

I didn’t hear from him and I didn’t want to pester him. So I waited.

I moved on to another project I had been pondering, and that — my sixth book — will be out in the summer of 2012. But I still had The First March Madness in the back of my mind, and if Admiral Dick had called and said he was ready to go, sitting down for the series of taped interviews it would take, I would have been on a plane to Eugene.

Sad to say, Admiral Dick passed away on September 22 in Eugene.

He was 92.

I’m always going to regret not getting moving on this sooner. My sympathy to his family and all who knew him.

The Beleaguered Colorado Symphony Orchestra and the Theater Superstar 
 October 29, 2011: On Saturday night, my wife and I were at the Boettcher Concert Hall in the Denver Center for the Performing Arts complex, in our $29 seats in the third row. (Yes, that’s what you can find if you shop…and accept an extreme angle.) Courtney Hershey Bress stepped to the front of the stage, introduced herself as the Colorado Symphony Orchestra’s principal harpist, and began by thanking, among other CSO sponsors, The Denver Post.

Theater icon Patti LuPone — who, indeed was great in the ensuing concert — was about to appear with the beleaguered CSO.

I looked around and thought: Where is everyone?

That’s not a judgment. As I’ve often said, and I’m not backing down, I believe in letting the marketplace rule, whether for sports or anything else. The sentiment that attending games is some sort of litmus test for responsible citizenship – especially when it comes from media members who haven’t paid for tickets since they got into the business – is almost as galling as the frequent and insulting assumption among the modern media that if you’re a true sports fan, you are “all-sports, all-the-time” obsessed and have no other interests outside of family and work.  

But on Saturday night, I was genuinely curious how it was, especially in a market that routinely fills the Buell Theater in the same complex for weeks of performances of a touring show such as Wicked, a superstar – or perhaps the superstar — of the theatre business could be performing with the CSO in front of many empty seats.

LuPone has been a television star (Life Goes On), a Broadway star in both drama (e.g., Master Class) and musicals (e.g., Evita, Sweeney Todd and Gypsy), sold thousands of soundtrack and live concert performance CDs, and wrote a best-selling autobiography.

Other than that…

Yet I’d guess the house was about two-thirds filled for Lupone’s one-night appearance with the CSO. I'm aware that she appeared in Denver with the CSO two years ago, also, because we weren't able to make that appearance. Maybe that had something to do with it.

But to bring sports into it, Denver is a market that continues to pack Coors Field to a stunning extent for a Colorado Rockies franchise that has set the standard for considering mediocrity good enough and taking its fan base for granted.

After thanking the sponsors, Courtney Hershey Bress, with good humor, asked if we might use our cell phones to text a $10 contribution to the CSO. (27722, type “bravo” and hit send.)

That underscored the recent financial crisis that has put the CSO in the headlines, but apparently hasn’t sent consumers running to the ticket site. Because we have ordered tickets through the CSO site several times, we got the recent emails and follow-ups about the cancellations in the CSO season. We were assured that at least to a certain extent, despite mass resignations from the CSO board of the directors, the show – if not all shows — would go on. Even in the “Soundings” program on Saturday night, there was an insert page from Mary Rossick Kern and Jerome H. Kern, who sponsor the concertmaster chair of violinist Yumi Hwang-Williams, who – ironically? coincidentally? significantly? – wasn’t with the orchestra for this performance.

This, from the Kerns’ letter:

"Orchestras all over the world, including our Colorado Symphony, face daunting financial challenges. Some have decided that the fight was too hard and have disappeared; others have filed for bankruptcy. It is our firm belief that neither of these options is necessary or acceptable for the Colorado Symphony. It is also our belief that changes in programs and options within the orchestra’s existing collaborative structure will permit us to thrive financially and achieve even greater levels of excellence. For these reasons, we have decided to serve once again as Co-Chairs of the Colorado Symphony Association. We have no illusions that we can accomplish this alone: we have already been joined by a number of talented people who believe in this great orchestra. Your support is equally important, and you can help by attending concerts and by contributing financially. Together we can build the foundation that will sustain our orchestra now and for generations to come.”

We’re casual symphony fans in this sense: Helen (who proudly claims “Gleek” status and is a musical theater devotee) and I are not season ticket-holders in any of the packages, or huge classical music aficianados, and we pick our spots. In the past couple of years, we’ve attended “Too Hot to Handel,” the annual reinterpretation of Handel’s Messiah; plus “pop” performances with guest artists Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and the theater world's Michael Cavanaugh, Idina Menzel (at Red Rocks), and Hugh Panaro with Susan Egan.
 
