The REST of the Olympic story I: Row, Row, Row your boat

Back in my pizza delivery days, I'd usually be out on the roads between noon and 12:20 p.m., when one of the local radio stations would air the Paul Harvey radio program. Now, Paul and I didn't have much in common politically, but credit where credit, the guy was one hell of a storyteller. The highlight of his show was always the "Rest of the Story" segment, in which Harvey presented a little known tale, often about a famous person, with some key element left concealed until the very end, punctuated with the sign-off, "And now you know ... the REST of the story."

Harvey might not have influenced me politically, but "Rest of the Story" definitely has an impact on my storytelling style. As proof of that, I'm going to dedicate some upcoming electrons to presenting some of my favorite stories from the Olympic Games, told in the style of Paul Harvey.

Early in the last century, Jack was the world's best individual rower, and second place wasn't close. He made off with mighty some pretty neckwear in the 1920 and 1924 Olympics and might have bagged some more medals had the 1916 Olympics not been preempted for World War I.

At the time, however, sports was undergoing something of a revolution. Over the previous 50 years, elite athletes were beginning to earn handsome salaries for playing kids' games - baseball in the United States, soccer in Europe, and boxing and horse racing on both sides of the Atlantic. The Olympic Games themselves were a pushback against the pay-for-play phenomenon.

As with all amateur athletics, the Olympics began as a class warfare weapon. By restricting the event to amateurs - even coaches and gym teachers were considered professional athletes at the time and thus ineligible for the Olympics - organizers were trying to limit participation to the upper crust, because those were the only people who could put in the training time necessary without the prospect of a payday.

And competing for money was considered decidedly declasse.

Founders of the modern Olympics would have regarded Jack, who worked as a bricklayer, as at least a quasi-professional because of his vocation. And the amateur standard for the Diamond Sculls, one of the world's top rowing competitions, was even more stringent. Amid accusations of professionalism against Jack's rowing club, he was prohibited from taking part in the Diamond Sculls.

Jack would ultimately have his revenge. More accurately, his children would have it on his behalf. His son and namesake won the Diamond Sculls twice in the 1940s. But his daughter would top even that.

Because some of the same European nobility who decided that the hue of Jack's blood wasn't sufficiently indigo would one day bow before Her Most Serene Highness, Princess Grace of Monaco, whose father was Jack Kelly, the greatest rower of his age.

A western Pennsylvanian we should know better

So a friend of mine used Facebook a couple of days ago to ask the identity of the most accomplished western Pennsylvanian, living or dead, to be relatively obscure.

After some thought, I came up with Uniontown native George Marshall, and called him one of the five most important Americans the first half of the 20^th century.* I mean, we’re talking about the guy who planned and carried out strategy crucial to winning two wars – World II and Cold.

During World War II, Marshall turned the U.S. Army from a ragtag band into one of the most effective combat instruments in history over the course of a few months. Even so, he remains relatively unknown to casual military historians. He never commanded an army in the field and unlike most of his fellow generals, never wrote a memoir.

George Marshall grew up in the western Pennsylvania coalpatch, where men worked 12-hour days in the mines, descending from darkness into darkness and returned to darkness, and they didn’t call the newspapers when they punched out.

That was the ethos into which George Marshall was raised – do your job and don’t expect a ticker-tape parade for it. Needless to say, it put him at odds with braying jackasses like George Patton, Douglas MacArthur and British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, all lower-ranking officers and lesser men whose egos inflated their self-image beyond what their contributions would merit.

After World War II, he kept large chunks of Western Europe standing upright when they were still recovering from the conflict’s devastation and while the Soviets looked to entice them away from the West.

But because he shunned public recognition for his work, Marshall is relatively little-known even in the region where he grew up, much less in the nation he helped to save 70 years ago.

*I'm not altogether clear on the rest of the five most important Americans of the first half of the last century, but it would doubtlessly include the two Roosevelts. As for the remaining two, I guess we could draw it from this pool: William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Thomas Edison, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Albert Einstein (who took U.S. citizenship in 1940).

Patriots execution, not bad play call, sunk the Seahawks

The most plausible explanation for the Seattle Seahawks' decision to call a pass play with 26 seconds left in the Super Bowl, the ball one yard outside the end zone and Marshawn Lynch in the backfield is that coach Pete Carroll called for a Lynch run up the middle, but New England coach Bill Belichick hacked into the communication system and changed the play.

For the second-best explanation, Vox website wins the prize. The short version is that, by passing on second down, Seattle would, in most cases, either get the game-winning touchdown or an incomplete pass that would stop the clock with about 26 seconds left. Had the Seahawks called a running play with Lynch stopped short of the end zone, they would have had to use their last time out and call a pass play on third down. The long explanation can be found here.

But, I still would have given the ball to Lynch on second down and taken my chances on a possible third-down pass play.

That said, though, all of the people that are pillorying Carroll for the play call to end Seattle's chances of winning a second consecutive Super Bowl title would have been calling it a gutsy and unexpected decision if only had it worked. 

But it didn't work. And - as is usually the case in professional football - it didn't work not because it was a bad play call, but because New England executed at the game's most important moment more effectively than Seattle did. 

And the man who executed most effectively wasn't Patriots' defensive back Malcolm Butler, who made the interception, but fellow New England DB Brandon Browner. As drawn up, the play called for Seattle receiver Jermaine Kearse to break of the line and run in front of Butler, which would have given receiver Ricardo Lockette the crucial half step of space necessary to complete the touchdown play.

But Kearse never got anywhere near Butler, because Browner jammed him at the line of scrimmage.

Butler made a hell of a play to be sure, going through Ricardo Lockette for the interception, but Browner - who played for the Seahawks last year but was suspended for the Super Bowl - gave him the space to make that play.

"IT'S THE PRESIDENT!" - announcing a Medal of Honor

Three years ago today, I was in the living room of Rose Sabo Brown, just outside New Castle Pennsylvania. Brown's husband, Leslie Sabo Jr., had been killed May 10, 1970, in Cambodia during the Vietnam War. However, it had been only about 10 years earlier that Sabo Brown had found out that her late husband sacrificed his life to save dozens of his comrades.

During that time, many of those surviving comrades and others sympathetic to the cause had been campaigning for Sabo to receive the Medal of Honor, the U.S. military's highest award for combat valor. On Feb. 1, 2012, the wait came to an end. A representative of the Pentagon had called Sabo Brown a day earlier and told her to expect a phone call from a "high-ranking Defense Department official."

Taken at its word, that news was disappointing. A "high-ranking Defense Department official" would be calling Sabo Brown to tell her that her long-dead husband had been approved for the Distinguished Service Cross, the Army's second-highest award for combat valor. If it was the Medal of Honor, President Barack Obama would probably be delivering the news.

