From the notebook: Lolo
Posted: October 21st, 2008 | Filed under: Baseball, Media, Other Sports | 37 Comments »
So, I was thinking about Lolo. I think about Lolo or bring her up in conversation, oh, probably once or twice every month, which is strange, really, because we were never especially close friends or anything. Lolo was someone I talked with at work sometimes. I liked her a lot, but I’m not sure that we ever even shared a meal. I don’t think we have talked in, wow, close to 20 years now. And to be honest, I have no idea what she’s doing these days.
Lolo is is one of those people, though, who had a dramatic effect on my life and my career. I suspect we all have a Lolo in our lives.
I was thinking about Lolo — this won’t make any sense at first — because I was in my Austin hotel the other day, flipping channels and I happened to come across Lou Holtz ranting about something or other. I don’t guess this is too odd … there’s probably a 67% chance that on any given day you will catch Holtz mid-rant while channel surfing. The wild thing about it, though, is that I landed on the channel at PRECISELY the instant that Lou Holtz said, “Hey, Hitler was a great leader.” First words I heard. Yeah, I mean, channel turn, some movie, channel turn, an Everyone Loves Raymond rerun, channel turn, Lou Holtz saying, “Hey Hitler was a great leader.” I understand there has been a bit of a fuss about it, though I haven’t really kept up with it. I still have no idea what sharp turns in conversation led us to the jarring conclusion of Lou Holtz paying tribute to Adolf Hitler’s leadership skills. And I really don’t want to know. I believe I have expressed the “Hitler as Symbol Rule” here before, but just in case:
Rule 1: It is never a good idea to invoke the name of Hitler to make an unrelated sports-related point — or any unrelated point.
Rule 2: However, if you plan going to bring up Hitler in historical context, see Rule 1.
Rule 3: In certain rare cases, when you are interested in using Hitler to prove a larger truth, see Rule 1.
Rule 4: The one exception to this is … See Rule 1.
Rule 5: Yeah. Rule 1. Always.
I suspect that Holtz’s bizarre rant — it was a bit of cringing fun to watch a rather ashen looking Reece Davis try to clean up that mess — was meant to make some point about how you can lead people in good ways or bad ways. I guess. I’m not sure who was supposed to be Hitler in this scenario, though. I understand he did apologize. I don’t think it reflects on Lou Holtz the man that he made a stupid reference. No, I think it reflects on Lou Holtz on the man who cannot shut up.*
*Am I wrong or is Lou Holtz about one step away from looking into the camera and shouting, “Go to your window and scream, ‘I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!’” The day after the wacky Hitler thing, in the University of Texas press box, I caught him on television again, and THIS TIME he seemed to be making the point that the firing of Tommy Bowden at Clemson was why this country is in the bad shape that it’s in. I’m no sociologist, but it seemed a bit of a stretch to me.
In any case, none of that was not the reason I thought of Lolo. No, the Lolo-Holtz connection is more specific. Lolo was a news reporter at the Charlotte Observer when I began there. I was still in college, and Lolo, in addition to having the fun name “Lolo,” was a damn good reporter, one of those rare people who can get anyone on the phone, coax anything out of a subject, dig to the heart of things, one of those uncommonly decent newspaper people who tries to comfort the afflicted and make the comfortable lose sleep. I was mesmerized by how she worked. I used to watch her work the phones, listen to the way she talked to people, notice how people opened up to her. And I just tried to soak it all in. I supposed it would be like being a rookie pitcher in Greg Maddux’s clubhouse.
We were working in Rock Hill, S.C. at the time, and the star high school football player in town was a guy named Jeff Burris. He played in the NFL for 10 years. In the short time I covered high school football there, I saw future NFL stars Stephen Davis and Bobby Engram — not bad for a pretty small area. Burris, though, was the best of them all. He was a running back and utterly unstoppable. Everyone in the country wanted him. Notre Dame especially wanted him. Lou Holtz was coaching Notre Dame then.
And Lou Holtz personally came to Rock HIll to talk to close the deal on Jeff Burris. This was a very, very big deal in Rock Hill at the time. We caught wind of it somehow, and I was sent over to the Burris home that evening to see if I could catch Holtz before he left. I missed him, but I talked to Jeff’s family, and everyone was very excited, and then I came back to the office to write the story. My editor — who is now a doctor in Myrtle Beach, another long story — said that I needed to try and get Lou Holtz on the phone.
“How am I supposed to do that?” I asked.
Well, Lolo happened to be working that night. And it was a slow night. And so she decided to give me a few quick reporting lessons. First, she said, I needed to call Holtz’s home.
