Living Out Loud

by Craig Sager

  Dad always made sure that my sister and I appreciated the power of words, and was most proud of my ability to write, as he viewed writing as a craft to be honed. He lived to see me report on some historic sports stories, but he was never more proud than when an essay that I had written about patriotism went national.

  In 1966, when I was a freshman hoping for straight A’s, my English teacher told me that the only way she would bump up my grade to an A in the spring was if I wrote an essay for the American Legion essay contest, a national competition for high school students. I titled my essay “How and Why I Should Show Respect to the American Flag.”

  They call us “teenagers” and give us more publicity than our soldiers in Viet Nam. Mostly, we’re pictured as mobs of half-washed, unkempt, long-haired youth, who sneer and rebel at parents, teachers, the military, government leaders or anybody or anything that might be construed as old-fashioned, cultural or patriotic. We’re supposed to prefer security over opportunity, the “Jerk” rather than sports, Castro more than the president, rock n’ roll over the “Star Spangled Banner” and some of the old members of our set are internationally portrayed burning draft cards, attacking teachers, raising funds for Communists or showing disrespect for our flag.

  While I love pizza, fries, pie, shakes, tight Levis, TV, vacations and bigger allowances and qualify at fourteen as a teenager, I’m probably more like the millions of untypical teenagers that get little publicity and you rarely see on television.

  We untypical teenagers are happy we were born in America and not in Havana, Moscow or Peiping. When we hear the “Star Spangled Banner” or look up to Old Glory floating at the top of the pole in the schoolyard, it’s not just any ordinary song or bright colored cloth that brings us up tall. It’s the history behind that music and that flag that we remember.

  We stand erect as we remember: the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, Valley Forge, Gettysburg, the Battle of the Bulge, Pearl Harbor, Korea, Viet Nam, the Statue of Liberty and a Nation whose most historical moments were made in the interest of freedom and justice for all and not with a desire for world conquest. Sure, we’re teenagers but unlike most sensational rat packs in our midst, we’re proud to be in the greatest nation on earth. Whenever others spit on our flag or tear down our government we know it’s only because they despise the fact that we already have what they really want.

  The flag should always remind us that freedom will always be ours if we’re half the Americans as those before us who made it possible.

  This is what other teenagers call “flag-waving.” It’s what my group calls patriotism. We’re in the majority and that flag is here to stay!

  Not only did that essay earn me my A, but I placed first in the writing contest for freshmen and sophomores at Batavia High School and eventually placed third in the district competition. The local paper, the Aurora Beacon-News, got wind of the essay and reprinted it, catching the attention of U.S. representative Charlotte T. Reid, who had it included in the Congressional Record for June 1, 1966. My dad took a copy of that essay with him everywhere he went and bragged about his son to his clients and coworkers at every opportunity.

  Rest assured, I was not perfect. When I was a junior at Batavia High, I entered a speech competition and qualified for the regional competition in the category of “Impromptu Speaking.” As the title indicates, competitors pulled a random topic out of a hat and had one minute to collect their thoughts and deliver an eloquent monologue on the topic. When it was my turn, I reached in and pulled out a piece of paper with the word “euthanasia” on it. I got this one, I immediately thought. The Vietnam War was going on; young boys and girls in Southeast Asia were dying or had become refugees or prisoners. I launched into a confident and boisterous address on the plight of youth in Asia. As I spoke, I noticed some eye rolls and heard a few snickers in the audience. I made eye contact with my parents. Perhaps my words were so brilliant that the audience knew I was a shoo-in to win.

  When my time was over, the judges all gave me 1’s on a 1–10 scale. The host informed me that euthanasia was a form of assisted suicide, not a group of kids in Vietnam. My face flushed with blood, and one second felt like an hour. I could tell the room was waiting to see my reaction. My laugh said it all, and the entire room burst into laughter and applause along with me.

