Month: January 2019

The Hard [But Good] Lesson

I thought for a while there I was going to be fired.

In August 1960, barely two months into my newspaper career, I wrote what newspaper people call a “color” story on a Southeastern Regional Babe Ruth tournament game – Ocala, Florida vs. Charlotte, North Carolina. The game had ended with a controversial strike three call against a Florida player and the home team won, 3-2.

The coach of the visiting team was pretty mad. He told me that the home plate umpire was a “blind man” who had committed “highway robbery.”

“You tell Charlotte,” the Florida coach said, “to keep that umpire and they’ll win the World Series.”

I wrote a story for The Charlotte News in which I quoted the Florida coach and identified the blind robber as Ronald Flie.   But, it turned out, Mr. Flie wasn’t a blind robber. The umpire behind the plate that day was another man named Bob Moore.

Yow!

Umpires are called bad names all the time but not like that, not when they weren’t even in the game.

* * *

The retraction.
The retraction.

My boss, Sports Editor Bob Quincy, was out town so, next day, the other guys had to make the call. They decided to retract the story, which is not the same thing as a “correction.”  I think a retraction was overboard but, whatever.   Let’s just say they erred on the side of caution.

The day after that Quincy The Terrible  came back and, after the first edition deadline, he called everyone over to his desk.  He was steaming.

Bob Myers, sports writer at The News, my first mentor. That's "Hoss" Harris on the right.
Bob Myers, sports writer at The News, my first mentor. That’s “Hoss” Harris on the right.

The error was mine and mine alone, but Quincy did not say one word to me.  I guess I was just too far down on the totem pole for him to mess with.   Instead, he went after Bob Myers, who had covered the game and who, Quincy said, should have kept me out of trouble.

How could Myers have done that?  I have no idea.

Bob Quincy
Bob Quincy

Quincy didn’t like that retraction either.  He said they should have corrected my error in the next day’s tournament story and moved on.  That, in my opinion, would have been too little — we should have just run a correction.

That error turned out to be one of those blessings in disguise — I never forgot that sick feeling it gave me. Over time, especially when I began doing investigative work and dinging people on a regular basis, I became a fanatic about accuracy. I am not saying I never made another mistake.  I did.  But not often.

NOTE:  I was so lucky to have started out on the sports desk of The Charlotte News. It was a small staff, only five guys, but they were all good ones. Three of them were later inducted into what is known now as the N.C. Media and Journalism Hall of Fame: Max Muhleman, Ronald Green Sr. and Quincy, posthumously in 2005.   How I wish Bob had lived — he and I were inducted on the same night.

Coming Friday: Studying for the GED

 

 

 

 

Just In Time

In 1966, my senior year at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I worked the spring football game for the UNC Sports Information Office, setting up the press box for reporters covering the game and for the statisticians who worked for UNC.

My responsibility included checking out two pairs of field glasses from the Athletic Department, to be used by spotters who worked for the statisticians.  When the game was over I was supposed to return them.

field_glasses1But somewhere along the way one pair of field glasses went missing. I turned in the other one and told my boss, Bob Quincy, the sports information director, what had happened — someone took the other pair.

He told me not to worry about it and that was that. I didn’t. A few weeks later I graduated and went to work as reporter for The Charlotte News.

Mr. Crook's letter.
Mr. Crook’s letter.

A year later I received a letter from Vernon Crook, UNC’s assistant athletic director for business, dated April 12, 1967.

“Sarge Keller indicated that his records show that a pair of field glasses were charged out to you while you were here and never returned,” Mr. Crook’s letter said.  “Can you throw some light on this for me?”

I meant to write back right away and tell Mr. Crook that I didn’t know what had happened to those field glasses –I didn’t take them — tell him I had told my boss, the sports information director, that they had gone missing and that my boss told me to forget about it.

But I didn’t write back that week, or the next, or the next.

Couple of months went by and I was looking for something in my desk when I stumbled across Mr. Crook’s letter and I meant to respond right then, but I didn’t. Didn’t have time right then. I put his letter back in the drawer.

After that I’d come across that letter every few months or so, reread it and think about it some, what I should say in response, and put it back in the drawer.

In 1971, when I resigned my job in Charlotte and went to work for The News & Observer in Raleigh, I took Mr. Crook’s letter with me, fully intending to respond as soon as I got settled.  I didn’t, but I did continue to think about Mr. Crook’s letter every few years.

Finally, finally, on May 18, 1978 — 11 years and a month after Mr. Crook’s inquiry — I got time. Or I guess I should say, I made time. I began the letter to Mr. Crook this way:

“In response to your letter of April 12, 1967…”

I apologized for my failure to answer his letter in a more timely manner and told him I didn’t know what had happened to those field glasses.

Mr. Crook wrote back immediately. He thanked me, and one upped me. He had retired on July 1, 1974, but, apparently, he had continued to work some at the Athletic Department because he told me —you know he wasn’t serious — that my letter had wrapped up his last piece of unfinished business.

Coming Monday: The Hard [But Good] Lesson