After swearing me to secrecy - the Pentagon representative had explicitly told Sabo Brown that no media members were to be present during the phone call because the public announcement wouldn't be made until later, but I was there as author of a self-published biography of Sabo - I was invited to sit in.

The phone rang shortly before 4 p.m., Eastern Time.

"What?" Sabo Brown said. Then, after a short pause, she said "Yes, I'll hold."

Then, she cupped her hand over the mouthpiece and mouthed a sentence that was silent, yet ended with an exclamation point.

"IT'S THE PRESIDENT."

Patton's biggest defeat

A few weeks ago, I posted on Facebook about one of the most important rules of comedy - Always Punch Upward. Basically, that's the reason it's funny when female or black comics can get away with making fun of Old White Guys, but if we Old White Guys return the favor, it's bullying.

We Old White Guys are at the top of the social ladder, so when people make fun of us, they're usually punching upward. If we respond in kind, it's bullying.

Now, you can aim the comedy at yourself - that's the Foxworthy Rule, named for the comic who once said, "You can't make fun of rednecks unless you are one. And I are one."

But when it comes to punching upward, few did it with more panache than cartoonist Bill Mauldin, who got his start while serving in the 45th Infantry Division during World War II. Mauldin, a grunt, presented the war from the foxhole perspective, which often meant exposing the foibles of those guys with stars on their helmets.

One cartoon, perhaps Mauldin's most famous, depicted two officers on a mountainside watching a breathtaking sunset that inspires one to ask the other, "Beautiful view. Is there one for the enlisted men?"

George Patton, Mauldin's commanding general, didn't appreciate Mauldin's cartoons, which shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone. Patton, a patrician with a tendency to punch downward - both figuratively and literally - wasn't known for his sense of humor. When I made that Facebook post about the comedy of punching upward, my friend and former co-worker Merle Jantz related a story in which Patton asked why Mauldin didn't do more cartoons about the stupid things privates do.

But there was apparently more to the story than that. Patton apparently tried repeatedly to prevent Mauldin from publishing cartoons. Mauldin's Wikipedia bio has a story about Patton chewing out Mauldin, only to have his own superior officer, Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, intervene on the cartoonist's behalf.

In the terrific book, "The Generals," longtime military affairs journalist and author Thomas Ricks tells a story where Patton pressured Mauldin's division commander to drop Mauldin's cartoons from the 45th Division's newspaper. The division commander, Maj. Gen. Troy Middleton, actually liked Mauldin's work because it was good for the grunts' morale and it got them to read the newspaper, which he used to rebut rumors in the unit.

Middleton, aware of Mauldin's popularity among the enlisted men, demanded that Patton put the order in writing. Patton, aware that Mauldin had fans both in the foxholes and in London and Washington, D.C., backed down.

Yeah, Old Blood and Guts might have been the most feared Allied combat general as far as the Germans were concerned. But one man did manage to defeat him during World War II.

And he did it with a pen, not a sword.

Happy 70th, Thomas Magnum

This photo, which appears in "Company of Heroes," shows Rose Sabo Brown, widow of Medal of Honor recipient Leslie Sabo Jr., during the national 2012 Memorial Day observance at the National Vietnam War Memorial. The guy on the right turned 70 Thursday.

Is anyone else who remembers watching "Magnum, P.I." feeling old right about now?

Tom Selleck, who played a Vietnam veteran on "Magnum," has been an active spokesman on fundraising efforts for the National Vietnam War Education Center and was a guest, along with Sabo Brown at the Memorial Day ceremony with President Barack Obama, two weeks after Leslie Sabo received the Medal of Honor.

Jan. 28, 1970: A Requiem

(Photo from Jack Brickey: John Shaffer, back to camera, and Frank Madrid confer prior to an operation. Both were killed Jan. 28, 1970.)


In memory: Steven "Hungry" Dile, Chambersburg, Pa.; Peter Guzman, Los Angeles; Frank Madrid, Puerto de Luna, N.M.; and John Shaffer, Syracuse, N.Y., KIA, Jan. 28, 1970.

Steven Dile was known as a soldier's soldier, a leader who carried grenades in what he called his bag of tricks, known for his voracious appetite. Peter Guzman and Frank Madrid took care of the new soldiers, training them in matters of both great and small import. John Shaffer, the platoon leader, was the son of a World War II Army Air Corps pilot nearing the end of his first combat tour.

Forty-five years ago today, all four were killed on Hill 474, a craggy peak on the Central Highlands' easternmost fringe that elements of the North Vietnamese 22nd Regiment had converted, with tunnels and caves both natural and man-made, into a fortress. In the first major firefight depicted in the book "Company of Heroes," Shaffer and the men of Bravo Company's 3rd Platoon were assigned to retrieve the bodies of comrades killed days earlier but were ambushed themselves. A fifth soldier, Jack Brickey, was severely wounded, but survived, thanks in no small part to the work of medic Jerry Nash, who was working for the first time under enemy fire, and Rick Brown, who helped Nash drag Brickey from an exposed position.

It would be nearly 40 years before Brickey would learn that Brown had assisted Nash in heaving him onto a helicopter gunship for evacuation from the combat zone.

Of autographs and authors

The first time I was asked for an autograph, I was on rugby tour in a suburb of Dublin. A little Irish girl - she must have been 7 or 8 then, and nearly 30 now - approached me at the post-match reception for my signature on our tour program.

Now it wasn't like I was a great rugby player - more like a second-rate player on a pretty good team in a third-rate rugby nation - but the girl didn't want my name on a piece of paper because of my athletic prowess, which was limited to having a high pain tolerance at any rate. She wanted our autographs because we were Americans far from the tourist track, which was something far more exotic.

So autographs of those in our team's touring party were in great demand that day among the children on hand. And we had to call them children, not kids. I made that mistake, and got an indignant response from from the little girl.

"I am NOT a goat!!!" Thanks to the Irish lilt in her voice, though, she managed to be angry and adorable at the same time.

Back then, I was mystified that anyone would want my autograph. That's one of the few things that hasn't changed in the last 20-plus years.

With my second book - and first mainstream-published work - due for release in less than eight weeks, I've been getting messages on the "Company of Heroes" Facebook page requesting autographed copies of a book I wrote, but am not selling (that task falls to Osprey Publishing and Random House, the U.S. distributor).

I know me well enough to realize that I'm not all that special. I'm the author of what might be the two most valuable copies of a self-published book, and the worth of those two books stems entirely from the autographs on its title page, none of which are mine. A photo of the title page, signed by President Barack Obama, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno and Army Secretary John McHugh is shown above.

In fact, these two books would be worth less if the author had signed them.

However, I'll do my best to make sure that everyone who wants my autograph in my book gets one, although I'm not quite certain how I'll do that just yet.

But really, readers of "Company of Heroes" should pursue autographs of those in the book instead of the guy who wrote it.

