If I Ever Get Back to Georgia, I'm Gonna Nail My Feet to the Ground

by Lewis Grizzard

  By the time I was in school, the dean no longer drove. Each afternoon, he would stand in front of the Commerce-Journalism Building, and his wife would drive up to take him home, and off they would putter in what I think now was a large black Buick, an automobile befitting a man of Dean Drewery’s style and position.

  I don’t recall very much of what I learned in Introduction to Journalism class my first quarter in school. I know I learned the name of the first sportswriter in Journalism History class. (You’d think I would have remembered that name for the rest of my life. Unfortunately, I soon forgot it, along with a lot of information about Ben Franklin and the Penny Press.)

  But factual information wasn’t what good Dean Drewery was all about in the first place. He was an entertainer. Never a day passed in one of his classes that he didn’t send his audience into great convulsions of laughter.

  Dean Drewery calling the roll was even memorable. All his classes—he also taught courses in journalism ethics, magazines, and advertising—were held in the spacious Commerce Journalism Building auditorium, which seated three hundred students. He addressed us from behind a podium on a raised platform. Classes were fifty minutes long. Because his voice was cane syrup, dripping slowly, the dean normally took twenty minutes to call out the names of his three hundred students.

  It went something like:

  “Miss Ad-eee-son.”

  “Here.”

  “Mr. Awwwwl-brite.”

  “Here.”

  The dean also was one of the few people who pronounced my name the way I pronounce it, the first time he stumbled upon it.

  It’s been tough having a name like Grizzard. My family always has pronounced it with the emphasis on the second syllable, as in “Griz-Zard” Unfortunately, about 8 million people have pronounced it as “Griz-zard,” (rhyming with “Liz-ard”) when first confronted by my last name.

  Not Dean Drewery. He said my last name in the manner I am certain God intended.

  “Mr. Griiii-ZAAAAAARD,” the dean would call forth.

  One morning I answered, “I’m right here, Dean.”

  He replied, “Mr. Griiii-Zaaaaaard, a simple ‘here’ will suffice,” and went directly to, “Miss Ham-illl-tun.”

  “Wuhhhhhds [words],” the dean would say. “You must learn the value of ‘wuhhhhds.’ Without them, you are lost. Wuhhhds are the tools of your trade. You must love wuhhhds, cherish wuuhhds, and use them with a mind toward economy with the gallant purpose of meaningful communication.

  “The use of some wuuhhds often confuses me. I heard our bright students use a wuuhd describing a very warm environment. I hear them say, ‘It’s hot as——.” Certainly, that is a suitable metaphor. But then, I also hear them say, ‘It’s cold as h——.’ It cannot be both. Let us choose wuuhhds with great care, so as not to confuse the listener or the reader. ‘It’s cold as a polar bear’s posterior.’ Isn’t that much better? Wuuhhds.”

  As much as the dean may have preached the economy of wuuhhds, he didn’t always follow his own mandate. He was the master of using fifty words when one or two would suffice. But that somehow had a marvelous appeal to me.

  On the first day of the Introduction to Journalism class, someone asked the dean, “Is it okay if we smoke in your class?” “Yes” or “no” would have been the very essence of the gallant purpose of communication. But Dean Drewery took another route:

  “Fire,” he began. “A wonderful wuuhhd, ‘fire.’ The mere sound of it conjures so many images. A roaring fire. Ah, yes. Quiet evenings with a good book in a chair near the roaring fire.

  “Fire and Brimstone. One can almost feel the heat and smell the sulfurous, acrid smoke. Go to church Sunday, class. One can’t be too careful in regards to the hereafter.

  “The wind-swept fire. With fire in his eyes. Ready, aim . . . fire!

  “Mahvelous word, fire. There will be no fire in my class.”

  He was once lecturing on press coverage of the Kennedy assassination. He began by saying, “A young man went to Dallas....” Then, lowering his voice and peering over his glasses at us, he added the ominous, “. . . But he nevah returned.”

