Читать книгу Sid Gillman - Josh Katzowitz - Страница 7

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I was sitting in Terry Hill’s basement in San Francisco, leafing through Sid Gillman’s mother’s scrapbook, and I was almost finished. Nearly done with my research for the day—I actually was on the very last page—I came across a plain white envelope.

Postmarked Dec. 27, 1933, from Minneapolis (with a two-cent George Washington stamp), the letter was addressed to “Sidney Gillman, c/o General Delivery, Palo Alto, California.” Gillman, at the time, was playing in the East-West Shrine game, which is why he was on the West Coast after his senior season at Ohio State was complete and why this particular letter was traveling halfway across the country to find him.

Then, the typewritten letter:

Dear Sid:

This, I imagine, will be something very unexpected to you, but nevertheless, I can’t help but say that I have been one of your admirers for the past three years or more and want to say that your picture, which is shown in the “San Francisco News,” is even more than handsome….

Maybe I am wishing for way too much, but then one’s heart but cannot help but flutter. Then again, I suppose competition would be far to (sic) keen for one of my “Standing.” Aaah! How I wish I were even nearer to San Francisco….

I’ll be looking for more of your pictures and I will travel right along with you but Please! Remember I am one of your everlasting admirers.

(Signed, in cursive) Florabelle

Needless to say, I had many questions about this supposed secret admirer letter. I walked upstairs to ask Terry—Gillman’s youngest daughter—about it, and she had no idea. Could anybody alive today know the origin of this letter? There was nobody I could call on the phone or write to in an e-mail. As far as I could tell, it was impossible to know who sent the letter. Was it a joke? Was it real? What did Gillman think about it? More importantly, what did Esther Berg, his future wife, think about it? And why had the letter been kept in the family album? Why was the name of Gillman’s sister, Lillian, written on the envelope?

Why, why, why?

When you write a book on a man who’s no longer walking in this world, the challenges are mighty. You don’t get to feel the grip of his handshake, to hear the tone of his voice, to view the gleam in his eye. He doesn’t have a chance to explain his life, to defend himself, to counter your preconceived notions, to talk about those he loved and hated, to talk about himself.

And you can’t ask him about a 70-year-old secret-admirer letter.

Mostly, you have to rely on the words of others to paint the picture of the man you never got to know.

That said, I highly doubt I could have written this book without the help of Sid’s kids—Lyle Gillman, Bobbe Korbin, Terry Hill, and Tom Gillman. Also, many thanks to Bill Korbin and Larry Hill. Lyle was the first kid I contacted, and it immediately felt like we had known each other for years. She traveled many hours from her home in the mountains of Arizona to Los Angeles to meet up with Bobbe and me and spend two days talking about Sid and Esther and what life was like around them. They answered questions that could not be found in research materials—old newspaper clippings or 50-year-old magazine stories. They took a two-dimensional Sid off the ink print of the newspapers and breathed life into him, giving me a three-dimensional sketch.

We met at the Sheraton Four Points at LAX with handshakes and exited with hugs and kisses. And, from me, a lifetime of gratitude.

Terry, in San Francisco, gave me a great gift—a look at the dusty, deteriorating scrapbook Sid’s mom kept of all his high school athletic exploits that is nearly a century old. Terry also happened to stumble across five videotapes of interviews of Sid and Esther—who in the hell owns a VCR these days, anyway?—that were a lifesaver in helping me piece together their childhoods in Minneapolis.

Tom, though we never connected in Los Angeles, allowed me to pester him on the phone repeatedly during a three-day span, answering questions that were incredibly personal and that opened another side of Sid I never would have seen.

One of my biggest regrets was that Esther died in February 2010, a few months before I started this journey. Lyle, throughout our conversations, kept saying, “If only Mom were still alive, she could have written the book for you.” Esther’s kids did a pretty good job, themselves.

I also would be remiss if I didn’t give much praise and thanks to the following kind souls: My CBSSports.com colleagues Mike Freeman, Pete Prisco, Clark Judge, Will Brinson, Ryan Wilson, and Andy Benoit for their help; Bob Hunter of the Columbus Dispatch; Tim Sullivan and Nick Canepa from the San Diego Union-Tribune; the Houston Chronicle’s John McClain for, upon my request, telling me the same story twice five months apart in cities 800 miles apart; Jon Kendal with the Pro Football Hall of Fame, who let me hang out in the basement bunker all day and make what felt like about a thousand copies; Brandon Standafer of the San Diego Hall of Champions for loading me up with a decade’s worth of newspaper articles in dusty binders that probably haven’t been touched since Sid left the Chargers in 1971; Mike Pearson of Miami University who introduced me to Paul Dietzel on that beautiful autumn day in beautiful Oxford; the ladies in the Ohio State University archives; Bob Schmidt in the Miami University archives; Jack Brennan and P.J. Combs with the Cincinnati Bengals; Jennifer Rojas with the San Diego Chargers; Patrick Smyth with the Denver Broncos; Todd Tobias for having such great material on and such great interviews with Gillman; Mike Patton, David Gilmour, and Greg Graffin for the soundtrack; Sheila Weiss of Hillside Memorial Park and Mortuary; Margie from riflemanconnors.com; Allen Brown for key photo identification; and Nick Shundich (a University of Cincinnati team co-captain in 1951) and his son Steve for mailing me various clips and videotapes.

Many thanks to my editor, Jack Heffron, who began to believe in this project as we ate macaroni and cheese across the street from the Clerisy Press offices. I’m glad he thought enough of it to continue working with me after he moved into the online world. Thanks also to Richard Hunt, Donna Poehner, and Ronnie Kutys from Clerisy.

I have so much gratitude to Trent and Michelle Rosecrans (Cincinnati), Brent Duersch and Jennifer Depalma-Duersch (Delhi, Ohio); Diana, Joe, Mak, Charlie, and Alexa Pasquarello (San Diego); Mariko Miki and Brent Fitzgerald (San Francisco); and the Rev coffee shop (Smyrna, Georgia) for extending to me your warmest hospitality during this process.

Another word about Trent Rosecrans. More than just giving me a place to crash, Trent has served as an editor, an idea-giver, and one of my best friends. This book wouldn’t have been the same (it would have been much, much worse, in fact) without Trent’s input.

Many, many thanks to my parents, Joel and Ellen, for their everlasting love, and my in-laws—Victor and Susan Alonso—for providing huge amounts of support whenever we’ve needed it.

The first time I wrote a book, I had no kids and, for all intents and purposes, had no job. This time around, my house has been inhabited by a pair of twins, and I have a full-time gig with CBSSports.com. I couldn’t have finished this book—spending all those hours burying my head in library books, flipping through online archives and bleeding on my computer keyboard—without the person who’s closest to my heart.

With that, I thank my wife, Julie—who, while supporting this endeavor, managed to complete her triple-board residency at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, finish her psychiatric forensic fellowship at Emory University in Atlanta, pass her medical boards, and land a pretty sweet job in Austin, Texas.

And most importantly, she’s the mother of my Bella and Jonah, who came into our lives three minutes apart in February 2010 and teach me new things each and every day. They are my inspiration. With them, I am the Florabelle.