The veterans of Bravo Company are the real men of distinction. All I did was tell their stories.

This week's rant: Oct. 29

Took a vacation from politics this week in my Ellwood City Ledger column to talk about my daughter's greatest hits.

http://www.ellwoodcityledger.com/columnists/eric_poole/adventures-with-a-precocious-daughter/article_99d4796b-7be9-5dd5-8b1a-76e6dc981eef.html

All-time, All-Star, All-Russell-Crowe-character rugby side

For certain, the celebrity most associated with rugby in this country is Oscar-winning actor Russell Crowe. Although Crowe is identified with Australia, he was born in New Zealand and is reportedly a fan of the All Blacks in rugby union. He also is majority owner of the South Sydney Rabbitohs, which won the 2014 Australian Rugby League championship.

In honor of his longtime association with the sport and the All Blacks’ first trip to the United States since 1980, here is the All-Time All-Star All-Russell Crowe Character side (Disclaimer - even though the Rabbitohs play rugby league, which has 13 players to a side, this is a 15-man rugby union team, with the numbers corresponding to the jersey numbers for each position).

(Second disclaimer - Since Crowe is still making movies, including two releases set for 2015, I reserve the right as sole selector to bump any old Crowe character in favor of a new Crowe character, should performance demand it):

Warning: Spoilers abound.

1.       Wendell “Bud” White (LA Confidential) at loosehead prop – At first glance, the loosehead prop, like White, is a cementhead, good for little but brutality. But the position, so named because it has an outside position in the scrum’s front row, requires unexpected finesse, and looseheads occasionally dream of being flankers, just as Detective White pines to solve cases with his head instead of his fists.

2.       Noah (Noah) at hooker – Fodder for bumper-sticker jokes like “Support Your Local Hooker: Play Rugby,” the position is named because he hooks the ball back through the scrum from front and center of the front row. In the scrum, the hooker’s arms are pinned over the shoulders of the props on either side of him, so he goes in face first. The hooker is not easily dissuaded from his purpose, and is a leader among the forwards – he usually throws in on lineouts and the ball goes into the scrum on his signal.

3.       John Biebe (Mystery, Alaska) at tighthead prop – Even though rugby is the link of sports evolution between soccer and American football, in many ways, it resembles hockey. Biebe, past his prime – described as a little slow of foot – knows all the tricks necessary to prevail in the scrum’s front row.

4.       Jim Braddock (Cinderella Man) at lock – This position, also called second row, provides the push in the scrum and jumps for the ball during lineouts. On the pitch, a lock moves forward relentlessly, style be damned, just like Braddock.

5.       Pearly Soames (Winter’s Tale) at lock – Anyone capable of head-butting Colin Farrell off the Brooklyn Bridge can be in anybody’s forward pack. Anytime. And one of Lucifer’s minions will certainly make sure no one on the other team will be lying on the ground at the wrong side of a ruck.

6.       Capt. Jack Aubrey (Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World) – In a scrum, the blindside flanker lines up on the field’s short side – rugby’s Far Side of the World – and makes deceptive attacks on offense and stops them on defense. Given Aubrey’s use of trickery when outgunned, this would be the place for him.

7.       SID 6.7 (Virtuosity) at openside flanker – Lawrence County (Pa.) Commissioner Steve Craig, who played openside flanker at George Washington, once likened the position to being a “paid assassin,” because he gets a free run at the opposing team’s scrum half and fly half on defense. If either of them makes the slightest bobble, the openside has a chance to kill, figuratively speaking, an opposing player. SID is a rampage killer, so the other team’s fly half should watch out.

8.       Maximus Decimus (Gladiator) at number eight – Sitting at the back of the scrum, holding the ball on his foot until the scrum half lets it out at the precise moment to start the attack, sometimes deciding to pick up the ball and have a run himself, the number eight is an imposing figure. Big, strong, fast and tough. A real gladiator (sorry, couldn't resist). Team captain, by virtue of Crowe's Academy award for the part.

9.       John Nash (A Beautiful Mind) at scrum half – As the link between the backs and forwards, the scrum half must have a mathematician’s command of the game on offense and defense. On defense, he has to command all the angles. On offense, he sometimes needs to see openings even when no one else can.

10.   Cort (The Quick and the Dead) at fly half – Fly halves are the gunslingers of rugby. They decide when to kick for field position, take the ball themselves when they see an opening or let the ball out to the centres and wings. The fly halves do most of the kicking for points, either by drop kicks or place kicks. Cort is an outlaw-turned-preacher who shoots under his own arm to kill a bad guy sneaking up from behind, so there you are.

11.   Robin Longstride (Robin Hood) at wing – The wings are often a team’s fastest players – and come on, Longstride?

12.   Terry Thorne (Proof of Life) at inside centre – Centres need to have a combination of physical prowess and tactical acumen, and Thorne’s backstory as a British commando-turned corporate hostage consultant qualifies. Plus, "Proof of Life" includes an emotional attachment both on and off screen that evokes former England centre and team captain Will Carling's reported involvement with Princess Diana.

13.   Ben Wade (3:10 to Yuma) at outside centre – Wade, the leader of an outlaw band, is smart, elusive and aggressive. So are the best outside centres.

14.   John Brennan (The Next Three Days) at wing – In “The Next Three Days,” Brennan evades his opposition, takes his imprisoned wife and goes All. The. Way. – to Venezuela, just like wings are supposed to go to the goal for tries, the rugby equivalent of a touchdown.

15.   Jeffrey Wigand (The Insider) at fullback – Wigand is the last line of defense between the public and corporate corruption. Fullbacks are the last line of defense between the opposition and a try. Wigand is put under tremendous pressure by forces who would rather he kept his mouth shut. Fullbacks are under tremendous pressure from the other team when taking high kicks deep in their own end.

Mr. (and Mrs. and Gareth) Poole Goes to Washington

You know, there is a shoe repair shop in the Pentagon. Go ahead. Ask me how I know that. So I’m walking through the Pentagon last week when my shoe falls apart. The sole just rips off from the heel and it’s flapping against the floors as I go through the halls. The shoe, by the way, was rented along with my suit. I don’t own a suit of my own because I clean up well, but not very often. As I’m flapping through the hall, we’re walking past soldiers, ranked sergeant or higher, at each hallway junction holding a little sign, leading us in the proper direction, because the Pentagon is a big place. And each time I passed one of these soldiers, he said, “You know, we’ve got a shoe repair shop here?” Actually, that’s not surprising as you might think. Unlike the White House or the capitol building, the Pentagon isn’t in Washington D.C. It’s in Arlington, Virginia, and most amenities aren’t within walking distance. Actually, from some places in the building, an exit isn’t within walking distance.

