“Just
be patient. Let the game come to
you. Don’t rush. Be quick, but don’t hurry,” Earl “The Pearl”
Monroe
The Post-Trib’s
John Mutka wrote a tribute to Earl Smith, Jr., retiring as Gary athletic
director 62 years after winning the 1951 state long jump championship. He repeated in 1952 in a record setting leap
and for good measure ran on a record-setting mile relay team. He also captained Roosevelt’s football and
basketball teams before embarking on an illustrious track and football career
at Iowa University. Inducted into
Indiana’s Hall of Fame in 2007, Smith will be honored at a banquet Friday at
Avalon Manor. Smith credits a previous
athletic director, Johnny Kyle, with convincing him to switch majors from
journalism to elementary education; after graduating from college, Smith was
hired at Banneker Elementary School and soon became assistant track coach at
Tolleston under the legendary Marce Gonzalez. He became head basketball coach
at Froebel in 1968 and moved over to Emerson two years later when Froebel
became a junior high. I was a big fan of
the Emerson “Golden Tornedo” during the 1970s and, having gotten to know Smith,
switched my allegiance to Lew Wallace (“El Dub”) when he transferred there in
1980. Mutka listed six top players
developed by Smith during a 27-year coaching career, including Emerson’s
Wallace Bryant (“Big Wally”), Frank Smith (who starred for the Arizona
Wildcats), and Emmett Lewis (my favorite, an unbelievable competitor, who went
on to star for Colorado). The three Lew
Wallace stars were Jerome Harmon (a “dunking machine” whose brief NBA career
was cut short by injuries and who is now is a truck driver), Tellis Frank (who
enjoyed a seven-year NBA career after starring for Western Kentucky), and
Johnny Fort (who went on to play for Smith’s alma mater Iowa as well as
Virginia Tech).
After a stint of pro ball in Europe, Johnny Fort
eventually moved back to the Chicago area and became a trainer at Lakeshore
Athletic Club in Lincoln Park. Sadly, he
is presently serving a 14-year sentence for drug trafficking. One of 55 people charged in a drug conspiracy,
Fort was recorded agreeing to buy 100 grams of heroin. He pleaded guilty, hoping to receive a
minimum sentence for the small role he played in the drug ring. It was his first offense. Pleading for leniency in a letter to Judge
Robert Dow and regretting that Johnny had tried to build a life for himself in
Chicago, Fort’s wife Katie said: “Much of
this case against my husband is a personal vendetta carried out by the Chicago
FBI against the Fort family.” Johnny
Fort’s nephew, Chicago gang leader Jeff Fort, a founder of El Rukn and a former
leader of the Black P Stone Nation, is presently serving a life sentence in a
maximum security Colorado prison.
Former student Myron Young is taking Chuck Gallmeier’s Juvenile
Delinquency course. I gave him my latest
Shavings, which mentions that Earl
Smith, Jr., and sister Earline (State Senator Earline Rogers) grew up in
Delaney Housing Project. Their dad, Earl
Smith, was a legendary athlete at Froebel in the late 1920s who quit college
when his mother’s health failed.
Becoming a steelworker, he worked different shifts and often came home
angry over the mistreatment of African Americans. He made it his mission to see all five of his
children graduate from college, and they eventually did. In our Gary pictorial history Ron Cohen and I
used a wedding party photo taken in 1966 when Earl, Jr., married fellow teacher
Roberta Hodge.
Steve White of the Indiana Track and Field Hall of Fame in
Terre Haute sought information about Gary athletes for a special exhibit. White wrote: “Gary City schools
have won an astounding 40 State Championships, always with athletes having
interesting life stories that need to be told.
I have become acquainted with several 1960’s era Gary Roosevelt/Froebel
runners and their bond with each other, competitors at one time, and now
allies, is unique. Two in particular
that are my first endeavors [to document more fully] are Amos Abrams (Gary
Froebel 1930-1933) who still holds the State record of 7 individual
championships and was a National Scholastic All-American, and Leroy Spikener
(Gary Froebel 1966-1968) who was known as ‘Cap Man’ because he wore a baseball
cap and tossed it to the infield as he began his vicious kick down the backstretch.
Leroy was shot to death in Gary on August 24, 1998, but the positive side of
his life and his smile as ‘wide as the Mississippi’ is what I want to convey in
my bio of him.”
Indiana Run Community Forum contributor “CrocoODile1 wrote: “The state meet in 1968 was held at
Indianapolis Tech. Leroy Spikener did
his famous hat throw down and won the 880 in a then record time of 1:52.7. When he was ready to put the hammer down he
threw his hat down and took off. The
fuddy duddies at the IHSAA outlawed this after that year.” I emailed Steve: “Perhaps you
should collect information on more recent Gary track stars (it might be easier)
as well as the old-timers. I assume you are interested in women as well
as men.”
above, Bruce, Dave, Missy, Steve, Brittany; below, Brady Fest participants
Darcey Wade posted photos of her son’s graduation party
that has been dubbed Brady Fest. In one
the only band member out of view is drummer Mickey Boger. In the other I am wearing a Voodoo Chili
shirt and drinking an MGD as Toni talks to Lorraine Shearer with her daughter
Brittany and future son-in-law Buddy nearby.
In Gender Studies class the George Zimmerman verdict came
up, and Anne Balay mentioned the plight of Florida resident Marissa Alexander,
sentenced to 20 years for firing a gun into the wall to keep away an abusive ex-husband,
who had previously tried to strangle her.