One classical performance I regret missing was that of violin virtuoso Joshua Bell, primarily because of his good-humored role in the famous Washington Post story about him playing and “panhandling” at a Washington DC Metro stop. (It’s featured in Morning Miracle, Dave Kindred’s brilliant recent book about the Post.)

We’ve come to expect and appreciate the good-humored touch of resident conductor Scott O’Neil, who handles the baton on most of the “pop” nights. (LuPone brought her own musical director and conductor, Robert Fisher, so O’Neil got to poke fun at himself during the warm-up set with the CSO about having to step aside later.)

But when the news broke about the CSO’s troubles and I read about some of the issues involved, I admit I was stunned. Of course, there inevitably was talk about salary “givebacks” and other cutbacks to go with the canceled performances, but I was floored when I saw what the musicians made. I’m not insulting them when I say this, but expressing shock. It’s peanuts. Their salaries certainly are not the problem. They’re brilliant at what they do, many have invested bushels of money in their training, many have advanced degrees, and … they’re … making … peanuts. I admit that my perspective also is affected because I know what a utility infielder, a backup small forward, or a third-line winger makes. Again, I’m not passing judgment because the marketplace rules, but…

In Denver, we could go on without the CSO. Same with other cities and other orchestras. I know that. I also know I’m not savvy enough to break down the CSO’s issues and figure out why it is struggling so significantly with ticket prices that, like sports, can get into the three-digit range, but without the stratospheric salaries. I’m not qualified to judge whether this has been a matter of management missteps and miscalculation or simply the marketplace ruling, especially in economically challenging times that also affect private contributions to the arts.

If I’m interpreting the coverage correctly, though, I also know that despite the surprising number of empty seats Saturday night, ticket sales overall – including in the season-ticket areas – have been considered at least decent.

All I can say is I hope ways are found to keep the CSO alive.

One suggestion for the CSO and all the arts: Helen and I remember the days when there was a “Ticket Bus” in downtown Denver, offering half-price or cut-rate “rush” tickets on the days of shows to theater and music events. Get folks in the unsold seats, whether those last-second customers are students or simply bargain-hunters deciding to spend a night on the town. I’m thinking that, if nobody else, there were plenty of local young musicians and thespians who might have been more prone to come at “rush” prices. And if the goal of the Pops series especially is to expose non-classical fans to the CSO, the goal should be to fill the building … at any price. Even if that’s for Patti LuPone, who was considered a “special” attraction and not part of any season-ticket packages. (Perhaps there are “rush” ticket mechanisms in place; but if there are, I haven’t heard about them.)

Bring that back.

By the way, LuPone’s performance with the CSO was worth what anyone paid…and a lot more.

Skype is now officially foolproof: A fun talk with a terrific group in Madison

August 17, 2011: Whenever a discussion group chooses one of my books for its sessions, I'm honored.

I'm especially grateful that a special book club in  Madison designed for the poor and homeless read, studied  and talked about Third Down and a War to Go.

My thanks to all participating in the group at Madison's Bethel Lutheran Church and to organizer Suzanne Alexander, who does such terrific work in the community. And to the Wisconsin Historical Society Press and Kathy Borkowski, for being so helpful.
 
To conclude their several weeks of discussion about the book, we hooked up via Skype on Tuesday morning, and here's Suzanne's blog account of the session, which included an unscheduled appearance by Vici the Afghan Hound, who is my dog when he behaves and my wife's dog when he doesn't.

I very much thank Suzanne for the kind words and am humbled. 

Here are earlier entries on Suzanne's blog about the group's discussion:

August 10

July 27

Lights, Camera ... Woooo, Pig, Sooie and Hook 'em Horns

May 20, 2011: I recently finished the screenplay adaptation of my book Horns, Hogs, and Nixon Coming. If anyone wants to explore joining the project and getting this made, by all means contact Jeanne Field of Windfall Management in Los Angeles at windfall1@roadrunner.com.

Here's the HHNC page on this web site. There's much more specific information there about the content of the book and the reaction to it from Pulitzer Prize winners and even a former president.

