Harry King: Recalling a career full of memories

Friends for decades, our conversation about the column topic was boss-employee for the first time.

Usually, the confab involves an exchange of ideas or publisher-provided options or even writer’s choice. This time, after confirming that 2019 was the writer’s final football season, the man in charge used the word “assignment” for specificity.

All those years in the business, he said, write about those memories.

Remembering the oft-repeated words of a late and dear friend added some perspective: “You get paid to watch things that the rest of us pay to watch,” so I agreed, reluctantly. Still, the personal ramblings of somebody told by his doctor that he is too old for a colonoscopy might bore even the most ardent of my half-dozen loyal readers anticipating vivid descriptions of doings by athletes during 55-plus years on the job. Those happenings are pretty much a blur.

Instead, available somewhere in the grey matter, are details involving coaches, bosses, co-workers and friends.

Where to start? How about the odd Dec. 6 connection between two moments near the top of my list.

Wide-eyed in the second year of covering the Razorbacks for The Associated Press, Texas 15, Arkansas 14 in 1969 was memorable even though I was relegated to the UA dressing room while the wire service’s big guns wrote No. 1 vs. No. 2. At the time, I did not realize I was witnessing the pinnacle of Arkansas football — after all, the Razorbacks were 9-1 during the first two regular seasons I was staffing games and my first season ended in New Orleans watching the UA hold the offense of No. 4 Georgia without a point.

But, Arkansas suffering a second-half interception in the end zone when a field goal would have been worth a 10-point lead, Texas’ 44-yard completion on fourth-and-3, and many other heartbreaking circumstances shape why the graciousness of the host at the post-game meal in 1969 topped all on-field doings.

At 1525 Hope St., Frank Broyles moved from tablecloth-covered table to table, mingling and fielding questions that were uncomfortable at times from dozens of media members consuming steaks and twice-baked potatoes.

A lesser man would have excused himself after a brief, obligatory appearance.

Six years to the day, Broyles reinforced the class personified in ’69.

Somehow, the former head football coach/athletics director found out our 10-year-old son had hurt his knee playing football and we had been told surgery was the only option.

Broyles got word to me to bring Petey to Fayetteville and let the team’s orthopedic surgeon look at him. Before we left North Little Rock for a trip that included two flat tires, we were told that Dr. Jim Arnold had said that if our son had done what doctors said he had done, he would make medical history.

Petey entered Arnold’s office on crutches, wearing a brace to keep his leg straight, and walked out sans both.

Weeks after our son was sitting on the dining room table and exercising with homemade weights involving a pillowcase and 5 pounds of sugar, Arnold said he would see Petey for a follow-up during an upcoming visit to Little Rock.

On the first Saturday in December, the wide-eyed young quarterback was in the Arkansas dressing room at War Memorial Stadium along with Razorback football players getting taped a couple of hours before the 31-6 rout of No. 2 Texas A&M with the Cotton Bowl at stake.

Clearly, the exam had Broyles’ blessing.

On the other hand, he was unwittingly involved in another memory.

In the mid-60s, Cooper Communities initiated a golf tournament for college football coaches and the most prominent names in the country participated as the event moved from Cherokee Village to Bella Vista to Hot Springs Village.

I always wondered if Orville Henry, the Arkansas Gazette sports and my former boss who knew I loved the game, had something to do with my initial invite. What a blast — golf in the morning during the tournament and more golf in the afternoon, sometimes with a coach looking for a game.

Before the tournament, close friends and fierce rivals, Broyles and Texas coach Darrell Royal played as many holes as possible, speeding from a green to the nearest open tee box. Nobody said no to two of the premier coaches.

During the tournament, Broyles’ cart partner was often an out-of-state media member, but he also wanted Royal in the foursome. Somehow, I wound up paired with Royal more than once and he quickly felt comfortable.

For instance, early in a round at Cherokee Village, dozens of Razorback fans joined in “Woo pig sooiee” after Broyles made a well-rehearsed swing and launched an acceptable tee shot. Royal followed with a less picturesque swing, but a better result.

Silence.