  You never knew in which direction Dean Drewery might go. One day, during his lecture, he would walk to his right and turn and peer out one of the two doors of the auditorium. He would return to the podium, and a few moments later walk to his left and peer out of the other door. At midsentence, twenty minutes into his lecture, he interrupted himself and said, “I am sure there are those of you who are wondering about my interest in the two doors today. I feel I owe an explanation.

  “I have been reading a great deal in the periodicals recently concerning the possibility of visitors from the outer reaches of space.

  “Last evening, as I pondered this possibility further, it occurred to me that if visitors were to land in this area, they obviously would come here to the University of Georgia, the center for learning in our great state.

  “And upon landing on campus, what would be their first stop? Why here, of course, to the Henry Grady School of Journalism, where our business is communication.

  “What I have been doing is occasionally looking out each door to see if any such visitors have descended upon us. I feel it would be my duty, as dean of the school, to be the first to greet them.”

  The only time I actually saw Dean Drewery explain his thoughts without starting in France and ending up in Outer Mongolia, was on one of the School of Journalism’s most festive days—Henry Grady’s birthday.

  Henry Grady was editor of the Atlanta Constitution during the turbulent post-Civil War days. He was a visionary who saw the possibility of a New South emerging from the ashes of the old one.

  There would be cake and punch in the School of Journalism library on Henry Grady’s birthday. Balloons would grace the halls of the school, and the dean often would read something from Grady to his class.

  During my sophomore year, the dean came into class on Grady Day and began to call the role.

  He was somewhere near “Miss Tal-eee-fah-row,” when two radio-TV majors seated in the back of the class turned on a tape-recorded message. It began, “This is the ghost of Henry Grady....” and went on to offer his appreciation for the observance of his birthday and a few other messages from journalism’s Valhalla.

  Dean Drewery never looked up from his roll. The laughter from the class died quickly when the recorded interruption ended. Was the dean offended? Was this day so hallowed humor had no place in it? As the dean continued to stare at his roll, offering no comment whatsoever, there was much throat-clearing and seat-squirming. Finally, the dean broke through the silence by simply continuing to call the roll.

  “Mr. Tahhh-lee-vor . . .”

  When he finished, he looked up and said, “Class ...” Then, ever so subtly, he lifted his eyes skyward and said, “. . . And honored guest...” and went directly into his lecture. It was his only mention of the prank. I thought it perfect.

  In such a few words, he had acknowledged the cleverness of the effort and had given his approval of it. If I learned nothing else from Dean Drewery, I learned an appreciation for both overstated bombast, as well as the effectiveness of subtlety.

  I’m not certain if Dean Drewery did it for all his graduates, but he obviously kept an eye on my career. Each step I took in it was accompanied by a note of congratulations from Dean Drewery. Each was poignantly short-winded.

  One said, “You make me proud.” Another, “Well done.” And yet another, “Bravo.”

  In 1987, long after the dean’s death, I received the John E. Drewery Award from the Grady School. The plaque said, FOR DISTINGUISHED ACHIEVEMENT IN JOURNALISM.

  It’s on the wall of my office. Even as I type these words, I can look up and see it. It hangs over an autographed photo of Bear Bryant. When I am low, I often go to my wall for an ego lift. I won the Drewery Award, and Bear Bryant recognized my existence with a personalized autograph on his photo.

  What treasures.

  Chapter 6r />
  THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER at the University of Georgia was The Red and Black. The Journalism School looked over its shoulder, and journalism students put it out twice a week.

  There were two problems I saw in working for The Red and Black. One was, it paid even worse than real newspapers. I needed money.

  I wanted to get my mother off the financial hook. The more money I made, the less I would have to depend on my mother to pay my college expenses. I wanted to relieve her obsession with having the money to pay for my education. Also, the phrase “I worked my way through college” was something I could use, perhaps, when I had children of my own.

  “Daddy,” one of my children might say, “All the other guys at the fraternity house are driving Mercedes convertibles, may I have one?”

  Of course, I would eventually buy my son such a car because I would want him to have a better life than I did, but first, in order to inflict guilt upon him, every parent’s right, I could say, “Young man, I had to work my way through college.”