And this is the teaser summary on the postcards plugging my five books: "A president and a future president in the stands. No. 1 Texas vs. No. 2 Arkansas for the national championship with a huge national television audience and radio listeners around the world. Jammed with revelatory material about the game and the powder-keg events surrounding it, this is a landmark work about the Last of How It Was." (Little-known fact: Simon and Schuster originally listed the book's working title as The Last of How it Was.)

An outgrowth of my 1994 Sporting News story on the Texas-Arkansas game, the book is an omnibus work about the teams and their 1969 seasons, and is rather democratic in the sense that I profiled most of the starters for both teams to provide a sense of background and context.

I started with surface news reporting of the time that others had been satisfied with as source material and plowed on, interviewing former players, coaches, students, activists, professors, prominent political figures and others. I quickly realized that a treasure trove of amazing material about this game and its setting had been there for many years, but had gone unreported. So much was going on -- much more than football. My mouth kept dropping. I've now heard of others attempting to use the material in the book as the basis for their own projects, but I'm going to be unashamedly protective of HHNC as an intellectual property. The revelatory material in HHNC makes it unique as a feature movie property about the game, the men in it, and the many intriguing figures involved.

After many, many, many inquiries from would-be producers and writers intrigued by the book, it took eight years following publication for me to agree to tackle an HHNC script myself. In fact, although it was my first book, this is my third screenplay adaptation of my own books, following adaptations of Third Down and a War to Go and The Witch's Season.  I heard many suggestions of approaches other screenwriters would take in adapting HHNC and winced at most of them. I always realized that short of turning the book into a multi-part series -- and I consider Band of Brothers to be the gold standard for that -- I would have to considerably tighten the focus when transforming my work to a script. I always had a thought in the back of my mind about the tack I would take in adapting HHNC and I was pleasantly surprised that after I finally agreed to write the script, that approach -- with some minor tweaks, plus suggestions and feedback from a prominent player in the game -- worked well in the actual writing.

So the script is out there ... and Jeanne Field has more information for anyone interested in joining the "team," in one way or another. 

Bob Hanzlik finally gets his deserved letter

May 14, 2011: Portland-area resident Bob Hanzlik, at left, is the sole surviving starter from the 1942 Wisconsin Badgers team I profiled in Third Down and a War to Go. The letter jacket he’s wearing in the photo is new, signifying the awarding of a letter he was denied after the ’42 season by a sometimes-petty Badgers coach Harry Stuhldreher. 
 
More on that in a second…

Sadly, most of his teammates have left us.

Since 2001, I often have visited the grave of one of them, my father, at Fort Logan National Cemetery, where my mother — to whom the book was dedicated — joined him two months ago.

Two starters from the team that won a version of the national championship — end Dave Schreiner, a two-time All-American and the ’42 Big Ten Conference MVP; and tackle Bob Baumann — were killed in the war.

When the hardback edition of the book came out in 2004, Hanzlik had more company. Roughly one-third of the ’42 players still were alive, including Crazylegs Hirsch. Today, that number has dwindled to a handful, and most of them were younger reserves. Hanzlik is the end at the far right-hand side of the book’s cover.

In the book, I told the story of how the admittedly headstrong Hanzlik late in the season got on the wrong side of Stuhldreher, the one-time Four Horseman quarterback at Notre Dame under Knute Rockne. They had a falling-out during the team’s only loss, a controversial defeat at Iowa, and Hanzlik then was benched for the final two games, against Northwestern and Minnesota.

The backdrop was that star fullback Pat Harder, later a pro star and NFL umpire, essentially led a rebellion in practice the week after the Iowa loss, making it clear to the coach that even players used to blindly obeying orders had lines — and Stuhldreher was crossing them with his petulant actions and a ridiculously punitive practice. The coach backed down. But he held a grudge against Hanzlik, then listed as a junior, saying Hanzlik wouldn’t play again that season, but that if he wanted to be on the squad as a senior in 1943 (that became a moot point), he would continue to practice and accept his banishment.

This from the book:

Hanzlik, still in the doghouse, didn’t play a second against Northwestern. He got in deeper trouble when he didn’t go back with the team on the train.

Stuhldreher chalked up another black mark against the big end from Chippewa Falls. “I said, ‘The heck with you, I’m leaving,’ ” recalled Hanzlik. “I left. I didn’t accompany the team back, and that was wrong on my account. I’m not making excuses, but I’m eighteen, nineteen years old, and I couldn’t stand not playing. I was very selfish, because other guys deserved a chance to play, too, and I’ve regretted that for a long time.”