So to meet the needs of those working in the world’s largest office building, there is a veritable mall inside the Pentagon. They have a CVS pharmacy, a Redbox video rental location and several other shops, including a shoe-repair place. Considering that most of the people working in the Pentagon are uniformed military, whose career prospects depend at least in part, on the condition of their footwear, there should be a shoe repair shop on the premises. So after the fourth or fifth time one of the soldiers said, “You know, we have a shoe repair shop here?” I decided to get the thing fixed. As outsiders, we weren’t allowed to go anywhere alone, so they broke off a Special Forces major to escort me to the shoe repair shop. A freaking Green Beret. This guy probably led commando raids in Iraq and Afghanistan. I can imagine the conversation when he got home from work that night: “How was your day, honey?” “I had to escort some schmuck to the shoe repair shop.”

I was in the Pentagon – a secure building that restricts entry only to people who have business there. Or by invitation, and I was invited. My wife, son and I were among more than 100 people who turned up last week in Washington D.C. to attend the Medal of Honor award to Vietnam War hero Leslie Halasz Sabo Jr. Sabo, who was killed on May 10, 1970, might have prevented what would have been the largest mass killing of U.S. troops since the Malmedy massacre during the Battle of the Bulge. He was recommended immediately for the Medal of Honor, the U.S. military’s highest award for combat valor, but the paperwork went missing until 1999, when 101st Airborne Division veteran Tony Mabb found Sabo’s file in the National Archives and began pressuring to have the investigation reopened. He served in Bravo Company, 3rd Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment – the same regiment that included Easy Company of “Band of Brothers” fame during World War II. I’m the author of Sabo’s biography, “Forgotten Honor,” which earned my invitation to the once-in-a-lifetime experience of attending ceremonies in the White House and Pentagon. As a prelude to the May 16 ceremony at the White House, I rented a business suit – and the aforementioned matching shoes – because I clean up well. Just not very often. I, my wife, Dawna, and son, Gareth – we left our 4-year-old daughter, Calista, with a babysitter because we deemed her too young to sit patiently through the ceremonies -- set off through multiple levels of security that gave us the right to be in the same room as the President of the United States.

After going through the first two, of four, levels of security, we waited in line to get into the White House with Ben Currin, a soldier who served alongside Sabo in Vietnam, and U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter (pictured above), a Democrat who represents the Denver suburbs in Congress. Perlmutter used some of his office’s discretionary funds to help some of Sabo’s comrades and family members with air fare and the $224-a-night cost of staying in the Sheraton National Hotel near the Pentagon, which served as staging area and a reunion venue for the veterans of Bravo Company. After the perfunctory introductions, Perlmutter said, “You look familiar,” and rifles through a handful of papers he was holding before producing a photocopy of this article. Currin, who stayed in the Army after Vietnam and was a team leader in the Army’s elite Golden Knights parachuting team, chatted with Perlmutter about the 1988 AFC Championship Game Currin and his team jumped into Mile High Stadium, then home of the Denver Broncos, as we enter the White House. We go into the East Room – where the president traditionally makes public indoor White House speeches and announcements. The address is typically eloquent for Obama, who mentions the shabby treatment Vietnam veterans received when they returned home. Fittingly, the ceremony’s longest and loudest applause is reserved for the more than two dozen veterans of Bravo Company seated immediately to the president’s left.

Then the president invited us to dine at a reception in the White House’s East Wing by saying, “I hear the food’s pretty good here.” And the food was good, if you like fancy dining. I stayed toward the Oriental chicken skewers and beef medallions-on-a-stick. Like most of the other 100-plus guests, I initially go for the champagne until I see the bottle of Yuengling Light at the open bar. As a Yuengling – but not usually Yuengling Light – drinker, I realized that the opportunity to have my brand of beer at the White House comes along, by my count, twice in a lifetime. Once when I had my first glass and then five minutes later when I had my second glass. Because I don’t always drink light beer, but when I do, I pay for it with my tax dollars.

The White House ceremony marked the third time I’ve been at the same event with a president, fourth if you count fictional presidents. I was closer to Obama than I was to Clinton, further away than I was from Bush. And further away than I was from Josiah Bartlett – there’s a close up of the back of my head in the opening shot of “20 Hours In America,” the Season Four opener for “The West Wing.” Barack and Michelle met with Rose Sabo-Brown, Leslie’s widow, and George and Olga Sabo, Leslie’s brother and sister-in-law, and I heard second-hand that Michelle cried when she heard Leslie’s story. For me, though, the highlight was getting the chance to reacquaint myself with the Bravo Company veterans, some of whom came home only because of Leslie’s sacrifice. One of the best parts of Leslie Sabo’s story is that he helped bring his comrades together – the unit started having reunions about 10 years ago, after Mabb found Sabo’s file and began contacting the Bravo Company veterans. Mabb’s inquiries coincided with an expanded growth of the internet. Bravo Company veteran Rick Clanton set up a web site that reconnected the soldiers who gathered last week in Washington, D.C. I was at Bravo Company’s 2009 reunion and the interviews I did there formed a large part of my book. Most of them are retired now, having spent the last four decades working, living and raising children in a country that had little or no respect for their sacrifice. On Wednesday night, between the White House and Pentagon ceremonies Bravo Company held a ceremony of its own to recognize Sabo along with the other 17 men the unit lost between Jan. 1 and May 10, 1970. The other two ceremonies, featured – for the most part – politicians who never knew the men of whom they spoke. Wednesday night’s flag ceremony featured the words of men speaking of the friends and comrades, whom they knew and lost. Impressive men, all.

During both ceremonies, the military provided us with several escorts, none of whom were ranked lower than sergeant. My wife and I were talking to a couple of lieutenant colonels who said being named to the honor contingent was a coveted duty – even the uniformed military don’t meet the commander-in-chief every day. On Sept. 11, 2001, one of the lieutenant colonels was working in the Pentagon when it was clobbered by a terrorist-piloted passenger jet. The other one was stationed just outside the Pentagon. For the most part, they served a ceremonial purpose, a reminder of the reason all those people in suits were there. At the Pentagon ceremony, they also were human GPS, keeping we outsiders on the correct path. The Pentagon ceremony was, personally, a little more gratifying than the White House ceremony had been. In sequence, Army Chief of Staff Ray Odierno, Secretary of the Army John McHugh and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta referred to my book during their speeches. Panetta had the line of the day, though. He said that Leslie and George Sabo had good taste because, “both of them married Italian girls.” Rose Sabo-Brown is the former Rose Buccelli – her father, Carmen, earned a Silver Star during World War II. George married the former Olga Nocera. The thing Panetta didn’t realize when he said that is, if you live in Ellwood City and you refuse to consider going out with Italian girls, you’re cutting your dating pool at least in half. For some people, following Odierno, McHugh and Panetta might have been a rough trick. But George Sabo delivered a heartfelt speech about his family and his brother, and upstaged three of the U.S. Army’s highest-ranking officials. Sabo thanked a long list of people he credited for the Medal of Honor award – modesty prevents me from providing a complete list. But if you get to the end of the 45-minute ceremony linked above, you can hear what he said about me.