“How am I supposed to do that?” I asked, because that’s pretty much ALL I asked in those days. She said I should call information in South Bend and see if his number was listed. I said something stupid at this point, something like, “Oh, his number isn’t listed, he’s the football coach at Notre Dame, there’s no way.”
Lolo insisted that it was distinctly possible that I had no idea what I was talking about. I called information. Lou Holtz’s number was listed.
Lesson 1: NEVER assume anything.
I left Holtz a message — his plane had obviously not gotten back to South Bend yet — and figured I would wait around and hope for him to call me back. Lolo shook her head.
Lesson 2: NEVER just wait around and hope.
She picked up the phone herself and called … the airport in South Bend. We knew somehow that he was flying back on a private jet, and she deduced about what time it would land. She got to the right person in and set it up so that Holtz would be paged when the plane landed.
I thought that was pretty clever. Then Lolo picked up the phone again and — understand this was many years before 9/11 — somehow she got through to air traffic control. No, I’m not kidding. She got through to someone in the tower and explained how excited people back in South Carolina were that Lou Holtz himself had come to town, and she asked if he could possibly radio the pilot and let Holtz know that that The Charlotte Observer wanted to talk to him just after he landed, you know, if at all possible. The radio control person, charmed by Lolo as everyone else, agreed.
Lesson 3: The “work harder than other people” concept is bigger than words, whether it involves reporting, sports, life. Chiefs tight end Tony Gonzalez has made this point to me numerous times — after every practice he catches 100 or 200 extra passes. On the sideline, while other sit and wait, he is constantly asking someone to throw him more passes. Why? He says it’s because if you are NOT catching those extra passes, then you are doing what everybody else doing. “EVERYBODY practices hard,” he says. “That’s the part people don’t realize. When I hear someone say they’re working hard, I think, ‘No you’re not. You just practice like everyone else. You’re just doing what you’re supposed to do. What you do after practice tells me how hard you’re working.’”
A few minutes after Lolo’s last call, my phone rang. It was Lou Holtz, who was then probably the most famous college football coach in America. I was pretty well star struck. He didn’t say much about Jeff Burris because of NCAA rules, but I will never forget what his replay when I said, “Thank you so much for calling me back.” He said: “What choice did I have?”
That’s not even my favorite Lolo story. My favorite probably cuts close to what I believe about journalism and life. Lolo worked in Dallas for a while, and she once got stuck with doing some sort of story on Secretary’s Day. This is what many people in our business call a fluff story. Fluff. No substance. No air. A marshmallow spread.
The editor stuck Lolo with this fluffy Secretary’s Day story, and I’m sure he had no expectations at all. I’m sure he didn’t even care. Hey, Secretary’s Day’s coming. Write whatever you want about it, but we need some kind of story for the paper. This is usually a signal to reporters to make one or two calls to florists, ask how much business goes up during Secretary’s Day, and make it home in time for an early dinner. Maybe call a couple of businesses to see what the bosses there plan on doing. Maybe if the reporter feels just a touch industrious, he/she might call around to a few secretaries and have them name the goofiest gifts they’ve ever gotten on Secretary’s Day. But few put their all into a story like that because there are no odds in it. How good can you make a Secretary’s Day story anyway? Who is going to even read it? Better to get it done and make it to tomorrow. Survive and advance.
Here’s what Lolo did: She called …the Secretary of Education. The Secretary of Defense. The Secretary of the Treasury. The Secretary of Transportation, of Energy, of the Interior. She might even have gotten the Secretary of State on the phone, I can’t remember for sure. She worked on it, burned up the phones, and she got these important and busy people to call back some reporter they did not know back in Dallas about Secretary’s Day. And, as you might expect, they were great — I believe one said that he was expecting flowers from the President but he had been disappointed before.
I think about that story a lot … not because it changed the world or anything like that, but because I think of Lolo, sitting at some desk in Dallas, stuck with some story nobody else wanted, and thinking to herself: “You know what? I’ll just bet I could get some of the most powerful people in America, members of the President’s cabinet, to talk to me about Secretary’s Day. That would be such a fun story.” She saw something just a little bit better than what other people saw. And then she did it.
That takes more than effort, it takes imagination and a sense of what’s possible. You see this in sports all the time. It still blows my mind that when Kurt Warner was stacking groceries at a Hy-Vee in Iowa, he still saw himself as an NFL quarterback. It inspires me to think that the Tampa Bay Rays, with a small fan base, little money, a nationally ridiculed Dome stadium and a history of failure, viewed themselves as good enough to beat the Yankees and the Red Sox. The 1980 Olympic Hockey team still thrills us, not only because they beat the Soviets, but because somehow they thought they could.
