Writing Isn’t on the Wall, the Writer Is

Somebody once asked playwright Neil Simon why he wrote so much and so often. “Writing is self-therapy,” Simon said. “I write instead of going to Dr. Glockenspiel at $30 an hour.”

Personally, Dr. Glockenspiel, writing is not self-therapy for me. I hate to write. In fact, when I know I have to write, I will do anything around the house first in order not to write. Honey, what’s say we finally get those rain gutters cleaned out, eh?

And Neil Simon never wrote sports, either, or he’d know that it is rarely good for your health. Once, because of something I’d written, a high school football coach accosted me in the frozen-food aisle of a supermarket and threatened my life to within an inch of a package of Mrs. Paul’s fish sticks.

He was built along the lines of a skip loader, and he was about the width of a supermarket aisle, which is when I first knew I was in Dutch, because it suddenly got very dark. He had that unmistakable look in his eye of a man stripped of human contact. This would figure, since he was the linebacker coach.

I had written that 18 players on his team wouldn’t be at the game that night owing to the fact that the 18 little darlings had been nabbed breaking into and looting school lockers.

Coach Skiploader didn’t think I should have written that about his “men” even if it was true. I allowed that he was probably right. After all, who in the stands would miss 18 guys? I think this is when he called in Mrs. Paul.

Actually, as a rule, assistant football coaches and I don’t socialize, anyway. In Phoenix this year, an assistant football coach at the University of Miami and I got involved in something of a tussle.

Actually, we merely engaged in a stimulating, intelligent debates, such as “Oh, yeah? Spazz!” and, “Says yoooooou.”’

I think I finally got the best of him by saying something like: “Your mother is so wrinkled she has to screw on her hat.”

That is when he threw his briefcase at me, which wasn’t so bad, except somebody kept picking it up and handing it back to him so he could throw it again. The guy was good with that briefcase, too. Sort of like Odd Job with a derby. I held up my shellacked copy of the First Amendment.

Generally, though, writing about sports for a daily newspaper is good work if you can get it and, as they say, “you get into the games for nuttin’.” The problem is that the principal characters whose heroics you are trying to extol have oftimes either spent too much time in the whirlpool or in the hotel bar or both, and their brain elevators are not quite running to the top floor.

For instance, there was the time baseball star Clint Hartung kept seeing the same column about him by a nationally syndicated writer in every town along a spring training whistle-stop tour. “Look,” Hartung finally screamed at the writer. “When you gonna’ stop writing the same story ‘bout me every day?”

Which is like the time Sam Snead came to New York for a golf tournament and was aghast to see his picture in the newspaper. “How’d they get this picture of me?” Snead bellowed. “I ain’t ever been in New York!”

Not that the entire species is dimly lit. If I had a six-hour plane flight, I’d still rather sit next to Howie Long of the Raiders than, say, an ornithologist. Howie may be a strange bird, but at least he keeps your interest.

Sports citizens don’t like writers much and don’t see much use for them, but I would like to see how glamorous athletes would be if it were left to them to promote their art. They can’t even get the cliches right. I had one guy tell me just before an important game: “Our backs are in the driver’s seat.” Once, a running back in the NFL told a friend of mine that he was excited about the team’s future: “We’re in charge of our own destination.” This must have come as bad news to his travel agent.

In truth, more All-Americans are made or broken by poets in the press box than by a good time in the 40 or an intrinsic ability to stop the counter-option play. Can’t you see Coach No-Neck writing up his guy for the Heisman:

Let me tell you what, I’ve never seen a young man come out of the Charley-back like this young man. I guaran-damn-tee you, weak or slot side, this young man can leave those Z-outs wondering what they should’ve eaten for breakfast. And I’m serious, too.

Last week, Walt Hazzard won the National Invitation Tournament and used the format to blast Times writer Mark Heisler for “lack of support.” Hazzard is a good and honorable man, but he’s got the wrong idea about writers. We don’t root for or against any team. We only root for the guys who a) make the best quotes; b) have the easiest names to spell, or c) will have us out of the press room by last call.

Despite what Walt says, sports needs writers, if only to make things up to make them sound more interesting. Maybe only guys like Howie realize that.

Everybody else would just as soon see us prominently displayed in your grocer’s frozen-food case.

This is Rick Reilly’s last column. He is leaving The Times to join the staff of Sports Illustrated.