“I feel like a red-headed stepchild,” said the UT coach.

At Hot Springs Village, where it cost me $6 to confirm that then-Vanderbilt coach Steve Sloan could, indeed, play to his low-digit handicap, Royal extended an invite to his townhouse one evening to hear a “picker.”

“Bring your bride,” his catch-all for wives, Royal said.

That evening, a few dozen folks sat on the floor of a large open room and listened to a small, clean-shaven, T-shirt wearing guy with a beat-up guitar and unusual voice. Most requested was a brief tune that began “Jesus was a Baylor Bear.”

Around midnight, with a tee time before 9 a.m., we excused ourselves and headed for the door. Royal stopped us to inform that the singer alongside had changed record labels and that we would be hearing a lot more from him.

“I want you to meet Willie Nelson,” Royal said.

“Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain,” was released within months.

Mentioned earlier, Henry was integral in the career path.

In the first place, he only interviewed a 19-year-old who had never considered a career in journalism because the young man’s brother-in-law was respected at the paper and was concerned that his little sister had married a guy knocking down less than $20 per week listening to Arkansas Democrat subscribers complain about missing their home delivery.

“Put on a jacket and tie your shoes and come over here and apply,” Bill Rutherford told me.

In the Gazette sports department, witnessing the professionalism of Henry, Jim Bailey, and Jerry McConnell and reading their copy, was more informative than any lectures delivered in on-campus journalism courses. That is a roundabout way of saying formal journalism is missing from the college resume, a tidbit revealed knowing it is ripe for ridicule.

Without fanfare, Henry provided some niceties like driving us to Memphis for a PGA Tour event and suggesting I staff Jack Nicklaus, knowing “Fat Jack” was my only sports idol.

Henry’s teaching was mostly by example, but Bailey said plenty one day after asking if I was staffing the upcoming state golf tournament.

Yep.

“I know how long your story will be,” he said.

Huh?

“Eighteen paragraphs,” he said, implying not every hole was worth equal treatment.

Writing tighter was a good tip considering new hires at the AP office in Little Rock wrote broadcast copy early on and that short sentences are a must for those who “rip and read” the news.

Years after leaving the Gazette, I unintentionally embarrassed Bailey, one of the nicest, most talented, egoless writers anywhere, after bumming a ride on The Gazette’s charter flight to College Station for No. 8 Arkansas vs. No. 11 A&M in Lou Holtz’s first year at Fayetteville.

Guarding the lunch line in the pressbox was a uniformed cadet responsible for punching one-time only tickets.

Knowing Bailey’s ticket was intact, I said something from 30 feet away about his second trip through the buffet line and the cadet snapped to attention, confronting Jim.

Through the years, he regaled many with an embellished version of the incident.

The Razorbacks’ 26-20 victory over the Aggies was one of only two UA regular-season road games staffed by AP’s Arkansas-based sportswriter in 30-plus years.

The other was Dec. 5, 1970. Arkansas was No. 4, Texas was No. 1 and I convinced Arkansas Bureau Chief John Robert Starr that the game would be “The Big Shootout,” Part Deux. He agreed to drive to Austin and foot the bill for motel rooms if I could get two media tickets and in stadium tickets for the wives.

After Texas 42, Arkansas 7, the 515-mile drive took what seemed like 15 hours.

It was Starr who got involved when I called from New Orleans to explain that I was staffing the Sugar Bowl basketball tournament — it might have been Notre Dame vs. West Virginia — that evening.

Twenty minutes later, I got a call from the New Orleans Bureau telling me not to worry about basketball. Apparently, Starr did not mince words explaining he was paying mileage, meals and hotel for UA football and nothing else.

Years later, a budget-conscious chief of bureau who cared little about sports noted the excitement in 1983 when Sunny’s Halo became the first Arkansas Derby winner to capture the Kentucky Derby and decided we should staff the Kentucky Derby … on the cheap.

Eager for the assignment does not describe the reaction of somebody who watched the races at Oaklawn Park from behind the fence in the far turn when the minimum age was 16 and whose on-track wagering string reached 50-something years before the pandemic hit in March.

