The Last Guestie (?)

We have extended our man in the OBX an invitation to join the paid staff here at G:TB (Note: "paid" is just four letters I included in this sentence for formatting purposes. It doesn't actually mean anything.), but he's still trying to figure out how to get his rotary phone to connect to the interwebz. So for the time being, we're manually curating his stories. Not for nothing, yesterday was the first day that Fairbank's boon pal David Teel wrote his first column for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, and he chooses to slum with our band of idiots. We are, truly, not worthy. But we're grateful.

As everyone adjusts to life during a pandemic, I thought I’d share a story about a story and the value of scrambling, desperation and a bit of imagination when things go sideways.

Early in the 2001 college football season, the University of Virginia was scheduled to host Penn State. This was long before the Jerry Sandusky child sexual abuse scandal came to light, which rocked the school and program, and led to the dismissal of legendary coach Joe Paterno.
Heading into the Virginia game, Paterno was one win away from tying Bear Bryant for the career record for wins as a Division I-A (now FBS) head coach. Before the season, the boss assigned me to write a piece about Paterno for that week.

I contacted Penn State officials to try and arrange a few minutes to talk to Paterno and athletic officials, perhaps a player or two. I was told that because they were swamped with media requests, Paterno and others weren’t doing separate interviews. He would be available to local reporters in attendance and only during his 10-minute segment on the Big Ten Conference’s weekly coaches teleconference. I was welcome to listen in and squeeze in a question, if I could.

I told the boss that I had no access to Paterno or others at Penn State. He was only marginally sympathetic and said we still needed a story, since Joe Freakin’ Paterno was coming to Charlottesville. I was stuck and bordering on panic. I knew bits and pieces about him and learned through research that he had donated millions to various academic pursuits – endowments for scholarships and professors’ chairs. He raised millions more for libraries and research, and even had a wing of one of the campus’s main libraries named after him.

Desperate, I started dialing up campus librarians and professors whose departments had benefited
from Paterno’s efforts. I explained who I was and asked if they were willing to discuss Paterno’s impact on campus and on their departments. They were very gracious, though several mentioned that they didn’t get phone calls from sportswriters and deferred to their supervisors or department heads.
One memorable exchange: I reached a department head in his office, introduced myself and said I was working on a piece on Paterno’s impact on campus and academics. He responded with, “Dave Fairbank, one of my favorite sportswriters.” I paused and said, “Excuse me?” He repeated, “You’re one of my favorite sportswriters.” I thanked him and said I didn’t understand. He said that he was a student of early American history, and that he regularly made trips to Williamsburg and southeastern Virginia. He often bought our newspaper when he visited and had been reading me for years. Too weird. Of course, he was helpful.

I got a couple of quotes and some insight from the athletic director and the school president, when I made clear that I was interested in their thoughts about Paterno’s academic impact and not football. Between them, the academic figures I reached, and some Paterno quotes from teleconferences, I cobbled together a passable piece.

Even in his brief appearances on those teleconferences, Paterno was at times introspective, and his classical education peeked through. He was asked about a coveted recruit from Pennsylvania who chose Miami over Penn State. Revealing little detail, Paterno conveyed no disappointment and chalked it up to personal decisions, adding: “There are a lot of Pyrrhic victories in recruiting.” I included that remark in the piece.

(Brief aside: the story ran the Sunday before the game, scheduled for that Thursday – Sept. 13. Terrorists flew airplanes into buildings two days earlier, changing life as we know it. The game was rescheduled and played Dec. 1.)

I guess the message of the story of the story is that sometimes it pays to look in an entirely different direction than your experience and habits would suggest. Sometimes it’s necessary due to circumstances beyond your control. Other times, another perspective can be refreshing and enlightening. Be as nimble as possible.

But just so you know I don’t have all, or even many, answers, I ended the story with this observation: “With Paterno, there have been no Pyrrhic victories. Everyone has benefited.”

That didn’t age well.