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Only about fifty pages or so are about entertainers he's known -- maybe forty pages on jazz musicians and ten pages on comedians. But the rest of it is just as interesting, to me, anyway. There's five pages of his childhood, five pages of doing local television in the Fifties, twenty pages on playing football.
He was a Big Ten linebacker in college -- Indiana University. He was a second-stringer, but a decent one -- he was put in in order to let first stringers rest. The coach, Bo MacMillan, told him that he was a GOOD player, and worth being on the team, but not a GREAT one, and would never go pro, so to make sure to focus on his studies.
Papa has a lot of stuff about the integration of college sports in that time period -- and how it wasn't until quite a bit later that he realized that that was what had been going on. The coaches were bringing black players on the team, and making them PART of the team, doing a good enough job that the rest of the players, including Papa, didn't notice. Yeah, some of the other players were black. And Coach MacMillan didn't make any sort of big deal out of it, but made ALL the players be part of the team. It wasn't until he was grown, and reading biographies of MacMillan, that he even found out about the behind-the-scenes fights that the coach had gone through to make sure that the team was allowed to be integrated. As far as the team was concerned, that was just the way it was.
There's another section on his army experiences.
It's all worth reading, at least for me, and I think a lot of other people would be interested, but it's not COMMERCIALLY publishable. But it's definitely worth self-publishing.
He was a Big Ten linebacker in college -- Indiana University. He was a second-stringer, but a decent one -- he was put in in order to let first stringers rest. The coach, Bo MacMillan, told him that he was a GOOD player, and worth being on the team, but not a GREAT one, and would never go pro, so to make sure to focus on his studies.
Papa has a lot of stuff about the integration of college sports in that time period -- and how it wasn't until quite a bit later that he realized that that was what had been going on. The coaches were bringing black players on the team, and making them PART of the team, doing a good enough job that the rest of the players, including Papa, didn't notice. Yeah, some of the other players were black. And Coach MacMillan didn't make any sort of big deal out of it, but made ALL the players be part of the team. It wasn't until he was grown, and reading biographies of MacMillan, that he even found out about the behind-the-scenes fights that the coach had gone through to make sure that the team was allowed to be integrated. As far as the team was concerned, that was just the way it was.
There's another section on his army experiences.
It's all worth reading, at least for me, and I think a lot of other people would be interested, but it's not COMMERCIALLY publishable. But it's definitely worth self-publishing.