The plan to keep down expenses included bumming a ride to Louisville, helping out with gas, and maybe buying dinner. Arkansas Gazette staffer Kim Brazzel was kind enough to offer the spare bed in his motel room.

Adhering to the boss’s order, the Sunday buffet at Po’ Folks in Jackson, Tenn., was the perfect place to load up on the way back to Little Rock. Bob Wisener and Rex Nelson agreed and I won’t get into consumption details, but the restaurant was closed the next year.

Covering the Derby was in the budget the following year and Brazzel convinced me that, if we left Little Rock before sunrise, we could bet the first race on Wednesday. Writing off losing tickets on an expense account requires creativity.

In 1992, after Arkansas-owned and Oaklawn-based Lil E. Tee won the Kentucky Derby, it was Brazzel who insisted we get up at 4 a.m. the morning after and head for the track.

The idea paid off handsomely. We were the only media members at the barn of winning trainer Lynn Whiting before sunrise and he was unfiltered with two Arkies. Back in Arkansas, Brazzel read the column and encouraged me to enter a Derby-only writing competition.

One more Louisville moment.

Back in the day, an Arkansas-based writer on the road with a lengthy story would dictate 500 words or so to somebody in the Little Rock Bureau who would file the 10 or 12 paragraphs in the system and then get back on the phone for a second take.

Don’t ask the year, but the finished product was satisfactory and I prepared to go downstairs to dinner when the P.A. guy said there was a phone call for Harry King.

What does a page in the Derby pressbox cost, Brazzel asked, 20 bucks?

The man in Little Rock mentioned something about a computer problem and the vibe was unmistakable — he had lost the first take.

After slamming down the pressbox phone, some choice words were uttered loud enough for several hard-working folks to hear.

One more outburst, I was told, and I would be escorted out of the pressbox.

Embarrassing, to say the least, and reconstructing the copy was about as stressful as dictating the 1975 Liberty Bowl to New York. Higher-ups had decided Arkansas had no shot at the Aggies and assigned me to the the game in Memphis.

USC led A&M 20-0 after the first quarter and that was the final, making it difficult to find highlights to feed at the end of each period. Because of the flow of the game, New York expected rapid delivery of a story with quotes.

Midway through the fourth quarter, the story was done sans some words from coach John McKay that were to be provided by a Memphis-based reporter.

Twenty minutes went by and New York called. Ten more minutes, nothing.

Finally, the guy showed up, stammered around a moment, then mumbled something about the noise in the dressing room.

Former Gazette staffer Jim Lassiter bailed me out with a quote.

Between the years at AP and Stephens Media, there were myriad bowl trips — some, enjoyable, some not so much, and two in Tennessee where I was AWOL for good reason. The first list includes the Holiday Bowl and playing golf in shorts in late December with Henry, his son Clay, and my brother Lou; trying not to laugh when the spouse wanted to know how the short guy on the field could get away with harassing Razorback players preparing for the 1978 Orange Bowl, and a personal one-day trifecta at the CarQuest Bowl, wagering on the horses, dogs, and Jai Alai with an equal lack of success.

The first game missed was Dec. 29, 1987, matching Arkansas and Georgia in the Liberty Bowl. The day prior, the Little Rock Bureau called and I hustled home without protest.

That day, R. Gene Simmons walked into four businesses in Russellville, killing two people, and wounding four others. When officers investigated, they found the bodies of 14 family members at his home — a stark reminder my work week was about one-third sports and two-thirds news.

Fifteen years later, right or wrong, I blame the two daughters of a friend who left too many chips and too much cheese dip on the table and my waste not, want not embrace of Mexican food. The following day, I never left the hotel room in Nashville while Minnesota beat Arkansas 29-14 in the Music City Bowl.

A job offer from friend/former co-worker Dennis Byrd at the Arkansas News Bureau for a sports-only column five days a week was too good to pass up and the Music City Bowl was the last football game staffed for AP.

