SALT LAKE CITY — The instant Danny Ainge raced past my courtside seat, sending BYU to the Elite Eight in 1981, my wife back home burst into tears. When the Jazz reached the NBA Finals for the first time, she was cheering for Hakeem Olajuwon. The day the Utes got invited to the Fiesta Bowl, she said, “Does this mean you’ll be gone on New Year’s Eve?”
Not this year.
Just call me Mr. Party Hat from now on.
I’ve spent Christmas Day at bowl games and NBA games, Thanksgiving in Arizona and New York, and rung in the New Year in several different time zones. That’s de rigueur for anyone in sports journalism, an occupational and matrimonial hazard. But I’m not complaining. This is my last column, after more than 42 years in the newspaper business, 41 1/2 of them at the Deseret News.
They were so pleasant I feel guilty.
Julie was there for all those years, rooting against the local teams. Nothing personal. My wife just wanted me home when everyone else was, i.e., holidays, birthdays, school plays, dance concerts, etc. When I told her I was going to the Las Vegas Bowl on Christmas one year, she said, “Can’t they get an intern to do it?”
What she knows about sports occurred by osmosis. She was OK with them because she knew I wanted to be a sports writer. Her father was a 9-to-5 guy; I got home after midnight — if I was in town. But she seldom complained, not even the time I called from a luxury hotel and told her they had warmed cookies and chilled milk waiting in my room.
“That’s sounds nice,” she said in a tired voice. Then she told me one of the kids was sick.
I decided against reading her the room service menu.
In her spare time — as if — she was a nurse. Some years she worked nights so she could be home when the kids were awake. Often she only got a few hours of sleep until her next shift.
I concentrated on upgrading my airline seat.
It was always a good seat, wherever I went. Michael Jordan indulged me at his locker stall, just me and him. I had dinner with a world featherweight champ, two nights before he defended his title. Nicklaus, Magic, Kobe, LeBron and several Super Bowl champs were a few of the people I encountered. Mark Spitz freestyled his way into my office. Harmon Killebrew discussed his eyesight not being what it was in his salad days. Picabo Street offered to ski with me as we spoke. Don Shula described what it was like coaching the game’s greatest pure passer. Karl Malone told me he was tired of looking at my face. John Stockton and I talked about our favorite novelists.
A slug of a boxer named Butterbean and competitive eater Kobayashi practically wrote their stories for me.
I followed Muhammad Ali through Primary Children’s Hospital and watched him do magic tricks. Chronicled Jim McMahon’s miracle pass and Stockton’s historic 3. I was ringside for the savage first round of Hagler vs. Hearns, but also for Jimmermania and Utah to the Final Four. My seat for the Magic-Bird NCAA showdown was on floor level. I trailed a convoy of Jazz players as 15,000 cheering people lined the streets.
Pat Summitt talked about her national championships. Cheryl Ladd, one of Charlie’s Angels, granted me an angelic interview about golf. Hank Aaron shook my hand in the Braves clubhouse and I stood at the spot where he passed Babe Ruth’s home run mark. Dale Murphy invited me to stay in his home. Pete Rose discussed his lifetime baseball ban.
I tapped the sign in the Notre Dame locker room that says, “Play Like A Champion Today” and walked on the Boston Garden court.
I covered a college baseball game in 111-degree weather and an MLS Cup match In 11-degree weather.
Gregg Popovich made me mad. Kyrylo Fesenko, Charles Barkley, Hot Rod Hundley and Darryl Dawkins made me laugh. LaVell Edwards, Ron McBride, Jerry Sloan, LaDell Andersen and Frank Layden made me better.
Practically every athlete I interviewed was physically bigger than me, but the only time I panicked was on a media shuttle in Las Vegas, on my way to Ali’s fight against Larry Holmes. Seated near me was Jim Murray, the great Los Angeles Times columnist.
I was so starstruck I couldn’t speak.
Most of my heroes typed for a living.
The job had drawbacks beyond odd hours. Someone sent me a letter written in what appeared to be blood that said, “You’re so bad you make me cut myself.” A minor league ballplayer spit at my feet. A reader sent me hate mail written on toilet paper. Rick Majerus told the Crimson Club my work was “complete garbage.”
The night our daughter Lauren was born, Jazz rookie Luther Wright went on a rampage and ended up in jail. In short, I was there for the birth but absent for the follow-up.
When our 25th anniversary came, Julie suggested we go to San Diego, where we had honeymooned. But the Jazz were scheduled to play at Portland in the playoffs that day.
“I’ll tell you what,” I said, thinking fast, “we can do it in July and then stay as long as you want.”
“No,” she said. “You’ve had 25 years to plan this. We’re going to be in San Diego on May 16.”
“It’s Game 4 of the playoffs,” I said.
“We’ll be in San Diego,” she said.
That’s where I made my mistake. I said, “I already asked the commissioner to reschedule. He said no.”
Flagrant foul on my part.
After a fairly frosty week, we booked a place on the Oregon coast, but she spent most of the trip alone.
Throughout the years, other important things got missed. High school and college graduations, for instance. Julie, on the other hand, made sure she was there for everything, yet still faithfully did her job. She once cared for a president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
She called me at home one day and said, “Tell the kids to be really good today; I’m taking care of the prophet.”
That’s all you need to know about us. She held the hand of a stranger as doctors tried to save his life. Lonely patients, who had no one else, found in her a good listener.
She even saved a man’s life by performing the Heimlich — while pregnant.
I had a job where you watch football and they give you awards.
Last New Year’s Eve, we actually made it back to where we started: San Diego. The night before the Holiday Bowl, as we waited on our restaurant reservation, Jeff Hornacek and his wife Stacy walked in. We talked for a few minutes before the host seated us separately. A minute later, Hornacek crossed the room and said, “I don’t know if you are having a romantic dinner together or not, but would you like to join us at our table?”
“We’d love to,” I said before he had completed the sentence.
I looked at Julie and said, “Is that OK with you?”
The pause lasted two seconds or maybe a year.
“That is so sweet of you to invite us,” she said, “but we are kind of having a romantic dinner.”
Not anymore.
“But thank you so much,” she said.
After Jeff left, I leaned close so no one could hear and said: “What. Were. You. Thinking?”
Dinner with a former Jazz star, whose number has been retired, doesn’t often happen.
“Brad,” she softly said, “How many nights did you spend with Jeff Hornacek when
I was home?”
That night and forever, I knew I was out of my league.