  Somehow, I also thought working for a real newspaper, not one produced by journalism students, would be more beneficial to me in my quest for practical experience. Journalism, I reasoned, was not something you could learn entirely from a book, or a newspaper with training wheels. What good would it do me to know about Johannes Gutenberg if I didn’t know any sportswriting clichés? A sportswriter with no clichés would be like a Junior Leaguer with no station wagon.

  I suppose before going any further with this, I probably should offer some examples of sportswriting clichés, which, I am sad to say, are no longer operable on today’s sports pages. That’s because the sportswriters of today all have college educations; don’t get drunk, then try to write; actually have read something besides Sports Illustrated and the Larry Bird autobiography; had rather write about the plantation mentality of big-time college athletic programs than Georgia versus Auburn; are married to women with double last names; drive BMWs; wear shirts that don’t have frayed collars; write on a computer rather than a manual typewriter; have no idea who Smokey Burgess was, eat salads for lunch; don’t smoke; have never seen The Babe Ruth Story, starring William Bendix, and have no idea who William Bendix was.

  Clichés. First there were the terms you could use when describing participants in various sports. You didn’t always say, “The Georgia football team,” for instance. Also available was the Georgia “gridders,” the Georgia “11,” and, if the team was having a great year, the Georgia “juggernaught” or the Georgia “dreadnaughts.”

  Basketball Players: The home five, the basketeers, the round-ballers, or the hoopsters

  Trackpersons: Thinclads. Cross-country runners could also be described as “harriers,” but I don’t know why.

  Baseball Players: The home nine, the visiting nine, and, in a real pinch, the diamondeers

  Bowlers: Kegglers

  Fishermen: Anglers

  Golfers: Linksters

  Tennis Players: Netters

  Race-Car Drivers: Leadfoots

  Boxers: Pugilists

  Wrestlers: Grapplers

  Swimmers: Poolmen

  Growing up in the South, I never had occasion to learn clichés for hockey players. If I had to invent some, I’d probably go to “icemen,” “pucksters,” or “stickmen.”

  I hadn’t heard much about soccer at that time, either. Soccer would come to the United States and make an absolute nuisance of itself a few years after I was out of college.

  There was an Atlanta team in the North American Soccer League when I worked for the Journal. I think our soccer writer described them as “booters” once, but I’m not really sure, and the North American Soccer League went out of business anyway.

  If there was, or is now, a cliché to take the place of “gymnasts,” I don’t know it, and the same goes for rowing, kayaking, skiing (both snow and water), marble shooting, chess, bicycling (“peddlers”? “wheelers”? “Spandexers”?), ice skaters who don’t carry hockey sticks, polo (water and horse), volleyball, Ping-Pong, archery, claypigeon shooting (“pigeoneers”?), synchronized swimming (“dingbats”? “treaders”?), canoeing, bobsledding, (“crazy fools”?) fast-walking (“prissers”?) curling, dog-sled racing, rodeo (including bronc-busting, bull riding, and calf and goat roping), and truckpulling which, thank God, introduced itself long after I had been out of the sports business.

  Sportswriting clichés certainly don’t end with “hoopsters” and “gridders.” There are about a zillion clichés that can be used in place of the word “beat.” Let’s say I’m covering the Georgia-Florida football game and Georgia beats Florida, as it often does.

  In place of “beat,” I can use:

  Georgia upset Florida.

  Georgia pummeled Florida.

  Georgia crucified Florida.

  Georgia nipped Florida.

  Georgia smashed Florida.

  Georgia embarrassed Florida.

  Georgia stormed past Florida.

  Georgia slipped past Florida.

  Georgia swept past Florida.

  Georgia nailed Florida.

  Georgia annihilated Florida.

  Georgia made mincemeat of Florida.

  Georgia downed Florida.

  Georgia killed Florida.

  Georgia stuffed Florida.

  Georgia toppled Florida.

  These are pretty typical. If you really want to get exotic about it, you could write:

  Georgia picked up Florida and shook it like a dog playing with a dead squirrel.

