May 2, 2008
Pumpkins and High School Sports
From part two of Roger Ebert’s Newspaper Days:
These rules have saved me half a career’s worth of time, and gained me a reputation as the fastest writer in town. I’m not faster. I just spend less time not writing. But on one Friday night, this particular Friday night, a Great Lead was clearly called for, because, yes, the Urbana Tigers were defeated and their hopes of a perfect season destroyed.
Here is the opening paragraph I wrote, which I still have by heart:
“The glass slipper was shattered and broken, the royal coach turned into a pumpkin, and the Cinderella Urbana Tigers stumbled and fumbled and fell.”
Saturday morning, I turned up at my work, assembling area high school scores, and the news editor, Ed Borman, loomed over my desk and rumbled: “Young man, that’s as good a piece of writing as we’ve had on high school sports in quite a while.” I turned back to the sports section and read my Great Lead again, for perhaps the fiftieth time, and saw myself in Grantland’s footsteps.
My euphoria was shattered at school on Monday, however, when Coach Smith slammed his door on me after thundering: “From this day forward, you are banned from all Urbana sports under my jurisdiction. You can buy a ticket to the games.” He left me devastated.
It was up to Stanley Hynes, our grizzled World War Two veteran English teacher and advisor of the high school paper, to negotiate a truce. I admired him enormously because he addressed his students as “Mister” and “Miss” just as if we were in college, and he smoked in the classroom.
“There has been a literary misunderstanding,” he explained. “Coach Smith thinks you called him a pumpkin.”
Part one may be found here.
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There has been a literary misunderstanding.
Oh, is that rich.
Coach Smith thinks you called him a pumpkin.