While my shoe is being repaired after the ceremony, I’m strolling around the Pentagon dining room with only one shoe on during a post-ceremony reception. After a few minutes, I went back to get the shoe, accompanied this time by a sergeant from the Army’s public affairs office. On the way back, she said, “So what’s your connection to the Sabo family?” “I wrote Leslie Sabo’s biography.” “Oh,” she said. “You’re Eric Poole.” A few minutes later, a defense department employee entered the dining hall with an armload of my books, which were distributed to members of the Sabo families. Two of those copies were autographed by the President, Gen. Odierno and Army Secretary McHugh and distributed to Rose Sabo-Brown and George Sabo. Seeing that was really cool, but one thing occurred to me – those might be the only two books in existence whose value would decrease if they were signed by the author.

Blast from the past

This video has making the rounds on Facebook this week. The video's timestamp reads 2009, but it actually happened in 2006, because that was when I wrote this in the Ellwood City Ledger:


How would you like to be Jim Johnson? How would you like to be the basketball coach who let the best shooter on the team sit on the bench, wearing a shirt and tie, for three years, until finally turning him loose in the last home game of his senior year.

In Johnson’s defense, Jason McElwain didn’t look like a basketball player. In a big man’s sport, he stands a Lilliputian 5-foot-6, not even tall enough to make the Athena High School junior varsity team in Greece, N.Y.

And he’s autistic.

But he’s also the kind of kid who, for three years as team manager, did everything Johnson asked of him.

“He is such a great help and is well-liked by everyone on the team,” Johnson told the Associated Press.

So, as a reward, Johnson gave the kid a uniform for the last home game of his high school career.

By far, the best thing about high school basketball is that, on nearly every team, there is a kid who sits on the end of his team’s bench, working hard every day in practice, without the guarantee of glory on game night.

But as soon as the home team goes up by 20 points, the crowd begins to chant his name, calling for the last man to get into the game.

On Feb. 15, for the Trojans’ game against Spencerport, Jason McElwain was that kid, with students waving signs reading “J-MAC” in his honor. Johnson said he hoped to get the senior manager into his first game action, but with a playoff berth on the line, he had to worry about winning the game first.

Of course, winning the game might have been easier if Johnson had put McElwain in the game earlier, but he had no way of knowing his student manager would put on a shooting clinic.

With four minutes left in the contest, and a Trojans’ victory in hand, Johnson gave the crowd what it had asked for. After missing a long-range shot and a layup, McElwain went on the kind of tear that would have had Kobe Bryant shaking his head in wonder.

McElwain drained seven of his next nine shots – including an even half-dozen three-pointers – to finish with 20 points in Greece’s 79-43 victory. He had part of his foot over the line on one of his field goals.

Is it dark in here or did someone just shoot the lights out?

It’s possible that McElwain’s teammates were feeding him. And it’s equally possible that Spencerport decided to leave him open in a game that already had been decided.

But, even if that’s true, it’s not as if any of that would have diminished what McElwain did. If you think it’s easy to hit an open three-pointer, head on down to the Lincoln High School gym Monday and try to hit seven-of-nine from your favorite spot beyond the arc – you’re allowed to step on the stripe once.

You could try that for 100 years and not drain seven before missing three, even on an empty court. Now imagine doing it as a high school senior in front of a crowd of hundreds chanting your name in your very first varsity appearance. You’re likely to be throwing up nothing but airballs.

And your dinner.

After establishing himself as the straightest shooter in high school basketball, McElwain got a ride off the court on the shoulders of his teammates.

Then, the young man who didn’t talk until he was 5 did a creditable Dick Vitale impression.

“I ended my career on the right note,” he told the Associated Press. “I was hotter than a pistol.”

Little did Jim Johnson know 10 days ago that he would end up as the not-so-evil villain in McElwain’s Cinderella saga by keeping a marksman on the bench for three years.

But that’s not so bad. After all, not everybody gets to be a character in a fairy tale, even as the stepcoach.

For Jason McElwain, it must be even better. Even though he’s back in his suit and tie as his teammates head into the playoffs tonight, he’ll never again be the autistic kid at the bench’s end.

From now on, he’ll be known as just about the hottest hand high school basketball has ever seen, if only for one night.

The empty places

This column originally ran Sept. 28, 2006, in the Ellwood City Ledger.

There is something missing from the picture of New York Athletic Club's 2005 rugby team, but you might not immediately notice it.

Kind of like the void in New York City's skyline.

In Europe, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia, it's possible to make a handsome living playing rugby and get face time before the first commercial on overseas equivalents of "Sportscenter."

But in the United States, the sport is almost entirely amateur, so members of the rugby brotherhood in this country look out for one another. They lift furniture for teammates on moving day and bend elbows together at the local tavern.

They help their buddies find jobs, which is why Sean Lugano, Mark Ludvigsen and Brent Woodall were in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, working at the investment firm of Keefe, Bruyette and Woods.

"They were all looking out for each other." said Mike Tolkin, coach of NYAC's rugby team, also called Winged Foot.

I saw Lugano play in the last important match of his life, the U.S. 2001 Division I club championship. Based on its second-place national finish that year, NYAC won promotion to USA Rugby Super League, the sport's highest level in this country.

Lugano was a rugged and scrappy player, but for a scrum half, that's more a job description than a character assessment. Scrum halves are the rugby equivalent of a quarterback, only tougher, and few were better at it than Lugano, an All-American in college.

"He was definitely the heart and soul of this team," Tolkin said.

On that day five years ago when terrorists flew United Airlines Flight 175 almost right through the Keefe, Bruyette and Woods office windows, it tore the heart and soul out of Winged Foot.

It also erased a big piece of the club's past and its potential.

Ludvigsen, a former NYAC standout, went on to become the club chairman. Tolkin said he was one of the team's most effective recruiters because of his personality.

"He was the nicest guy there was," the coach said. "I can't remember him ever speaking badly of anyone."

Tolkin said Woodall was probably the best athlete ever to play for Winged Foot, where he was taking on his third athletic pursuit, and he competed at a high level in all three. He was a tight end for the University of California and reached the high minors in the Chicago Cubs system.

But rugby wasn't the only thing in his life. Woodall’s wife, Tracey, was pregnant with their first child.

In 2001, NYAC's first Super League season, it lost a spate of close matches in situations when just having some heart and soul might have been enough to turn defeat into victory.

Improbably though, Winged Foot managed to soar from the ashes of Ground Zero. The 2005 team – the one in that picture – won the USA Rugby Super League championship.