I’m not sure how it all fits together. I’m not even sure it has to fit together. Holtz reminded me of Lolo, and Lolo reminded me of that Secretary’s Day story, and that story reminds me that we shouldn’t shoot low, we shouldn’t settle for the ordinary, we shouldn’t be limited by ceilings in our imagination. I don’t know that I ever thanked Lolo for teaching me those lessons; and I’m sure if I did she scoffed at the very idea of that I would thank her for sharing of herself. That’s what I mean by the Lolos in our lives. They don’t want thanks. They don’t want anything, I guess, except someone willing to listen.
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As a Jewish teenager, I repeatedly pointed out to my mother the ways in which my announced punishments made her analogous to Hitler. I don’t recall this ever annulling the punishment.
Joe, why don’t you track down this “Lolo” (if that’s her real name) and do a follow up story on her and thank her?
Where is Lolo now?
I think it is time to expand Godwin’s Law beyond the internet…
Brilliant as always, Joe. People like Lolo are incredible: I’ve known a few, and they just blow me away with their intensity and work ethic. You should do a follow-up on her and see if she’s running a paper by now…
To Joe and others:
Here is what I think is going on with Joe’s Lolo. She quit reporting and is now a teacher in the Charlotte area. She is married to a guy named John McBride, who runs a blog named Under the Water Tower for their neighborhood (town, subdivision??), Elizabeth. Link to some information: http://oinnovate.blogspot.com/2007/06/really-fast-really-local-news.html. It is my understanding that she takes the pictures that he features in his blog.
Her last name is Pendergrast and her family is very well off. An Uncle gave a lot of money to Christian Brothers University in Memphis and her and her brothers are featured occasionally in their alumni newsletter, including this article she wrote about him. http://www.cbu.edu/News/belltower/pender0807.pdf
And yes the internet is great. Pretty incredible what you can find with a person’s first name and where they worked 20 years ago.
When I was heading off to college, my father pulled me aside and gave me 3 pieces of advice:
1. Go into investment banking -it’s an industry that is too big to fail;
2. When trying to prove a point by using an analogy, avoid using mass murdering dictators from the last three centuries; and
3. Avoid saying things that are somewhat similar to things Bill Conlin has said.
In this case, Lou appears to have violated rules 2 and 3.
Joe,
Reading that story, I couldn’t help but wonder if you were actually looking back on your last 6 months to a year.
You took a free blog and turned it into an article in Sports Illustrated. And all you were looking for was someone to listen (to your constant beseeching of us to buy your book – just kidding).
You’re right, going above and beyond usually pays off. Thanks.
Joe,
You see, this is why I read this blog every day even though I moved to Hawaii from KC recently. Raw thoughts, but tangible , relatable, and real. Brilliant. Aloha Joe, keep it up.
Joe- excellent reading- Thank you.
Brent- way to take that story to heart. A little imagination, a little work, and bingo, we have an instant follow up. Nice job. It seems a little creepy that you could find out all fo that, but nice job none the less.
MIB:
Yeah, I thought myself a little creepy too, then I just pretended that I was an investigative reporter and felt less so.
And now that I think about it, it is pretty scary that I could find out so much about her with a google search (of course, it helped that Lolo is a very unusual name, once I skipped all the references to Lolo Jones, there weren’t a whole lot to sift through)
“once I skipped all the references to Lolo Jones, there weren’t a whole lot to sift through)”
Good thing you didn’t do an image search. I’ve lost an hour or two to such a search.
Joe,
Long-time reader, first-time poster. I’m currently taking as many journalism-related courses at Rhode Island College, with the caveat being that the school doesn’t actually have a journalism program. To compensate, I read your posts (especially the journalism-related ones), which always inspire me to keep at this little dream of mine to become a sportswriter.
I can just tell by your storytelling that you love to write. It’s contagious, because everytime I read your posts (I hear you have a book on the ‘75 Reds coming out as well lol), it makes me want to write about baseball or soccer, my two favorite sports.
Anyway, you’re doing a great job, Joe. I’m sure I’m not the only wannabe journalist who’s inspired by your work.
Brian
As always, reading your writing (here and at the Star) brings me so much pleasure. Thanks for being awesome.
And thanks for sharing your Lolo story with us.
The Lolo story about the uncle seems kind of goofy when she writes that he “tip toed” out on to a wing when an engine conked out and that he then restarted it. Bull.
http://www.cbu.edu/News/belltower/pender0807.pdf
Here’s Lolo’s photo. She’s holding up a sign in Spanish about plants.
http://merryview.blogspot.com/2007/04/hands-on-merry-oaks.html
Lou Holtz is the most functionally scenile orator since Adolf Hitler.