Hanzlik again practiced all week, but didn’t play against Minnesota.

Stuhldreher was the athletic director too, and so dictatorial, he was able to unilaterally rule that Hanzlik wouldn’t be awarded a letter for ’42 — a season in which he started seven of the 10 games (he was injured for one) and played an ironman’s role for Wisconsin’s greatest team. That was ridiculous and unfair.

Hanzlik ended up in the Marines as one of the V-12 program Badgers playing tackle for Michigan while in training in Ann Arbor in 1943. In this picture at left of one of Michigan's '43 starting lineups, made up mostly of military men studying and training on the campus, Hanzlik is the left tackle, or second from the right in the line. Crazylegs Hirsch is right behind him and the other two former Badgers are center Fred Negus and left guard John Gallagher.

After the war, Hanzlik enrolled at Minnesota and was ruled to have eligibility remaining because of loosened war-time and immediate post-war standards, and he played for the Gophers in 1946.
 
The feat of playing for three schools — Wisconsin in ’41 and ’42, Michigan in ’43, and Minnesota in ’46 — caused Ripley’s Believe it Or Not to feature him in 1951. But he always was short one deserved letter, and when Hanzlik’s family wrote to Badgers AD Barry Alvarez recently, asking if something could be done, Alvarez and Terry Murawski, the head of the National W Club, responded.

They sent Hanzlik a letter — on that new letter jacket. The picture above is of the Mother’s Day party at which his family, including daughter Heidi Hanzlik, presented the jacket to him, with “On Wisconsin” playing in the background. I’m assuming the official record will be changed, too, adding a ’42 letter to the one he long has been listed for in 1941, and I’m impressed and thrilled by the Badgers’ response to the request from the family. I also have to note that when I was researching the book, Bob Hanzlik’s memory was amazing, and he was quite helpful.

(Postscript, because I’ve been asked about this a lot: Although Bill Hanzlik also has lived in both Oregon and Wisconsin — he was a high school star in both states — the former Nuggets player and coach, and current team broadcaster, is not related to Bob.)

Marian E. Frei, 1924-2011

The official obituary.  

Marian E. Frei, 87, passed away on March 19 in Lakewood, Colorado.

 

Known to multiple generations of her pre-school and elementary school students as “Teacher Marian,” she also was a musician and, in later life, a librarian, in keeping with her life-long love of books.

 

Born Marian Benson in Stoughton, Wisconsin, on January 24, 1924, she was a graduate of Stoughton High School and the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. She married her high school sweetheart, Gerald L. “Jerry” Frei, on Dec. 25, 1945. (Below, they are pictured as teenagers in 1943.)

Following her graduation, she began her teaching career in Madison, Wisconsin, while Jerry, a decorated pilot in World War II, finished up his education and football career at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She continued to teach wherever her husband’s career as a football coach took the family, primarily Oregon and Colorado, and eventually put down deep roots in Denver and continued to live in the area following the 2001 death of her husband, a long-time Broncos assistant coach, scout and administrator. She collected antiques and books, was proud of and studied her Norwegian heritage, and treasured her wide circle of friends.

 

She is survived by her five children – David Frei, New York; Judy Kaplan, Beaverton, Ore.; Terry Frei, Denver; Susan Frei Earley, Tulsa; and Nancy McCormick, Wadsworth, Ill. – plus five grandchildren and one great-grandson.

 

March 24, 2011: As her family and friends knew, Mom was loving, caring, sharing supportive and, to an extent, a very private person. So there is only so much I feel comfortable disclosing and discussing in this forum, as personal as it is. So I'll say this much: She always was our friend.
   
Her father, Bertel, came to the U.S. from Norway at age 21, in 1912, settling in Stoughton, Wisconsin, which then had -- and to an extent, still has -- a decided Norwegian-American bent. He married Ella Aslakson and the couple had two children, Helen and Marian. The two sisters were extremely close. 

In Stoughton, my father was a year ahead of what would have been his high school class -- that wasn't unusual for young men who began school in rural Wisconsin -- and so he was a year of Mom in school after his family moved to Stoughton and they met. When Dad went to the nearby University of Wisconsin in the fall of 1941, he had just turned 17. The next year, Mom enrolled at what then was Whitewater State College -- now UW-Whitewater. Typically, there she made friendships that lasted a lifetime; she still was receiving "round-robin" letters from her college friends.