Tolkin said the team couldn't have claimed this country's biggest rugby prize without Lugano, Ludvigsen and Woodall, although that's exactly what happened.

Lugano's brother Mike played on the championship team. For years, the two lined up not far from each other in NYAC's backline. Tolkin said losing a brother was difficult for Mike Lugano.

But playing rugby means you're never an only child.

During matches, rugby players don't go anywhere alone. They are taught to run alongside the ballcarrier, ready to take a pass or protect him after the tackle. It's called support, and when a rugby player is in trouble, he knows to run toward his support. The same principle applies off the pitch.

"From a guy breaking up with his girlfriend to a house burning down to 9-11, you need support and rugby players have always been a part of that," Tolkin said.

Winged Foot memorializes its lost brothers Saturday with its annual Remembrance Cup tournament, but the greatest memories are in the things that weren't buried when the towers fell. For Woodall, it's a daughter he'll never see. For Ludvigsen, it's the friends he'll never again see. For Lugano, it's a trophy he will never hold.

And without them, there's a championship picture that will never be complete.

Amateur sports = hypocrisy

This article appeared originally Dec. 30, 2010, in the Ellwood City Ledger, and was purged from the paper's internet archives when it upgraded its website.

Early in the last century, there was little doubt that Jack Kelly was the greatest rower of his day. He won two Olympic gold medals and would have bagged more hardware had the 1916 Olympics not been pre-empted for World War I.

But Kelly was prohibited from entering one of the world's most prestigious rowing events - the Diamond Sculls in England - because his club had been accused of professionalism and also that, as a bricklayer, his work amounted to training.

Like the Olympic Games in those days, the Diamond Sculls was strictly for amateurs only, although the latter event was even more fiercely anti-professional. But the idea behind both was to enable the upper crust to participate in competition apart from the great unwashed.

In short, Jack Kelly's blood hue was tested and found not to have been blue enough to compete in the Diamond Sculls.

That turned out to be comically ironic when the bricklayer's daughter joined the ranks of European royalty as Her Serene Highness the Princess of Monaco - nee Grace Kelly.

As a business all amateur athletics is exploitative, elitist and corrupt because it's predicated on depriving the athletes of any financial benefit from their efforts. And the Olympic Games' history of hypocrisy is now repeating itself with NCAA football and basketball.

The modern Olympics were created in the late 1800s by the French Baron de Coubertin, whose intention was to establish the games as a pushback against professionalism in soccer, horse racing, baseball and boxing.

Initially,the Olympics' amateur rules were so restrictive that physical education teachers were deemed professional athletes and thus ineligible to participate. Coubertin's vision - he was a baron for goodness sake - was to limit the games only to those who could train long enough and hard enough to become an elite athlete without getting paid.

In other words, the idle rich.

As the Olympic Games became increasingly popular and generated huge profits for its promoters, that vision proved unsustainable. Ultimately, the lords of the Olympics discovered what everyone else knew - that letting athletes make money is infinitely more honest than amateurism.

Today, when people long for the days of amateur sports in the Olympics, what they're really nostalgic for is a system rife with hypocrisy that was rigged in favor of state-sponsored Eastern Bloc stars and the already wealthy.

A similar hypocrisy exists in major-college football and men's basketball, where athletes are getting punished for the same things that coaches and administrators do as routine.

Ex-USC running back Reggie Bush had to return his Heisman Trophy because he signed with an agent while still in college.

Ohio State University quarterback Terrelle Pryor is looking at sitting out five games next season after selling memorabilia that he received for prior bowl appearances.

Let me repeat that for you. Pryor and four of his Buckeyes teammates could be suspended for selling their own stuff. Of course, they'll be allowed to play a couple of days hence in the Cotton Bowl, so they can help generate income for the NCAA and its hangers-on.

The NCAA's rules, which seem designed solely to keep athletes from getting their hands on the great wodges of cash that goes to everyone else involved with college sports, foster corruption by driving players to seek under-the-table income.

Sometimes integrity is best served not by punishing corruption, but by making it legal. The International Olympic Committee learned that lesson. Now it's the NCAA's turn.

Lost "Brother" embodied military's virtues

This column appeared originally on Jan. 27 in the Ellwood City Ledger, but was never posted on the paper's website due to an editorial oversight.

There’s a scene in the first episode of “Band of Brothers” where Richard Winters where he reprimands another officer, Lynn “Buck” Compton, for gambling with the enlisted men.

Compton, who would one day lead the prosecution Sirhan Sirhan for the assassination of Robert Kennedy, thinks Winters – a religious tea-totaling non-gambler – is objecting on moral grounds. But that’s not the case.

“What if you’d won?” Winters asks, which temporarily baffles Compton. “Don’t ever put yourself in a position to take anything from these men.”

Winters, who died Jan. 2 just three weeks short of his 93rd birthday, distinguished himself as a young man during World War II. But fame found him late in life when he wound up as the hero of Ambrose’s book, “Band of Brothers,” and the follow-on Emmy-award-winning television miniseries of the same title.

In the anecdote above, Winters demonstrates a concept known to Christians as servant leadership – exemplified by Jesus when he washed the feet of his apostles.

During the invasion of Normandy, as depicted in the book and on TV, Winters led a force of 13 men in a successful assault on an artillery emplacement that was targeting American troops landing in the Normandy Utah sector. The guns were defended by 50 entrenched German paratroopers.

Earlier that day, Winters had taken command of Easy Company – of 2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division – because the plane that was to have dropped the company commander in Normandy was shot down, and everyone on board was killed.

Winters received the Distinguished Service Cross, the U.S. military’s second-highest award, for combat valor for leading the attack. It’s probably not a coincidence that, going by the words of those who served under his command, he was the most widely respected of the Band of Brothers.

But where it relates to Winters, “Band of Brothers” wasn’t just a story of one exceptional soldier, but of a philosophy that has yielded an exceptional military. It wasn’t many years before World War II that the world’s armies parceled out officer’s status based on noble title.

It wasn’t uncommon, for example, command of a regiment to fall upon the man who provided the funds to outfit that regiment, which produced a mentality of entitlement on the part of military leadership.

In his book, Ambrose sets up Easy Company’s World War II battles as not just a clash of military forces, but one of systems, of American democracy and meritocracy against European tradition and aristocracy.

Winters matched wits and guts against German officers who won their commissions in many cases because their grandfathers happened to be barons. The German infantry were exhorted to fight for their country and social betters, while their American counterparts were compelled to battle for their comrades.

And the American system that Winters embodied proved superior, Ambrose wrote in summing up the 101st Airborne Division's heroic stand at Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge.

“It was a test of arms, will, and national systems, matching the best the Nazis had with the best the Americans had, with all the advantages on the German side … Democracy proved better able to produce young men who could be made into superb soldiers than Nazi Germany.”