So why didn’t Holtz get Marge Schott-ed by the network?
Great stuff as usual from Joe.
To put the Lolo and the Secretaries story into perspective, or give it a new slant, those guys would relish the opportunity to talk to a reporter from Dallas about a cotton candy topic.
Think about it. They’re hunkered down in Washington, dealing with important matters of state, underlings scurrying about, lobbyists banging at the door. Requests are pouring in for interviews from heavyweights on the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, maybe the Times of London, TV and radio networks; and he knows the President has a curly question for him at the next Cabinet meeting.
He looks at the list of possible phone calls he can make and spots the one from Dallas asking for a few words on Secretary Day. That’s the one he’s going to make first. Unquestionably. It’s like going on holiday, taking a sauna, getting a massage. A few fluffy questions, a few fluffy answers, and he’s back to work like a man reborn.
I’m married to Lolo, so you may presume I’m biased. So I’ll stick with verifiable facts:
1. Last year Lolo was named teacher of the year at Merry Oaks Elementary School. Teachers vote on that award.
2. It was the second nomination in five years of teaching.
3. She is a frickin lunatic.
4. Unless otherwise noted, I take all the pictures on my blog (http://eliza-blog.blogspot.com). Lolo is a great wife, mother and teacher. She is a lousy photographer. Everyone has a fault.
Thanks, Joe.
Loving the end quote by Holtz in this story. “As you know …”
Also: pretty cool that Lolo got credit for contributing.
S.C. STAR COMMITS TO IRISH
By Joe Posnanski | The Charlotte Observer
Staff writers Lolo Pendergrast and Will Parrish contributed to this article.
Thursday evening, Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz waited anxiously, just as all of Rock Hill has been waiting.
According to Carolyn Burris, Jeff’s mother, this is how it happened:
“Well, Jeff,” Holtz said. “Have you made a decision?”
“Yes, sir,” said Burris.
“Can you tell me?” Holtz asked.
“It’s Notre Dame,” said Jeff Burris.
And, at that moment in Burris` living room, Holtz, one of college
football’s most successful coaches, jumped in the air, spun around and hugged Burris, one of the best running backs in S.C. high school history.
And at that moment, perhaps the most incredible and draining recruitments of a Rock Hill football player ended.
Burris’ oral commitment to Notre Dame — confirmed by Burris’ mother and by Northwestern coach Jimmy Wallace — isn’t binding. But this is what Burris, a star running back at Northwestern High, has been looking for since his recruitment began more than a year ago.
Burris, the No. 1 S.C. player in The Charlotte Observer’s Carolinas Top 50 high school recruits, is Northwestern’s all-time leading rusher. Last season he rushed for 1,876 yards and scored 13 touchdowns.
But there was more. From his junior year, Burris’ career was like a parade of honors. He was picked for the Shrine Bowl, then picked as a Parade All-American. He was The Charlotte Observer’s All-Upper State Player Of The Year two years in a row. He led Northwestern to its first state football championship.
The race to sign Burris has been going on ever since his junior season. There were letters from colleges everywhere — a stack that virtually covered Northwestern coach Wallace’s desk — and telephone calls and recruiters’ visits. Burris was often shielded from it all by his mother, who usually answered the phone.
Burris had been planning a trip to Penn State today. Alabama and N.C. State had become more involved in the race in recent weeks. But Thursday, it all ended with Notre Dame, regarded by many as the top school in college football, and Holtz, regarded by many as the nation`s top college coach.
Burris has been thinking about Notre Dame virtually since the season began. Burris was the only player in South Carolina that Notre Dame sent a scout to watch in person.
And Thursday, Holtz, who has won a national championship with Notre Dame and finished No. 2 last season, walked into the Burrises’ home. He told Burris and his family all about Notre Dame.
Holtz, who left town shortly after speaking with Burris, was reached at the South Bend airport but couldn`t say anything, according to NCAA rules.
“Unfortunately I`m real limited about what I can say,” Holtz said. “As you know, here at Notre Dame we follow NCAA rules not only by the letter of the law, but also the spirit of the law.”
“Also: pretty cool that Lolo got credit for contributing.”
Whatever Lolo wants …
Articles like this are why I keep coming back. The bit about TG and the recounting of Lolo’s doggedness is make me to harder work.
Hey Joe (and Brent, and John, and everybody else):
Lovely story about Lolo, and great comment from her lesser half, John.
The link, Brent, made the hits soar at Innovate This, and probably at Merryview, but there’s no counter there. It’s clear Joe has a well-deserved huge, engaged following.