  My father was full of clichés and words of wisdom, and he never missed a chance to remind Candy and me, “Don’t judge a man until you have walked in his moccasins.” He lived that creed. Dad did not judge others based on their skin color or religion or even the amount of money they had in the bank. He saw commonalities, not differences. He felt quite comfortable as the only Protestant on the private Marmion School Board and the only white judge at the Ebony pageant in Chicago. The lesson of acceptance was also on display every week on a bocce court in our neighborhood.

  Bocce was first played in ancient Rome, and some variation of the game remains popular in Europe and in cities around the world with large Italian populations—like Chicago. Two doors down from where we lived in Batavia, our neighbor Severano Pasetti installed a bocce court in his backyard and hosted weekly neighborhood cookouts and bocce tournaments. For whatever reason, my father took an intense liking to the game, and when he wasn’t working he made his way to Seve’s backyard and eventually traveled to matches with him and a local bocce team consisting of all Italians—except for Dad. When the national bocce team from Italy went on a barnstorming tour of the United States when I was a teen, my father was selected to be on the U.S. team to take on the world champs at a bocce court set up outside a restaurant in downtown Chicago. The crowd was huge, and many Batavians traveled to Chicago to cheer on Dad and Seve—including me. I am not sure that I can remember ever being more proud to be Al Sager’s son.

  As was evidenced by his star turn with immigrant Italians in bocce and as the only white man on various nonprofit or educational boards, my father taught my sister and me to see people for who they were, not what they were. In fact, two of my teammates and good friends in high school, Mike Brown and Dennis Graves, were both African Americans from the “Eastside” of Batavia who did not have a lot. My father routinely took the three of us out to dinner after games, and one year he paid for Mike and Dennis to attend DePaul University coach Ray Meyer’s basketball fundamentals camp with me in Three Lakes, Wisconsin. I will never forget Mike’s eyes when we stopped on our way up to the camp and Mom filled up a large cooler with more snacks and drinks than Mike had ever laid eyes on.

  Years later, as I came to truly understand the enormity of the race issue through the many places I visited and the many people with whom I spoke, I appreciated the great opportunity my upbringing had afforded me—to choose heroes and, more important, friends based on criteria that superseded race. I never thought of Ernie Banks as black, just the greatest there ever was.

  Sports have always been ahead of society, and while Dr. King dreamed of a time when his children would be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character, sports have long been there. I was born four years after Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s race barrier, and, with Ernie Banks as my idol, I recognized that it was talent, work ethic, and accomplishments that made Hank Aaron the greatest hitter, Jim Brown the most prolific runner, and Bill Russell the most decorated athlete of my generation.

  Despite the important lessons I learned from my father, he was not perfect, and at times he could be overly critical of me and my sister. I actually had teachers in high school who had taught my father thirty years earlier, and I was constantly reminded what a perfect student he was. While my number-nine class ranking in my senior class of 196 was a source of pride for my mom, my dad looked at it as an inquiry as to who the eight ahead of me were.

  And during a rare Little League game that my father was actually in attendance for when I was nine, I struck out three times. On the way home in the car, he told me that I had embarrassed him in front of friends and neighbors by playing so
poorly, or “sucking,” as he put it. No one felt worse about my performance than me, and with the attitude that the more I practiced, the better I would get, I made the decision right then and there on the short car ride home that I would get better. As soon as we got home, I grabbed my baseball glove and went to our backyard and started to throw a baseball against a brick wall, diving after the ricochet—at great risk to my body—to work on my fielding. As tears poured down my cheeks during ninety minutes of practice, my mother came outside and asked me what I was doing. Her warm hug made things better.

  As is the case with me, my father’s work was his life, and after selling his advertising agency and moving to Florida, he didn’t respond well to retirement. Outside of solving the New York Times crossword puzzle and getting beat by Mom at golf, he didn’t have many hobbies, so when I had a major assignment overseas, like the Goodwill Games in 1986 in Russia, I started bringing my father along, thinking he might enjoy the atmosphere. As it turned out, his helping me research and write proved to be a rewarding experience for the both of us. I didn’t intend to put him back in his element—I just wanted to give him something to do—but seeing my dad’s enthusiasm made me realize that his work ethic, the thing I most admired about him, was born from something very positive.

