CU Guru [1447]
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The greatest headline in the history of sports journalism
Nov 23, 2009, 11:46 AM
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Not sure how many of you are familiar with the late Lewis Grizzard. For those of you who don’t know, Lewis was a journalist, sports writer, lecturer, humorist, and newspaper columnist who passed away from heart disease back in 1994. He authored twenty five books, and his stand up comedy was recorded on numerous live albums. His Southern humor had its roots in the small town of Moreland, Georgia and his vast collection of comedic articles, books, and recordings often drew comparisons to Mark Twain.
Now ol’ Lewis was a die hard Georgia fan, and he lampooned Georgia opponents (often including Clemson) on a fairly regular basis. However, I had some of my Georgia relatives (who are otherwise strangely quiet this year) pass on to me this story involving Lewis Grizzard and the Georgia-South Carolina game forty something years ago.
The story is told by one of Lewis Grizzard’s fraternity brothers (I don’t know the man’s name).
Here goes:
On the eve of the Georgia – South Carolina game 41 years ago, I was hanging out with three Sigma Pi brothers (The Hound, Tex, and Blake) drinking a few cold PBRs at the old Callaway Gardens Apartment on the Atlanta highway.
We were discussing the upcoming game against the Gamecocks and lamenting the fact that we were going into the game with several key players out with injuries – including our starting DE, Billy Payne (now chairman of Augusta National GC), and his roommate, MLB, Happy D*i*c*k*s (seriously, this was the man’s name).
About 10:00 p.m. that night, another fraternity brother, Lewis Grizzard, came in after he got off work. Lewis didn’t have much free time, lately, because he had gotten married over the summer to his high school sweetheart, Nancy. In addition to taking a full load at the university, he was working two jobs to help pay for (referring to Nancy) “this expensive habit”.
A talented young man, Lewis was writing two columns daily – one in the morning for the Athens Banner Herald and one in the afternoon for the Athens Daily News.
Lewis walked in, went straight to the refrigerator, got a beer, plopped down in a chair, pushed his glasses back up his nose and announced, “Gentlemen, with any luck at all, tomorrow morning you’ll witness journalistic history. I have submitted my column, and if it gets by my editor – and there’s a good chance of that happening since he looked drunk earlier this evening – you’ll witness the greatest headline in the history of sports journalism.”
He refused to tell us what it was, and to be honest with you, we all forgot about it. As Lewis went home to his lovely, young bride, the four of us went back over to the Fraternity house to get a head start on the weekend.
The next morning, as usual, I went straight for the sports section of the newspaper. Looking at the sports page, I could do nothing but smile because ol’ Lewis had pulled it off.
To this day, Vince Dooley calls it his most memorable column ever – all because of the headline, which read:
DOGS TO PLAY C*O*C*K*S WITH D*I*C*K*S OUT
Without a doubt, it was the greatest headline in the history of sports journalism.
Cocka-doodle-doo!
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