After Dad left the UW late in his sophomore year to serve as a P-38 fighter pilot in the Pacific, Mom remained at Whitewater, worked one summer in war industries in Milwaukee, and graduated with her teaching degree. When Dad returned following the end and they were married following the end of the war, Dad went back to school on the GI Bill and played two more seasons of football for the Badgers. Yes, Uncle Sam was picking up the bill for school (there were no official athletic scholarships in those days), but that didn't take care of everything, so Mom supported the young couple. She taught fourth grade in Madison.

Rather than "Mrs. Frei," she always preferred "Teacher Marian." And that was the case after the couple loaded up the car and moved to Portland, Oregon, where my father began his coaching career at Grant High School. (It's where Mr. Holland's Opus was filmed.) Dad moved to Lincoln High, then to Willamette University in Salem, then to the University of Oregon in Eugene. In 1955, after the move to Eugene, Mom basically established and ran the pre-school/kindergarten program at our church, Central Lutheran, adjacent to the campus. The church even ended up building an education wing, in part because of the program's success and popularity.

Here's what she said in a 1967 Eugene Register-Guard story: "I'm Teacher Marian to a lot of children in Eugene. Teaching has been a tremendous experience for me. There's a challenge to finding a niche for each child."

One of her challenges was teaching her own children. Her four youngest all were her students at Central Lutheran. That's Teacher Marian/Mom with me during my year. Of course, she was always my Teacher.  

We all were lucky, although we didn't know how rare it was at the time: Dad stayed at Oregon for 17 years. But then the moves started, and Mom -- and my younger sisters, who were the most affected -- handled them with dignity and aplomb. It helped that Denver became the second home, with Dad returning to the Broncos for a second stint in 1981, and that stay with the franchise lasted until his death in 2001. So Mom came to think of Denver as home. She taught pre-school in Jefferson County, and it was fun to see her putting together projects for young children long after her own children were grown. She and Dad lived in both Lakewood and Englewood, but after Dad passed away, she made the move back to Lakewood, where many of her friends lived. She was in study groups, an antique club, ran the Westland Meridian library and remained active in many ways, even when it became physically difficult.

I miss her.                  

An enjoyable trip to speak at the Outagamie County Historical Society

February 23, 2011: Since the publication of Third Down and a War to Go, I've been brought back to Wisconsin many times for appearances and functions, the majority of them under the aegis of the Wisconsin Historical Society. This time, I'm back from an enjoyable trip to Appleton -- 100 miles north of Milwaukee and 30 miles from Green Bay -- to speak at the annual meeting of the Outagamie County Historical Society on Monday afternoon. That's my amateur shot of the organization's Castle base in downtown Appleton, before heading in for the function.

Yes, the Midwest snow storm made it a challenge on several levels -- including getting to the Fox Cities area and then getting home -- but even on a day when schools were closed and the local television stations covered the weather developments as one of those monumental storms that challenges Mr. Doppler and everyone else, the meeting went on as scheduled and I was stunned at how many hearty Wisconsinites showed up.

While there, I also got to eat dinner at the renowned Vince Lombardi's Steak House -- Vince wasn't there, but there were plenty of pictures of him and other Packer greats on the walls -- and at Fratello's on the Fox River, and those are world-class restaurants. I also learned, in wandering around the Historical Society, that Appleton is the hometown of illusionist Harry Houdini and the city where novelist Edna Ferber (Giant, Cimarron...) was raised and also worked for the Appleton newspaper before moving on.

At least nobody picketed my appearance. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, who finds himself in the eye of the storm because of his atempt to end the collective bargaining rights of many public employees, was invited to attend the Republican Party's Lincoln Day dinner at the Radisson Paper Valley Hotel on Monday night. He didn't attend, but that didn't stop the protests. At left, that's another of my amateur cell phone shots of the hotel, which was across the street from mine. That's a small portion of the crowd, because protesters were stationed at all entrances to the hotel and spilled into other nearby areas. Some of them were even wearing cheeseheads. There had been previous demonstrations in the city's Houdini Square over the weekend and also earlier in the month, when Walker came to Appleton and met with editors of the Post-Crescent to state his case and answer questions.