  In 1998, Ted Turner asked me to travel to Cuba to help strengthen relations with the Cuban national baseball team so Ted could get a game scheduled between his Atlanta Braves and the 1996 gold medal winners. I took my father along, and we were afforded unique access to a place where time stands still. My father soaked up everything about the culture, civilization, and uniqueness of the Cuban people by asking questions and taking notes, and I was able to see what my father, the former WWII correspondent, had been like as a younger man. Few sons get the opportunity to see their fathers in a younger form, yet after a week in Cuba, I was left with a vivid image that was neither perception nor fantasy but a realization of how I had grown up to be like Dad.

  *

  As for the fourth member of our family, Candy, four years my senior, I was always a pain to her. Not only was I the annoying little brother who spied on her dates, but I was the golden child who could do no wrong in the eyes of our parents. When I threw a rock through our front window in an attempt to get my mother’s attention so she could escort me across busy Batavia Avenue back to our house, per her edict, Mom, rather than punish me, apologized profusely for not hearing me calling in the first place. Candy was a rebel. While I broke the rules at times, I also would make sure to be home thirty minutes before curfew, but Candy? She would straggle in an hour late. She and I often fought, as many siblings do, and in fact, on one occasion, Mom threatened to drive the car into a tree if we didn’t stop fighting in the backseat—and she did just that! I was in fourth grade when Mom drove the 1958 Buick into an elm tree on Batavia Avenue, its 1950s-style heavy chrome-plated steel bumper suffering minimal damage but shredding the bark on the elm, which stood as testimony to Coral Sager keeping her promises. There was also one time when Candy was babysitting me and was so annoyed with my antics that she and a friend tied me to a tree and simply took off.

  My relationship with Candy changed after she left high school, got married young, and had two little girls. Her second child, Christy, was diagnosed with PKU, a dangerous and sometimes fatal disease, and was hospitalized for many weeks. The situation was touch-and-go, and every day I went with Candy to the hospital to try to keep Christy’s spirits up. I think my sister appreciated my concern and started to see me as a peer, rather than a bratty little brother. Fortunately, Christy survived the early years and grew into a remarkable young woman.

  *

  Looking back, growing up influenced by my colorful family, the puzzle comes together for me. Fearlessness was a gift from God. Optimism was a gift from Ernie Banks. Curiosity and strength from my mother. Work ethic and reaching for the stars from my father. That pretty much sums me up.

  4

  ONE MINUTE

  Perhaps the biggest thing ever to happen in Batavia occurred way back in 1912, when the Batavia High School boys’ basketball team won the Illinois state title, during a time when all schools, public and private, played in the same division. They still talked about the ’12 squad when I was shooting baskets at the metal rim attached to a fan-shaped wood backboard in my driveway in the 1950s and ’60s. Through generations, Batavia has been known as the “Valley of Roundball,” the city buzzing on game days and quite literally shutting down on game nights as young and old pack Batavia High’s gymnasium.

  In high school, I realized that baseball was too slow for me—there simply wasn’t enough action for a hyper kid. Football was fun to play, but the practices stunk, especially in the heat of summer. Catching touchdowns as a wide receiver was fun, but I found absolutely no enjoyment in the hitting, tackling, and scrimmaging in practice. I simply didn’t like the physicality of the sport. I played three seasons as a punter and as a fast—but short—wide receiver who could catch any pass thrown my way.

  Basketball, though, was perfect: constant action and movement; you played the game as you were practicing; and the best players rose to the top fairly quickly. It was a meritocracy and I loved it. I was determined to be a local hero. To be one of the guys for whom the whole town shut down. To help the Batavia Bulldogs win a shiny state championship trophy (or at least one less dusty than the 1912 relic). But playing basketball at Batavia wasn’t for the faint of heart.

