Tag: journalism

Lou Holtz and the professional failure that haunts me today

Jim Stafford with then-University of Arkansas coach Lou Holtz at the 1982 Bluebonnet Bowl in Houston.

The recent death of long-time college football coach Lou Holtz on March 4 stirred a lot of memories for me. Not all of them happy.

I’m ashamed to admit it was the biggest failure of my professional career.

Lou was University of Arkansas coach when I graduated college in 1978 and took a sportswriting position with the Southwest Times Record in Fort Smith.

So, I joined the SWTR staff in the wake of Arkansas’ stunning victory over OU in the 1978 Orange Bowl. Lou Holtz was riding high as Arkansas coach.

The 31-6 upset of the Sooners by the Lou Holtz-led Razorbacks turned him into an almost mythical hero among Arkansas fans. He had become head coach before the 1977 season, replacing Arkansas legend Frank Broyles, who retired from coaching to assume a full-time role as Athletic Director.

After that first season success, Coach Holtz became a much-sought after speaker across the nation. He even made an appearance on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.

I saw that appearance and was amazed by Lou’s magic trick where he tore up a newspaper, wadded it up and then unfolded the wad into a fully restored paper.

I’ve seen Holtz do that trick countless times over the years, and I never figured out where he stashed the paper that replaced the one he tore up, or what happened to the shredded pages.

Anyway, for the first couple of years at the SWTR, my main roles were covering high school sports and doing layout on the sports desk. Eventually, I began attending selected Arkansas home games and writing sidebar stories to the main story written by our Sports Editor.

But in roughly 1982, I became Sports Editor, a position that afforded the opportunity to cover the Razorbacks on a more in-depth basis. For instance, I usually drove to Fayetteville on Tuesdays to attend practice and get some interviews with Lou and certain players for pre-game features.

I wouldn’t say that I was a full-time Razorback beat writer, but I covered all home games for the 1982 season, as well as the season-ending SMU game in Dallas and the Bluebonnet Bowl victory over Florida in Houston.

All that led up to August 1983, when I was preparing the paper’s annual football preview special section, which a lot of newspapers publish annually.

I’m not sure of the date, but an SWTR photographer and I drove to Fayetteville to interview Lou for our tabloid cover story. He welcomed us into his office and we sat down for the interview.

Almost all of my questions were total softballs, asking about certain players he expected to lead the team and looking forward to upcoming games. But near the end of the interview I asked him about the fact that despite all of his success at Arkansas he had not led the Hogs to the Cotton Bowl as SWC champions.

That set Lou off, and he got angry and animated.

“I’m tired of being asked about the Cotton Bowl all the time,” he said. “I’ll tell you right now, this is going to be my last doggone year at the University of Arkansas.”

I was taping this interview. So, I asked him if he was serious.

“I am, but if you say anything I will deny it.”

Whoa! Lou had lobbed a grenade into my pocket. Or the story of the year for Arkansas fans.

I have to admit, I wasn’t up to the moment.

As I drove back to Fort Smith, all I could think of is ‘why me?’ I was not a regular, daily beat reporter for the Hogs. If I broke this story, my reporting colleagues would think that I’m just trying to make a name for myself.

So, I kept it to myself. Call it a lack of courage, if you will. Because that’s what it was.

Pro-tip to young journalists: Don’t keep everything bottled up inside you. And don’t be afraid to share your fears or misgivings with a mentor or an editor. I should have gone straight to Jack Moseley, the SWTR’s editor, and asked him how to handle it.

I wrote my season preview with no mention of Lou’s comments and we published our special section. Less than two weeks later, an opportunity came up to take a position on The Daily  Oklahoman sports desk, and I accepted it.

So, as I departed the SWTR, I left the tape of my conversation with Coach Holtz with a colleague and told him if Holtz did, indeed, resign at the end of the season, to write a story based on the interview.

I knew it would be embarrassing for me, but, well, I deserved it. And the story needed to be told.

Lou DID resign at the end of the season, and the SWTR published the story of his pre-season comments. I got a couple of calls from national college football reporters, who wrote about it, as well.

I’m so glad there was no internet or social media in 1983.

Today, it’s known that Lou Holtz did not resign at the end of that season. He was fired by Frank Broyles, in part because he had campaigned for Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina, who for decades opposed almost every advance in civil rights for African Americans.

But that doesn’t matter to me. I had the story. I sat on it. I paid the price in self-worth. It haunted me for the rest of my career, even if no one really knew or remembered.

Lou’s passing provided the opportunity to finally admit my failure in a public way.

It’s an important life lesson. Don’t be afraid to share your information or situation with a mentor. Don’t sit on the story.

Don’t be like me.

The teacher who nurtured a high school dreamer

TO editing
In a 1971 yearbook photo, Tom Oliver is shown editing students’ work as yearbook/newspaper advisor

As do a lot of communities around the country, someone from my hometown maintains a Facebook group called “If You Ever Lived in Fort Smith, Arkansas.”