My thanks to all connected with the Outagamie County Historical Society, especially Matt Carpenter, deputy director and curator of collections, who arranged my visit. Also, thanks to Executive Director Terry Bergen; Communications Specialist Melissa LeDuc; attorney Ed Bush, the organization's president; and Vice President Ron Altenburg of Schenck, a CPA and business consulting firm.

Transferring a controversial Chicago tradition from hockey to football  

January 16, 2011: I'm reading and hearing a lot about tenor Jim Cornelison's rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner," and the crowd's reaction during it, at the Bears-Seahawks playoff game today at Soldier Field.

It seems there are a lot of folks who have no idea about the background. It didn't come out of nowhere, and as terrific as Cornelison is, the reaction from the Chicago crowd isn't just a tribute to his version of the song.

Operatic performance and the crowd roaring through the song is an "import" from the Chicago Blackhawks' games at the United Center.

I used to think the crowd reaction was disrespectful. My position was: Either sing (and you don't want me singing) or stand at attention and shut up. I expressed that opinion in a column during a 1997 Avalanche-Blackhawks playoff series. (One side note: "O Canada" is much more average-voice-friendly, and hearing most of the crowd singing along at a hockey game in Canada does make me jealous.)

That was nearly 14 years ago. The practice at Blackhawks games picked up steam in 1991, during the Gulf War, and was considered a loud expression of patriotism. Of course, many reminded me of that, rather vehemently, in response to the column. I thought then, and to a point I still think now, that this screaming and yelling isn't the proper way to express pride in this country.

But I've softened. My evolved position now is that I can buy it for Chicago, but if it spreads, I think that would be unfortunate. If we turn it into a soccer hooligan-type tradition, rather than an expression of patriotism with roots in a specific time of trial, I'd be steamed. Here's the major reason I've softened: Last month, I was at an Avalanche-Blackhawks game at the United Center. Standing next to Cornelison on the ice as he sang was a young Army man. He came up to the press box after the first period, and I was among a small group of reporters who talked with him. I asked him about the emotions he felt during that anthem, and another reporter subsequently asked him what he thought of the tradition. His name is Salvatore A. Giunta.

Here's what I wrote:

U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Salvatore A. Giunta, 25, the first living member of the armed services to be awarded the Medal of Honor since the Vietnam War, was honored at the Avalanche-Blackhawks game Wednesday night.

Along with fellow Staff Sgt. Brett Perry, Giunta was introduced before "The Star-Spangled Banner." They stood next to singer Jim Cornelison and saluted throughout the national anthem, which drew even heartier song-long cheers than usual in what has become a Blackhawks' home-game tradition at the United Center.

Last month at the White House, President Barack Obama presented Giunta, an Iowa native, with the Medal of Honor for his actions during an enemy ambush in Afghanistan on Oct. 25, 2007. The previous seven Medal of Honor [recipients] for service in Iraq and Afghanistan all had been killed in action.

"To be able to stand on the ice and hear the national anthem . . . and hear the reaction of the crowd and feel the rumble and see the American flag just waving in all of its glory at the top of the stadium was truly incredible," Giunta said after the first period.

Giunta had heard about Chicago hockey's recent tradition of cheering through the anthem — and the mixed reviews it receives, since some interpret it as disrespectful.

"This is the only place that I've seen them cheer for the anthem," he said. "I didn't know how I'd feel about that. But standing down there on the ice, I thought it was great."

That swayed me.

I still think we owe the men and women who served, and in many cases gave their lives, respect during the anthem. But I guess I can accept it if the cheers are salutes, not loudmouthed rants. The problem is, if it spreads, I think it will be more the latter than the former.

The Broncos missed them, too 

January 5, 2011: An announcement and news conference today confirmed John Elway's return to the Broncos' organization as vice president of football operations -- the unquestioned head of the football part of the business. 

That Elway is, and will continue to be, a savvy football man is a given.

It's not just what he learned playing the game himself, and playing it so well.
 
It's in his blood.

For nearly ten years now, I've heard others pay our fathers -- Jack Elway and Jerry Frei -- compliments, saying not only what great guys and friends they were, but also that the Broncos' organization missed their veteran voices of knowledge and reason both as they wound down their careers in the sport and then after they died within two months of each other in early 2001. They both loved the game and were astute evaluators of talent, calling on decades of experience and knowledge and using more than stop watches and tape measures. They found football players. 