  Coach Don VanDersnick was, simply, a tough son of a gun. A former Marine with a buzz cut, a soldier’s mouth, and a relentless drive to extract every ounce of talent from his players. Playing basketball for Coach Van remains the most difficult thing that I have ever done—tougher even than battling leukemia.

  To be a basketball player at Batavia High meant surrendering control, time, and freedom of thought to Coach Van. He dictated how short our hair needed to be and was known to kick a player off the team if his hair was a few millimeters too long. He made every player wear a crimson-and-gold beanie every time we stepped outside of school. Failure to do so would result in severe discipline. Players were banned from speaking with girls in school so as to not distract from a focus on basketball. He even gave us each a spiral notebook detailing everything that we could and could not eat or drink year-round.

  If life was tough off the court as a Batavia basketball player, on the court it was hell. Every morning before school, parents dropped off their sons in the cold darkness, while other boys rode their bikes or walked to the gymnasium for 6:30 a.m. practice. Coach Van would drill us with the fundamentals of the game: dribbling, passing, defense. Over and over again we would run basic drills until he was modestly satisfied. We worked up a good sweat every morning before showering and making it in time for first period.

  Lunchtime? That was reserved for free throw shooting. Players scarfed down whatever food Mom packed that day and then lined up at free throw lines around the gym to work on technique and accuracy.

  When the afternoon school bell rang, we mentally prepared ourselves for the most difficult part of being a Batavia player. Before each afternoon practice, we would affix five-to-ten-pound weights to our ankles and not take them off until we left the gym. Coach always believed that if we trained and practiced with extra pounds on our legs, we would feel that much more lightning-fast during games. So with weights strapped around our ankles, we climbed a two-inch-thick rope that hung from the roof of the gym. Up and down, up and down. Then we hustled over to a bench—not to sit, but rather to do standing jumps over the bench, again and again. After these “warm-ups,” Coach put us through an intense two-hour practice (with no water breaks) before concluding with the “One Minute.”

  Many of you who played a sport are familiar with variations of “One Minute,” more commonly known as “suicides.” Starting on one baseline under the basket, we would sprint to the free throw line and then back to the baseline; then to midcourt and back; then to the far free throw line and back; and then finally to the
opposite baseline and back. Coach Van gave us sixty seconds to complete the sprints. Any team member finishing over one minute forced the entire team to do another one. Some days, we might run five, six, or even ten One Minutes. Teammates would throw up, hands resting on knees, completely exhausted. Logically, I never understood how, after finishing five seconds over, I could overcome the dehydration, exhaustion, and lactic acidosis and possibly do it even faster. But somehow I dug deep, like Coach Van knew I would, and found a place I never thought existed and completed it in under sixty seconds.

  Why did I and so many others sacrifice and endure the torture of Coach Van? Well, for one thing, because the games were so much darn fun. I loved the competition. For another, being a member of the Batavia High School basketball team brought with it a status in school and out.

  And if you thought that Coach Van and I and my teammates took basketball seriously, you should have seen Coral Sager.

  In a hotly contested game against one of our basketball rivals, East Aurora, she marched onto the court to protest a referee’s call and, in not so family-friendly terms, insisted that we were getting hosed. Unable to give a fan a technical foul, the ref weakly defended his position until two policemen came to his rescue and asked my mom to return to the bleachers. When she refused, the men in blue shrugged their shoulders, put her in handcuffs, and led her out of the gym. She exited to a standing ovation.

  When I was a high school freshman, I played with senior Dan Issel, who would become an NBA Hall of Famer, and junior Ken Anderson, who would find his calling as an MVP in the National Football League. I was only five feet seven inches tall and wouldn’t hit my growth spurt until college, but I played my part as a backup point guard. With two of the tallest parents in town (Mom was six feet even, and Dad was six-three, as was Candy, the second-tallest student at Batavia High, behind the six-nine Issel), I was destined to grow. The coaching staff wanted to redshirt me for a year with a study program in Europe, but I was not the least bit interested and patiently moved up the roster from number 3, reserved for the smallest players, to number 32, for the tallest ones, as my skills and my height increased.