The mother of three had a restraining order against him and no previous
arrest record. Before the trial, Marissa
turned down a plea deal of three years.
The judge rejected her attorney’s attempt to invoke the “Stand Your
Ground” law, and a jury took just 12 minutes to convict her of aggravated
assault. Even Republican Victor Crist,
who crafted the 1999 mandatory sentencing law, told reporters that it was not
meant for people like Alexander, who weren’t intending to kill anyone. A white Floridian named Orville Lee Wollard
is also serving 20 years after firing a gun to scare his daughter’s boyfriend;
he rejected a plea deal that offered him probation and no prison time. Ironically, people who are really guilty and
plea bargain get a lesser penalty than those who believe they are innocent, and
judges have no power to intervene in the name of justice.
The class analyzed a poem by Adrienne Rich entitled “To a
Poet” about a lonely young woman overwhelmed by motherhood. After the word “imago,” which is the final stage an insect attains during its
metamorphosis upon reaching sexual maturity, Rich repeats the John Keats line: “I have fears that you will cease to be
before your pen has glean’d your teeming brain.” I guess the message is, Young mothers, get
out of the kitchen and follow your muse.
Balay identified Rich as a second-generation feminist, more interested
(like the 1920s “New Women”) in personal liberation than political action.
Easier to understand was Lucille Clifton’s “Wishes for Sons” that dealt with
menstruation and menopause. Clifton
wishes young men knew what it was like to cope with such things as being “one week early and wearing a white skirt”
or, on the other hand, being “one week
late” – in other words, fearful of being pregnant. Anne wondered aloud whether boys have similar
embarrassments. Someone mentioned wet
dreams; I resisted the temptation to say “getting a boner as class is ending.”
With the All-Star game taking place at Citi Field, home of
the New York Mets, several former Mets were on hand, including Dwight Gooden,
Darryl Strawberry, and Tom Seaver (living up to his nickname by looking
“terrific”). Met pitcher Matt Harvey
started for the National League, but Mariano Rivera got the biggest ovation –
it lasted 90 seconds – when he made an appearance in the eighth and retired the
side in order. Rivera was selected MVP
after the AL won, 3-0.
An article by AP writer Tom Lobianco quoted emails from Mitch
Daniels revealing that when governor the Purdue University president attempted
to stifle academic freedom. On February
9, 2010, he asked Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett for
assurances that Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States” was not
in use anywhere in Indiana, including colleges.
For years Ron Cohen made the book required reading. Labeling it “a truly execrable, anti-factual piece of disinformation,” Daniels
called for an investigation of university offerings after learning that an IU
professor assigned the text in a course on Civil Rights, Feminist, and Labor
movements. He also tried to defund a
program run by Charles Little, an IUPUI professor who frequently criticized
him. Daniels was a disgrace as governor
and his appointment as Purdue president was a bad joke.
Karren Lee at the Marshall J. Gardner Center for the Arts in Miller Beach
Jeff Manes’s column on Karren Lee began with a quote from
former Texas Congresswoman Barbara Jordan, who argued that “the arts do not discriminate [and] can lift us up.” Asked about her leadership role with Miller
Beach Arts and Creative District, Karren touted the organization as a model for
other Gary neighborhoods and expressed her love of Miller because of its ethnic
diversity. Karren mentioned that her
grandparents were Romanian immigrants, that her dad was a steelworker, and that
she grew up in East Gary (now Lake Station) where, in her words, “there were no classes; it was all working
class. Everybody was in the same boat at
school or in the community.”
The Post-Tribune
is a mere shell of its former self, but columns by Jeff Manes, Jerry Davich,
Carrol Vertrees, and John Mutka still contain nuggets at times. One wonders whether the Post-Trib will honor Mutka, who started with the newspaper exactly
50 years ago. There’s no better source
for the history of Region sports or, for that matter, Big Ten basketball.
I stopped at Marianne Brush’s house to pay her for Cracker
concert tickets she ordered for me. Missy
introduced me to her new dog Leeloo, a Maltepoo she rescued from an animal
shelter. Leeloo looks to be about three
years old; someone abandoned her.
Chelsea Stalling Whittington
At 5:30 I attended a Gary Vision Project meeting at IUN’s
Conference Center. Representatives from
the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Chicago have partnered in an
effort to launch such “creative initiatives” as a community mural project, a
story share booth, a hip-hop workshop, and family field days. Corey Hagelberg and several other community
activists were there, as well as Fine Arts professor David Klamen and Chelsea
Stalling Whittington representing Mayor Freeman-Wilson. Chelsea, a real go-getter, has gotten the
group involved in neighborhood clean-up projects, including one scheduled for
August in the area where Michael Jackson’s childhood home is located. After I introduced myself, someone mentioned
my blog and the Chicagoans all nodded as if they were familiar with it. I suggested that Ellen Szarleta, Dolly
Millender, and Earl Jones would be good resource persons.
My long day continued with a condo owners meeting that
mercifully lasted only an hour, with most of the time taken up by discussing
landscaping issues. It being the slowest
sports day of the year, with baseball teams off due to the All-Star break, I
put on Joe Jackson’s three-sided double album “Big World” and read a couple
chapters of “Hanging Up.” Eve’s dad,
suffering from “the dwindles,” calls her Lola.
Starring at her breasts, the old man tells Eve, “We never got it on like I did with your mom, but I want you, Lola.”
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