I’m not on the Group’s page often, but it’s fun to occasionally scroll through and see what people are talking about.

Certain topics dominate the Fort Smith page: Dragging Grand Ave. in the ’70s … Enjoying a giant Worldburger of the past … and remembering stores like Hunt’s and The Boston Store that were once shopping mainstays.

About five years ago, a fellow Southside High School grad, Eddie Weller, posted about favorite Fort Smith teachers he recalled. Because I’m an Army brat, I only attended school in Fort Smith for three years.

But there was one teacher that certainly had an impact on my future. His name was Tom Oliver.

Mr. Oliver taught Journalism at Southside. I took Mr. Oliver’s class as a senior because I had a far-fetched dream of some day being a newspaper reporter.

So, I posted on the Facebook Group about Mr. Oliver being a memorable teacher, and it was like a call-and-response for a conversation that began five years ago and continues to stir memories today.

Here are some selected memories of Tom Oliver by his former students (Mr. Oliver died in the early 1990s, so it’s too bad he’s no longer around to read what his former students say.).

My original comment:

“My journalism teacher at Southside, Tom Oliver. Showed a lot of patience to a wanna be who had few skills in HS. I ended up making a career out of newspapers, so thanks to Mr. Oliver for encouraging me.”

Response from Eddie Weller:

“TO” as we called Mr. Oliver (but not to his face . . . ) … He did have patience. I remember senior year we rotated a column among the editorial board. I wrote a semi-funny one (tried to be humorous) for my first try. I used a phrase to get a chuckle that he asked me if I should use. He let me decide. He explained he was not sure my parents, for instance, would understand why I used the phrase. That was thoughtful on his part as a teacher. It made me really think — even a small phrase could make or break a mood you were trying to set. And “Ye Olde Pub” (the publications/journalism room for the uninitiated) was always a great place to be. He gave great freedom to the newspaper staff, yet knew when to reel it in. Truly an amazing teacher!”

From Sandra Curtis Kaundart:

“Tom Oliver, my mentor, was the greatest teacher ever!
… I majored in journalism because of him, worked at a couple of small papers, later did my practice teaching with him, and ended up teaching journalism and English for 31 years.”

From Scott Carty:

“Tom Oliver was one of my heroes. i found one of his old yearbook pictures in the storage room and put mirror-headed thumbtacks thru his eyes and labeled it EltonTom. Made him smile.”

From Jim Morris:

“I had too much fun in his class. Just ask Scott Carty”

From David Yarbrough:
“Tom Oliver didn’t do a lot of chalkboard teaching. He picked leaders (editors) and let those students fill their roles assigning stories and photos. He let them do the editing and design of the paper. Only occasionally did he make a quite suggestion. In the real world, you could compare him to a hand-off publisher who trusted his staff. He also encouraged students to explore all kinds of arts and studies. He took staffers to state and national conferences to open horizons.”

My own story isn’t anything spectacular. The student newspaper had a regular “Newsmakers” column of one-paragraph stories (emulating, I believe, a popular Page 1A “In the News” feature in the Arkansas Gazette), and I was assigned to write a Newsmaker item for each issue of the paper.

Did I tell you that I was terrible as a cub reporter? That one-paragraph Newsmaker assignment might as well have been a 10-page term paper.

But I managed to scrape something together for each edition, and Mr. Oliver gently edited my effort. Like all of my favorite teachers and professors over the years, he showed tremendous patience with me.

I remember Tom Oliver as being fairly young at the time and in tune with popular culture. His was a class that I looked forward to attending every single day. Similar to my favorite college professor, who also taught journalism.

I can’t tell you exactly what clicked for me, except perhaps the camaraderie of being around others that had an interest in journalism. Oh, and the thrill of seeing something you wrote in print.

In a touch of irony, years later, I served as Sports Editor of the Southwest Times Record in Fort Smith. Mr. Oliver worked part time for me on the Sport Desk on Friday nights during football season, helping us gather scores and write short summaries.

Mr. Oliver actually remembered me from my not-so-memorable one-year stint in his high school journalism class. He told me he was surprised that I pursued a newspaper career because he wasn’t sure that I had the interest as a student.

I guess my candle didn’t burn too brightly in high school. But I did have a dream.

Thank you, Tom Oliver, for being an encouraging teacher and not steering me away from the far-fetched dream of the 17-year-old me.

Tom Oliver yearbook
Tom Oliver’s (second from left) 1971 Southside High School yearbook photo

Dr. Charlie Marler & the divine coincidence

marler office
Portrait of Dr. Charlie Marler in his office/ACU photo

I was sitting in a pew in the next-to-last row at Oklahoma City’s Quail Springs Church of Christ one Sunday in 1991 when someone tapped me on the shoulder.

I glanced back and almost fell out of the pew.

Sitting directly behind me was Dr. Charlie Marler, my favorite professor from my days as a student at Abilene Christian University. Dr. Marler taught most of the journalism courses I took at ACU and led the university’s journalism and mass communications program for many years.