A long time ago, Winters was one of those young men produced by that system. And the legacy of those young men is that in America, a nation created from the rejects of those European aristocracies, the American armed services are exceptional in large part because it embraces command the same way Winters did – as an obligation and a duty rather than a privilege to be exploited.

Eric Poole can be reached online at epoole@ellwoodcityledger.com

The simple-mindedness of Bryan Fischer

"Ironically in war, an enterprise more readily associated with killing, Medals of Honor are given more often for saving lives than for taking them."

"... the strongest, most powerful thing a man can do in this world is not to kill or destroy, but to sacrifice."

The first of those two quotes is from page 26 of my book, Forgotten Honor and the second one is the book's closing lines, on page 207.

And they're both directed at Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association, who wrote an article titled "The Feminization of the Medal of Honor," last week on the AFA's website.

In the article, he refers to last week's Medal of Honor award to Sgt. Salvatore Giunta, who was recognized for his above-and-beyond-the-call-of-duty efforts to save the lives of his comrades during an ambush in Afghanistan. Fischer claimed that Medals of Honor were once awarded for rushing the enemy position at places like the "Pointe Do Hoc" during the D-Day invasion of Normandy during World War II.

A couple of problems with that, Bryan. First, it's Pointe du Hoc. Second, none of the Army Rangers who scaled Pointe du Hoc received the Medal of Honor. Other than that though, you got it completely right.

In the face of criticism both from the media and from the choir of commenters he usually preaches to in his AFA column, Fischer said his words were twisted out of context, that Giunta deserved the Medal of Honor and he was merely pointing out that we no longer honor the kind of "rush the enemy" act that we did once.

OK, then let's use Fischer's words against him: "We rightly honor those who give up their lives to save their comrades. It’s about time we started also honoring those who kill bad guys."

He even revives Gen. George Patton's tired old saw - "You don't win wars by dying for your country. You win wars by making the other bastard die for his."

My response to that, from page 207 of Forgotten Honor, is that "You win wars by preventing you comrades from dying for their (country)."

I know a little bit more about this subject than Mr. Fischer does, primarily from researching my book, a biography of Sgt. Leslie Sabo Jr., who was killed May 10, 1970, in Cambodia during the Vietnam War. Sabo was credited with saving the lives of more than 50 of his fellow soldiers and was killed while providing covering fire for a medical evacuation helicopter lifting two wounded soldiers off the battlefield.

And Fischer is wrong. It IS more important to protect your comrades than it is to kill the bad guys - especially today, because this war is no longer an exercise where one group of heavily-armed men attacks an emplacements that are defended by other heavily-armed men.

The current war is marked by engagements where the enemy strikes quickly in ambush then breaks off before they can be routed by the Americans' superior training, firepower and technology.

But even in the wars to which Fischer looks back nostalgically when he talks about the Medal of Honor's "Feminization," heroism isn't about killing the enemy. It's about defending your friends.

Fischer needs to do what I did - crack a history book or two.

Sunny Sundays a memory to cherish

(From the Sept. 9, 2010, Ellwood City Ledger)

From the gorge bottom, about 40 or so feet below Breakneck Bridge, the sun doesn’t shine so much as stab golden shafts through the trees, polka-dotting the rocks and stream at our feet.

My son sees those sun-spotted rocks piled atop one another and clambers up while pretending to be a dinosaur, which sends me into a spasm of worry.

He doesn’t read the newspaper yet, so he’s not aware of McConnells Mill State Park’s history as a hazard to the imprudent. A warning on the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources website urges hikers in the park to keep to the marked trails.

The words “Your life may depend on it” aren’t part of the warning but including that phrase wouldn’t be alarmist in any way. Every year, a handful of people, either by accident or carelessness, wind up falling over one of the sheer rock faces that lie within feet of the park’s trails.

Last May, a Butler County man fell to his death in the park while trying to rescue another hiker who had stumbled and sustained a severe injury.

My son, enraptured with a sense of wonderment and oblivious to the possible danger, storms across the rocks bellowing a T-rex roar until I reel him in, even while admiring his sense of adventure.

“Come be a dinosaur over here on the path,” I say.

We’re coming up on the first anniversary of what was one of the best days in my life, on the second Sunday of last September. That afternoon, totally on a whim, I decided to blow off the Steelers game and take my son for a walk in the woods.

Well, maybe not totally on a whim. By this time of year, we’re all keenly aware that the number of beautiful weekend days remaining before winter is limited.

And while it’s impossible to say when the brilliantly sunny Sunday afternoons will run out, by this time of year, each one could be the last. So, as much as I like a good football game, I knew there would be another one next week and the week after that.

Even today, walks like this remind me of my own childhood, when I followed my grandfather and cousins through the woods where I picked up small smooth rocks and acorns, and put them in my pocket for a collection that my mom would toss out, just the way my son does today.

My grandfather – a World War I veteran – is long gone now, but I can still remember him taking us into those woods to teach us the virtues of spending sunny days underneath a leafy canopy.

The terrain in McConnells Mill is more rugged than in the woods where I grew up about 60 miles south and east of here. McConnells Mill and nearby Moraine state parks mark the southernmost glacial advance about a million years ago during the last ice age.

Those walls of ice carved out gorges and shoved massive rocks while lurching southward by a few feet every year until they reached the outskirts of present-day Ellwood City, then retreated, leaving behind the formations where my son can pretend to be a dinosaur.

I was probably about the same age then as my son is now, so maybe he’ll remember this himself some day. Maybe then, he’ll understand why that sunny Sunday afternoon last year was one of the best days of my life.

And maybe that memory will make it one of the best days of his life too.

The naked politican double standard

When the reports of Scott Brown's naked photos turned up, I heard a few commentators wonder about what would happen if a woman did the same thing.

She'd be dead in the water, was the consensus. Those people were right, and you don't have to wonder about it.

With Brown's victory Tuesday in the Massachusetts special election, I'm wondering what Carmen Kontur-Gronquist thinks.

Kontur-Gronquist is the former small-town mayor from Oregon who was forced into a recall election in 2008 and driven from office when pictures of her in her bra and panties turned up on the Internet.

Disclosure: I don't know what Kontur-Gronquist's party is in or where she stands on the issues, but I can heartily endorse her stance on the running boards of red trucks in her underwear.

Anyway, Kontur-Gronquist is now a former mayor, and only because of the racy pics. Think she wishes she'd posed in the buff? At least she would have gotten her money's worth.

Scott Brown, conversely, is now the junior U.S. Senator-elect from Massachusetts.

Yeah, I think that's a double standard.

And speaking of double standards, it's apparently acceptable for male representatives and senators to be any shape or size. Female ones, conversely, are restricted to a single option - rail thin.

It's almost like someone slapped a "No Fat Chicks" bumper sticker on the Capitol Building.