The first season at Stephens included wearying drives to Knoxville and Auburn on consecutive weekends, but somebody soon decided it was as cheap to do the roundtrip on a company jet as paying expenses to and from for eight or nine people. The only time the half-dozen folks based in Northwest Arkansas had to depart from Little Rock was for the 1,200-mile trip to New Jersey for the Rutgers game and, even then, up and back barely consumed 13 hours and included a nice view of the Statue of Liberty.

Commercial flights have not been the same after consuming boxed dinners provided on the plane, taking a few steps from parking lot to comfy seats on the aircraft, and avoiding any and all lines several times each fall.

Unexpectedly, the Stephens connection to Augusta National also enabled me to obtain a media credential to The Masters — out of the question for most in the business.

As expected, the golf was superb, but there was so much more:

— Bearing witness to Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Gary Player teeing off together on opening day of the tournament in 2012.

— Augusta moving its practice area, making it parallel to Washington Road instead of perpendicular, without evidence of the construction.

— Watching Rory Sabbatini bail on his caddie and walk a couple of hundred yards to the new tee at No. 11 in 2006 only to realize he had his driver, but no golf balls.

— Being fascinated by Bubba Watson intentionally hooking a 6-iron 35 or 40 yards while other pros in the practice area were trying to move the ball a yard or two.

— Quickly realizing Henry was right, that the only way to cover the back nine on Sunday was to sit in the auditorium-type media room and monitor TV.

But, year after year, I departed Augusta raving about another example of the patron-first attitude that permeated the course from early-morning arrival to the exit at dusk.

On-course food is dirt cheap, souvenirs are more than reasonable, and shipping purchases home is a miniute away from the well-manned checkout lines.

Last time I looked, the famous egg salad sandwich was $1.50 and The Masters club was a buck more. Last year, somebody else calculated that everything on the menu — including eight sandwiches, three beers and snacks — cost less than $60.

If that’s not enough to provoke a wow, how about the club spending $40 million to buy and level dozens of homes to make way for a parking lot only yards from Gate 6-A. The first time I heard about the parking area, I remembered seeing signs near Churchill Downs offering Derby parking for $50 and knew folks who lived near War Memorial Stadium charged $20 or more for a spot in their yard.

F-R-E-E at Augusta.

Football dominates this column, mostly because AP hired an on-site person to do almost all Razorback basketball games. Even when Nolan Richardson was in charge, I staffed no more than a couple of contests per season; with Eddie Sutton, I made the roundtrip even less.

A cynic might point out that my limited exposure to staffing NCAA basketball couldn’t be topped.

My only two tournament games were in Charlotte, N.C., on April 2-4, 1994.

Hirings and firings were also part of the job.

There was the phone call to Lou Holtz to pursue the possibility the head coach of the New York Jets would succeed Broyles as Arkansas coach.

Before I could get to the question, Holtz wanted to know how I got his home phone number.

A friend in Memphis, I said.

“If he gave you my number, he’s no friend of mine,” he said before going on to cite players’ salaries and talk about how much more difficult it was to coach the pros than in college.

Pursuing coaching changes, there was an evening in Fayetteville when Nate Allen helped immensely and was promised dinner for him and wife Nancy at AP’s expense.

We met at his favorite place and consumed the yummy pies.

Turns out, the joint didn’t take credit cards and Allen had to fork over almost $40 to cover the tab.

Among other snippets:

— Ken Hatfield’s kindess after a death in the family and his interest in my son’s golf career.

— Houston Nutt’s willingness to sit down for 15 minutes or so on many a Tuesday.

— Broyles’ use of “tired and burned out” to describe Holtz when the coach was cut loose in 1983 following a 6-5 season.

— Somebody in the know sharing that Arkansas would play Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl on Jan. 2, 1978, and wiseguys in New York pooh-poohing the idea. Called late one night about media reports that Tommy Tuberville would be named to replace Danny Ford, that same somebody said any AP speculation should include Nutt.

— The quiver in Paul Eells’ voice shortly after Richardson was fired.

— Jim Elder calling the Holiday Inn in Russellville to make sure somebody in charge of the breakfast buffet knew the Arkansas kickoff was before noon.

No wonder I enjoyed going to work 97 percent of the time.