Turns out, Dr. Marler was traveling through the state that Sunday morning and randomly decided to attend the Quail service. Quail was a large church, but somehow he ended up sitting directly behind me.

I took it as divine coincidence.

I had only been attending at Quail for about a year and had begun dating the woman who would become my wife, Paula Bottom. She was sitting next to me at that service, so I introduced her to Dr. Marler.

“Oh, you need to stay away from this guy,” he said with a smile.

I was at Quail because of the influence of Dr. Charlie Marler. Not only did he help guide me and motivate me to stay the course to graduation at ACU, he also modeled a life of faith for me that led me to Quail Springs church decades later.

I grew up in a church tradition different but similar to the Church of Christ, and had always been a religion skeptic. I’m not a smart man, but I always wondered why there were no professionals — no doctors or lawyers or college professors — in our little church growing up.

We had plenty of blue collar people who worked with their hands, and we were proud of it.

Anyway, Dr. Marler showed me that you could be highly educated and still have faith in a God of the universe. Years later, I recalled Dr. Marler’s faith when a friend invited me to Quail.

I attended the church reluctantly, but slowly came to accept the faith myself.

Along the way, I met Paula, we married and have been members of the Quail Springs church — now known as The Springs Church of Christ — ever since.

So, when Dr. Marler passed away late in May, it was a very personal loss to me even though I saw him only on rare occasions over the last 40 years or so.

I’m writing this to share how one life was influenced by his academic guidance, gentle patience and faith.

My college career at ACU also was a divine coincidence, I guess.

I wasn’t recruited to ACU in the 1970s. I wasn’t recruited by any college. Poor academic record. Poor study habits. Little involvement in my high school community.

But I had a dream. I wanted to go to college and study journalism. I wanted to be a sportswriter. I aspired to be Blackie Sherrod of the Dallas Morning News.

Somehow, life’s circumstances led me to Abilene, Texas, in the Spring of 1976. So, I sort of turned up on ACU’s doorstep with 30 hours at community college to my credit.

That twist of fate brought me into Dr. Marler’s sphere of influence for the next two-and-a-half years. I recall his teaching style with fondness because he seemed to involve everyone in each class but never singled anyone out for embarrassment.

He was notorious for marking up papers I wrote and articles I attempted for ACU’s student newspaper, The Optimist, with his red editing pen. Every ACU journalism student was subjected to the red editing pen .

Optimist3
Me (front row, right) with colleagues from The Optimist in 1978

However, that red pen helped shape my writing style, and I slowly grew in confidence and ability.

And he talked about how Christians could — and should — work in newsrooms, keeping the faith while pursuing careers in a secular world.

It took years for the message to really sink in, but it finally hit home with the skeptic that I am.

Thanks to Dr. Marler, I had a 30-year newspaper career, and a decade-plus beyond that in the marketing office of a company.

Now, multiply the influence that Dr. Marler had on my life and career with thousands of other students over his 50-plus year academic career. That’s why he was a towering figure in journalism education and the Christian faith.

There is so much more to his story — read ACU’s wonderful tribute to him here — but this was the part of his life that touched mine.

The deal was finally sealed, you might say, when Dr. Marler tapped me on the shoulder at a random Sunday church service in Oklahoma City.

A divine coincidence.

Setting it straight; digital newspaper subscriber responds

I recently shared my thoughts in this blog on the current struggles of the newspaper industry and frustrations that I have little to offer as far as solutions to reverse the trend.

I used my friend Casey as an example of smart young potential readers who have found their news sources elsewhere.

After the blog post was published, I discovered that I did Casey a disservice.  

Turns out, even though he’s great with snarky one-liners about the newspaper industry (for my benefit as an old newspaper guy), he still reads the daily newspaper online.

Casey told me that he is a newsok.com “pro” subscriber to the online version of The Oklahoman.  And he comes from a family of longtime newspaper readers and subscribers.

So, I asked him to share his thoughts on what type of content the newspaper should offer readers.  Here is what he said:

“I go to the newspaper when I want a more in-depth, more trustworthy source. Instead of instant alerts, I think they need to slow their content even more; give me more detail and deeper journalism. Heavily researched.  Articles more like what you would find in a magazine, almost.”

Casey was responding to what I wrote about young people seeking only online news alerts and instant headlines instead of deeper newspaper coverage.  

Of course, newspapers continue to struggle, despite the support of individuals like Casey.  The Oklahoman announced in its Dec. 27 editions that it was trimming its circulation area and eliminating street sales. 

Casey broke my stereotype of the typical young American who only learns what’s happening in the world (or their local community) through social media interactions.

And he likes the paper.  He really, really likes it.

“For my money, real reporters work for the newspaper,” he told me.

Wow. Casey, I salute you.  And I promise not to throw you under the bus again, even if you zing me with a snarky one-liner.