One man's idea to save newspapers

Apparently, a sportswriter for New Hampshire's largest newspaper, the Union-Leader, has found a unique way of supplementing his income in these hard times for the print media.

Prosecutors said Kevin Provencher, a former New Hampshire sportswriter of the year, ran a prostitution ring, advertised on Craigslist, and screened potential clients in the United States and Canada to keep the police out of his operation.

I think this is what you call social climbing.

This is funny, and by that I mean odd, because I always thought sportswriters never got any action, much less hooked up other people.

I'm no stranger to sex scandals at the Union-Leader. One of my former co-workers wound up at that politically conservative publication as the front page editor of the Sunday issue.

On the day after a biker gathering in Manchester -- remember, this is the Sunday issue, the one that New Hampshirites read before heading off to church -- this guy put a picture of an obviously surgically-enhanced porn star, who attended the biker rally, on the front page.

But at least, in keeping with the demand of USA Today founder Al Neuharth, he got her "(breasts) above the fold."

Anyway, back to Kevin Provencher. With the state of the newspaper business, he was probably just setting up his next career.

And prosecuting him is the last thing they ought to be doing because Provencher might be on to something here that could save newspapers -- he might be the first print reporter to successfully monetize the Internet.

This could be a doable business model if every newspapers branch out into the full-service escort business.

Just think, men across the country can get both their news and next Saturday night's date at the same Web site.

"Pimp" is such an ugly word. We prefer "circulation manager."

Athletes turned politicians: the Top 10

I first came up with this idea a couple of months back after former Congressman and vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp died.

The whole thing crystallized a few weeks later, when I was re-reading the book “Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot” by Minnesota’s junior U.S. Sen. Al Franken, which includes a list of politicians who have showered with black people.

My list – of the most 20 illustrious politicians-turned athletes – is a little more tame.

I started with a list of 20 and ranked them all from 1 to 20 in both politics and sports, then added together each athlete-politician's ranking. Lowest number was first, and so on through 20 (Julius Caesar Watts).

The Second 10:

Julius Caesar Watts (college football, Congress), Heath Shuler (pro football, Congress), Charles McMillan (pro basketball, Congress), Jim Ryun (Olympics, Congress), Judy Martz (Olympics, governor of Montana), Wilmer “Vinegar Bend” Mizell (Major League Baseball, Congress), Lynn Swann (Pro Football Hall of Fame, Republican candidate for Pennsylvania governor), Morris Udall (Pro basketball, Congress), Alan Page (Pro Football Hall of Fame, Minnesota Supreme Court Judge) and Ben Nighthorse Campbell (Olympics, U.S. Senate).

The top 10:

10. Ralph Metcalfe

Sports (eighth): Won a 4 x 100-meter relay gold medal in 1936, won two silver medals and a bronze medal in 1932 and 1936.

Politics (14th): Long-time Chicago Alderman and served in Congress from 1971 until his death in 1978. A founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus.

That’s odd: Ran second to Eddie Tolan in a photo finish of the 100 meters at the 1932 Olympics

9. Richard Petty:

Sports (first): The greatest stock-car racer of all time (although the people with all those angel-wings-and-halo No. 3 window stickers might beg to differ). While there are some great athletes on this list, no one else here is on the short list of “greatest in his sport.” Petty might have topped this list if his political resume weren’t so slim.

Politics (20th): Won Republican nomination for North Carolina Secretary of State, but lost the general election.

That’s odd: Petty, whose nickname is “The King,” voiced the character of “The King” in the Pixar film Cars.

8. John K. Tener

Sports (14th place): Pitched for three Major League teams from 1885-90; lifetime record 25-31.

Politics (seventh place): Governor of Pennsylvania from 1911 to 1915, Congressman from 1909-11. Credited in starting the annual Congressional baseball game

That’s odd: Kener, who was born in Ireland, accepted the job of National League president in 1913, when he was still governor, and performed double duty for the next two years, although he didn’t take any pay from the National League until he left the governor’s office.

7. Gerald Ford

Sports (16th): All-American lineman at the University of Michigan. Ford might have bagged top overall spot, had he played a few years in the NFL, which had been an option. Ford rejected offers from at least two teams in 1935 to attend law school.

Politics (first): The only President on this list, and longtime member of Congress.

That’s odd: Ford was a member of the Warren Commission, which investigated the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

6. Steve Largent

Sports (third): Hall of Fame wide receiver. At the time of his retirement, he held records for most receptions and most receiving yards (those marks have since been broken).

Politics (11th): Congressman from Oklahoma from 1994 to 2002, ran unsuccessfully for Oklahoma governor in 1992.

That’s odd: Largent was appointed to replace James Inhofe, who had won a special election to the U.S. Senate, where Inhofe still serves.

5. Byron “Whizzer” White

Sports (ninth): Played three years in NFL, was an all-pro back each one.

Politics (sixth): Served on Supreme Court from 1962 to 1993, the 12th longest high court tenure.

That’s odd: During World War II, White was the naval intelligence officer who debriefed John F. Kennedy after the PT-109 incident, in which a ship commanded by the future president was rammed by a Japanese destroyer. Almost 20 years later, Kennedy appointed White to the Supreme Court.

4. Bob Mathias

Sports (second): Just as the Olympics’ 100-meter champion is acclaimed as the World’s Fastest Man, the decathlon winner earns the honor of World’s Greatest Athlete. And Mathias is the only person to have done it twice in non-boycotted Olympics, in 1948 and 1952.

Politics (11th): Served in Congress from 1967-75.

That’s odd: When he won his first gold medal, Mathias was 18 years old. He also played on Stanford’s 1951 Rose Bowl champion football team

3. Jack Kemp

Sports (10th): Seven-time AFL All-Star, 1965 league MVP.

Politics (third): Congress from 1971 – one year after retiring from pro football – to 1989, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President George H.W. Bush, Republican vice-presidential nominee in 1996.

That’s odd: Kemp did one thing Hall of Famer Jim Kelly couldn’t. Kemp quarterbacked the Buffalo Bills to their only two league championships, in 1964 and 65.

2. Jim Bunning

Sports (seventh): Hall of Fame pitcher from 1955 to 1971 with 224-184 won-lost record. Pitched a perfect game in 1964.

Politics: In U.S. Senate from 1999 to present, and in Congress from 1987-1999.

That’s odd: Bunning is one of three ex-Pittsburgh major league pitchers on the list, joining John K. Tener in the Top 10, and another former Pirate, Wilmer “Vinegar Bend” Mizell, in the second 10.

1. Bill Bradley

Sports (fourth): Hall of Fame basketball player at Princeton and the New York Knicks, won Olympic gold medal in 1964.

Politics (third): In U.S. Senate from 1978 to 1996, ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2000.

That’s odd: Bradley and Manu Ginobili are the only players to win Olympic basketball gold medals, European league titles and NBA titles.