I’ve been reading Sports
Illustrated (SI) for over 40 years; in fact it’s probably closer to 50
because I remember reading about the Red Sox when Carl Yastrzemski, Tony
Conigliaro and Rico Petrocelli were at the heart of the batting order. We were living in Rhode Island at the time
and the Red Sox were considered to be our ‘home team.’ While I never made the trip to Fenway Park
(that would come 40 years later), SI’s photographs of the Green Monster in left
field were larger than life almost as good as being there in person for one
particular wide-eyed 12-year old sporting a buzz cut and a few extra pounds of
baby fat.
For well over 2,500 issues I’ve read every story about
baseball, football, basketball, golf, tennis and running that’s been featured
in the pages of SI. (You may have
noticed I didn’t mention hockey, automobile racing, hunting, boxing or any of
the other sports I don’t give a rat’s a** about—no disrespect to SI because I’m
sure they do a good job of covering them, but they’re just not my cup of
tea. Once in a while the weekly issue of
SI will feature articles about three or four of the sports I just mentioned; I
call these issues ‘fast forward issues’ because it takes me about three minutes
to get from cover to cover.) I enjoy all
of the regular weekly features the most: Leading Off, Scorecard, Go Figure, Faces
in the Crowd and Point After, the article on the back page—especially the ones
written a few years back by Rick Reilly before he sold out and left to write
for the vastly inferior ESPN The
Magazine. While it’s no secret to
the people who know me that Lewis Grizzard is my favorite author, few of them
know Rick Reilly runs a close second.
The other regular weekly feature I enjoy reading is
Inbox, featuring letters from the readers.
I’ll be the first to admit: Some of the letters are written so well that
if I didn’t know better would have thought had been penned by the likes of
Frank Deford, Curry Kirkpatrick, Rick Reilly or any of the other prominent and
uber successful writers on the SI staff.
So as an aspiring writer since as far back as I can
remember, I’ve always dreamed of the day I too would have a letter published in
the pages of SI. I wrote my first letter
to SI when I was 15 years old after reading the cover story of ‘America’s
Distance Prodigy,’ University of Oregon runner Steve Prefontaine. (At the time I had no idea how important
running would be to me one day, but I do know that Pre had a lot to do with my approach
to the sport. By the way: The reason I
got to visit Fenway Park many years later is because I was in Boston to run a
little 26.2-mile race.) I remember how
eagerly I waited for the next several issues to be delivered by the mailman,
hoping and praying I would see my name printed for the world to see in the
pages of the finest sports magazine in the world. Even though my first submission to SI fell on
deaf ears (Blind eyes? Uncaring minds?),
that didn’t stop me from writing again and again through the years.
In 1980 I wrote to SI following the U.S. hockey team’s
‘Miracle on Ice.’ I don’t think I’ve ever been prouder to be an American as I
was the day the men’s hockey team took the gold medal in the Winter
Olympics. At the time I thought my letter
contained the most eloquent, from-the-heart words I’d ever written in my life. SI apparently thought otherwise: My letter
wasn’t printed. Disappointed, I sent my
letter to the local newspaper, the Atlanta
Journal-Constitution only to be rejected yet again. (I have to believe if the letter were
submitted to the AJC today it would
see the light of day. The newspaper has turned
into a farce. The newspaper proudly yet
erroneously boasts ‘Credible, Compelling, Complete’ on its front page
daily. The morning after this year’s
college football National Championship game between Florida State and Auburn
the front page printed the score after three quarters: Auburn - 21, Florida
State - 13. Florida State ultimately won
the game and the National Championship on a touchdown pass with 13 seconds left
in the game. Credible?
Questionable. Complete? Hardly.
Come on, say it with me: ‘Dewey defeats Truman.’)
Through the years I’ve written to SI whenever I felt
inspired, and believe me when I say there were many, many times. Letters about the undefeated 1972 Miami
Dolphins; Nolan Ryan’s seventh no-hitter at the age of 44 in 1991; Tiger Woods
(before he became a punch line) completing his ‘Tiger Slam’ in 2000; the
various magic acts of Michael Jordan; and virtually every rendition of ‘March
Madness,’ the greatest sporting event on earth.
There have been others, but after so many rejections a person tends to
lost track. I’d guess about three or
four dozen would be a pretty good estimate, though.
So when I wrote a letter to SI about an article the
published featuring my beloved Florida Gators (‘Life After 4-8’) and their
chances for recovery following their worst football season in many, many years,
I wasn’t expecting anything in return. A
couple weeks later I was reading the September 1st issue and read a
letter to the editor and absent mindedly thought ‘Gee, this sounds a lot like
the letter I wrote to SI’ because quite honestly after I submitted it I never
gave it another thought (That’s what rejection does to a person, people!). Imagine my surprise (and delight) when I read
the author of the letter was one Scott Ludwig of Senoia, Georgia (that would be
ME for those of you keeping score at home)!
If you don’t happen to have a copy of the issue handy, fear not: Here is
my letter in its (albeit edited) entirety:
Florida is
the only team scheduled to play both Florida State and Alabama this year—on the
road, no less. Here’s hoping there
really IS life after such a dismal season.
I know the team is placing a lot of faith in Florida’s
new offensive coordinator, Kurt Roper to help turn the program around. For the past six years Roper has been the
offensive coordinator at Duke and managed to establish a resume that the AJC
would be proud of (credible, compelling and complete). While it’s too soon to judge if Florida’s new
hire is paying off, I do know this:
The last time Florida hired an offensive coordinator (he
was also their Head Coach) from Duke it turned out pretty well.
His name is Steve Spurrier. You may have heard of him.
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