My neighborhood’s very lucky to have Lolo as a teacher at its elementary school.
I’m honored you guys dug her up at Innovate This and Merryview. People like Lolo make the world a better place and deserve recognition (and better pay).
“J: So why didn’t Holtz get Marge Schott-ed by the network?”
J,
I think because there isn’t a pattern of behavior with Lou (at least not one I’m aware of). With Margie, you had a course of four years of intolerant speech, about gays, Jews and blacks, including multiple repeated uses of the “N-word” and the fact that she ***owned a swastika armband.***
Any one of those things on its own is still horrible but probably not enough to force her to face any consequences. But taken as a whole, it’s incredibly naive or disingenuous to claim that a pattern of hateful comments and hobby-collecting of a hateful ideology’s souvenirs isn’t evidence a pretty awful human being.
Also, contextually, what Lou said isn’t so much bad as it is stupid. Plenty of legitimate mainstream historians will tell you that Hitler was, *within specific context* a great leader. The thing is, they only say that after deploying his crimes against humanity. Not giving him some grudging credit for the tremendous economic turnaround in Germany from ‘33-’36 is stupid, but doing so without insisting he was one of the worst people in human history is even more stupid. Which is why Joe’s Five Rules for Using Hitler as a Symbol is very smart, because it’s rare to ever go to that well without screwing up. Hell, even I feel like a twit for writing this much.
Has anyone ever played Nintendo’s “Adventures of Lolo”? Great puzzle game, it is. I would have chimed in with “We’re not worthy!” if Joe had entitled this post with that game’s name and mentioned it somehow in the story.
OK, regardless, we’re still not worthy. Thanks for the great story, Joe.
Fantastic column, Joe– I love your stories. That’s what life is all about, right? I read it out loud to my husband (which I frequently do with your columns), and having been a reporter for a few years he had a special appreciation for the story. Interesting to hear that Lolo has now become a teacher– my husband did the same after he left journalism! Maybe we’ll see you in front of a blackboard one of these days, Joe
Good Lord, can you imagine trying to take notes with Joe at the blackboard? His posterisks would give me a royal headache.
Burris ended up in the NFL, as a cornerback, of all things:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Burris
Damon:
That’s exactly what I thought of when I saw the name “Lolo.”
Also agreed that Joe would be the most frustrating Professor to have. One of the coolest, and I’d love talking baseball with him, but it would be a chore to take notes in that class.
Lolo is also the name of the bar/brothel in A River Runs Through It.
As usual, Joe’s the best.
[...] From the notebook: Lolo I don’t guess this is too odd … there’s probably a 67% chance that on any given day you will catch Holtz mid-rant while channel surfing. The wild thing about it, though, is that I landed on the channel at PRECISELY the instant that Lou … [...]
[...] From the notebook: Lolo From the notebook: Lolo [...]
I have been reading and re-reading Joe’s post about Lolo, debating whether to comment. I knew Lolo 30 years ago. I won’t go into all the ways she was (and I’m sure still is) that once in a lifetime gift to all who know her. But I do have a personal story. In 1979 Lolo convinced me to run the first annual 10K race in Mobile, the Azalea Trail Run. We trained for months, she leading the way with Marine style shouts over her shoulder as I huffed and puffed behind. In the week or two preceding the race we had run the course (always with her in the lead) to the point that I was feeling cocky.
I had read somewhere about the importance of carbo-loading before a race. I had no idea what that meant, except to assume it meant to gorge of carbohydrates before a race. (I need to interject here that I can be a very convincing bullshitter who knows nothing about what he’s talking about.) I explained my understanding of carbo-loading to Lolo, and 7:30AM of the morning of the run found the two of us in her kitchen eating spaghetti. Piles of it. Until we both waddled out wincing as we held our guts.
It was a historic race, the first 10K in what is now an annual event. I cheered and hugged Lolo as she loped across the finish line. I had reached the finish line much earlier, only because I made it three blocks from the start before the cramps told me to quit. But Lolo, who was much smaller than me but ate the same quantity of pasta, literally gutted it out and ran that whole damn race. The next year she swam across Mobile Bay, just ‘because she could’. (I still have the souvenir t-shirt she had printed for the event.)
Joe says we all have ‘Lolo’s’ in our life, but few of us have been blessed with having this Lolo. She left journalism, which is a loss for some of us. But I’m sure she is one hell of a teacher.
[...] or decency? Could it be genius is inherently related to charisma, or the unique talent to embody energetic passion simply to do one’s best, never seeming to yield? Maybe inspiration is the most sincere form of genius after [...]