That's Jack & Jerry above, in the dressing room following the Broncos' second consecutive Super Bowl win in January 1999, in Miami. 

Here's what I wrote about them in The Elway Effect chapter in Playing Piano in a Brothel:

At the memorial gathering following my father’s February 16, 2001, death, Jack Elway was one of many who stood up and asked for the microphone. Jack told about how he and Jerry Frei always shared a golf cart and a dormitory suite at the Broncos’ training camp in Greeley and hosted the informal staff happy hour each night. (Like at TGI Friday’s, this happy hour could begin late and last until closing time.) Jack loved his Sky vodka; Jerry, who was seventy-six when he passed away, was partial to Black Velvet.
 
Jack said, “Every morning I’d ask Jerry, ‘How many people do I have to apologize to?’ And he always had a list ready for me.”
 
At the Broncos, nobody had to use their last names, and they tended to be mentioned in tandem, so much so, that they deserved an ampersand.
 
Jack & Jerry.
 
They became close friends fairly late in life, although they had known each other for many years and their shared background as former Pacific 8/10 head coaches -- Jack at Stanford, Jerry at Oregon -- and their many common friends gave them a natural starting point for discussion. Jack came into the Broncos organization as a pro scout, evaluating and judging talent on other teams around the NFL, and eventually added the title of pro scouting director before retiring in 1999. Jerry was semiretired and working part time when Mike Shanahan asked him to become director of college scouting and to groom his successor, Ted Sundquist, which he did for a couple of years before stepping back again and becoming a consultant. He couldn’t walk away from the game completely, and he enjoyed the consultant’s role, too.
 
When Jack and Jerry both were working during those years, they shared an office on the second floor of the team’s Dove Valley headquarters, and other staffers became accustomed to hearing big band music—they were big fans of Rick Crandall’s popular “Breakfast Club” on Denver’s KEZW-AM—and laughter coming from the office. When they could, they took road trips with the Broncos and sat together in the press box. If they were in town for home games, they sat together in the second row of the Mile High Stadium press box or sometimes in one of the tiny coaches boxes on the front of the top deck. I sat with them one game, and while I prided myself in understanding football better than the average scribe, that afternoon reminded me that what I knew was minimal compared to what these two longtime football men knew. They’d both be reacting, positively or negatively, to what they saw as the Broncos came out of the huddle, and I’d be trying to figure out what the hell they saw.
 
Around 1997, Jerry—yes, this was my father, but it always sounds right to call him “Jerry” in any shared context with Jack—asked me to call Jack. I did. Jack asked if we could meet for lunch. At the restaurant, Jack asked if I would be interesting in collaborating with him on a book. He noted that he’d had an interesting life in the game and had stories to tell. Jack was a funny and very intelligent man with a dry sense of humor, and I knew that his memoir—dating back to his high school coaching days and his climb up the college coaching ranks—would be fun to help write and certainly entertaining for readers. He did say that he understood any publisher would want him to write about his perspective on John’s life and career, and he was fine with that. We quickly got an off er and even a proposed contract with Sports Publishing of Champaign, Illinois, and we were dealing with former University of Illinois sports information director Mike Pearson, the company’s vice president of acquisitions. The advance money was minimal, and I considered my involvement as a favor to Jack and Jerry, as well as a potentially enjoyable experience because I knew I would spend a lot of time laughing during my discussions with Jack.

Jack had second thoughts, though, and we never signed the contract. It wasn’t money, because if that had been the case, he would have told me—or an agent—to keep shopping the project to see if we could get a higher advance. I didn’t press him, but I’m pretty sure he realized that his best stories had foils, and he might make some enemies. Plus, it might have made it awkward for John if he frankly discussed some issues, including John’s relationship with Dan Reeves, who by then had departed the Broncos. At the time, I was putting the finishing touches on about the seventeenth draft of The Witch’s Season, which had drawn some movie interest, and I hadn’t yet completely accepted the fact that I would be better off turning to nonfiction to establish myself in the book business. So I wasn’t at all heartbroken that the collaboration project fell through, just a bit disappointed that I didn’t get to hear all of Jack’s stories.
 
Jack Elway died on April 15, 2001. He was only sixty-nine years old. He had an apparent heart attack at his and Jan Elway’s second home in Palm Springs, California. At Jack’s service, Pat Bowlen noted that the organization had lost the two close friends only two months apart, and proposed a toast.