  Georgia tiptoed past Florida like a thief in the night.

  Georgia sent the Florida faithful home shaking their heads.

  Georgia made believers of Florida.

  Georgia dashed Florida’s bowl hopes.

  Georgia put a big bite on Florida’s hopes for a Southeastern

  Conference title.

  Georgia swarmed over Florida like white on rice.

  There are also clichés to use instead of the simple “game.”

  A close game can be a “cliffhanger,” a “nailbiter,” a “heartstopper,” a “barnburner,” or a “thriller.” One night I was listening to Skip Caray do a telecast of a tight professional basketball game, and he said, “This game could make coffee nervous.”

  A one-sided game can be described as a “laugher,” a “rout,” a “massacre,” a “runaway,” a “walk in the park,” a “mismatch.”

  The term “game” itself can be replaced by “tilt,” “battle,” “annual meeting,” “get together,” “shoot-out,” “tussle,” “fracas,” or “backyard brawl,” as in “Neighbors Auburn and Alabama battle today in their annual backyard brawl.”

  A football may be called “the pigskin,” “the slippery oval,” or “the mail,” as in “Nobody ever carried the mail any better than Red Grange.”

  A baseball can be the “apple,” the “pill,” “horsehide,” or the “aspirin tablet” as in “All Nolan Ryan served up to the Expos Friday night was a steady diet of aspirin tablets.”

  Basketballs are “roundballs.” Golf balls are often “pellets,” boxing gloves are “mitts,” and I saw this written once: “McEnroe sent the yellow fuzzy-wuzzy sphere past Borg with a vicious topspin backhand.”

  Baseball probably has the most colorful clichés, however.

  What do the following mean?

  1. Can of corn

  2. Frozen rope

  3. Circuit clout

  4. Hot corner

  5. Keystone

  6. Hit for the circuit

  7. Tools of ignorance

  8. Just a long strike

  9. Circus catch

  10. Texas Leaguer

  11. Port-sider

  12. Chin music

  13. Sunday hop

  14. Grizzled veteran

  15. Rabbit ears

  16. Fireman

  17. Skipper-pilot

  18. Clubhouse lawyer

  19. Tribe

  20. Solons

  21. Chisox

&nbs
p; 22. Bosox

  23. Dem Bums

  24. Ruthian clout

  25. Timber

  26. Sidewinder

  27. Submariner

  28. Senior circuit

  29. Junior circuit

  30. Grabbed the gonfalon

  The answers:

  1. Easily caught fly ball to the outfield.

  2. Ball hit hard on a line.

  3. Home run.

  4. Third base.

  5. Second base.

  6. Hit a single, double, triple, and home run in one game.

  7. Catcher’s equipment.

  8. Long foul ball.

  9. What Willie Mays used to make all the time in center field.

  10. Short fly ball that falls in for a hit.

  11. Left-handed pitcher.

  12. Pitch thrown near the batter’s head.

  13. Ground ball that takes a big hop and is easy for an infielder to handle.

  14. An old guy who hasn’t retired yet.

  15. A player who listens to the opposing dugout screaming obscenities at him and questions his manhood and gets upset about it.

  16. Relief pitcher.

  17. Manager.

  18. Troublemaker.

  19. The Cleveland Indians.

  20. The old Washington Senators.

  21. The Chicago White Sox.

  22. The Boston Red Sox.

  23. The old Brooklyn Dodgers.

  24. A home run reminiscent of the ones Babe Ruth used to hit.

  25. A bat.

  26. Pitcher who throws sidearm rather than over the top.

  27. Pitcher who lets it go around his knees.

  28. National League.

  29. American League.

  30. Won the pennant.

  Television sportscasters, and their accompanying analysis, have introduced a number of new clichés to sports, and let’s not get into the use of the word “great,” because we’ll be here all day.

  But here are some relatively modern television sports clichés and what they mean:

  1. Hang-time: How long it would have taken Alabama fans to hang football coach Bill Curry if he hadn’t split to Kentucky.