Marvin and Sarah

It has become a tradition once a year, one I hold dear, dinner and baseball with Marvin and Sarah West.

I knew all about Marvin long before I met him. Yes, it was partially because he covered UT sports for the Knoxville News Sentinel. But he also coached my stepdad, Mike McConkey, on a legendary Powell little league team that won 50-some games in a row.

I think I sealed the deal when I first talked to Marvin on the phone in 2000. I quoted his lead from his Oct. 17, 1982, column on Tennessee's first win over Alabama in 11 tries.

"What a strange and wonderful yo-yo is Tennessee football."

Maybe he just felt sorry for me.

Anyway, we got together to talk about his book "Tales of the Tennessee Vols" and fostered a friendship. He told me that wife Sarah is "the real story" and said again tonight that everybody likes Sarah more than they like him. I've never seen such a devoted couple.

Memories. Moments. Magic.

I once became so, uh, relaxed while watching a game with Marvin that I drifted off to dream. He woke me up and told me to go home.

I once left a dime and three pennies behind. I told Marvin it was a meager tip for Sarah's delicious dinner, all I could afford on a scribe's salary.

I once gave birth to a kidney stone in their living room. Marvin had to drive me home. Sarah followed in their car.

But mostly, I have listened.

Marvin told me about the time he printed a story about a UT football coaching change before John Majors had told the assistant who was getting axed. He said Majors called him long distance (Marvin was in Lexington, Ky., on a basketball assignment) seven times. Majors would say something, hang up, think of something else to say, and call back.

"To his credit," Marvin said, "John didn't hold a grudge and never mentioned it again."

He told me about the time Bill Battle was certain Marvin had planted a bug in the coach's offices. Battle made his assistants search under the table. They found some gum.

He talked about Big John Tate, about covering several Olympics, about being escorted along the border between North and South Korea. (Yep, the South Koreans liked Sarah best, too.)

He has given me advice, laughed at my bad jokes, even invited me to sing at one of his high school class reunions.

Of course, I'll never forget the day I thought he was dead. Long story made short, the daily paper posted a story on its website saying that Marvin had passed away in Lexington, Ky. It turned out to be another man named Marvin West.

When I called their lake house and Marvin answered the phone, I cried. Marvin told me to go back to work.

"See you on a bounce."

Marvin and Sarah are my friends. No, scratch that. They are family. And I love them very much.

Quote of the day

I'll save my thoughts on Bruce Pearl, UT and this coaching change mess on the Hill for another day, when passions have cooled, when we know more.

Meanwhile, I'll share a quote from former UT football coach Bill Battle.

"When they're running you out of town, make it look like you're leading the parade."

Battle, who was forced out in 1976, had the last laugh. He got into the licensing of collegiate products and is now a millionaire. Oh, and he's still a nice guy.

UT prof's new novel gets high marks

Not bad, is it, for a writer to be compared to Walker Percy and F. Scott Fitzgerald?

UT creative writing professor Michael Knight has been mentioned favorably in the same breath with those literary lights. Read his new novel, "The Typist," over the course of an evening. Calm. Concise. Cool.

The story is set in Tokyo during the American occupation of Japan after World War II. The main character is a kid from Alabama who is assigned to Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s staff as a typist.

Knight says the idea for the novel first came to him after reading a newspaper article about a football game that was played at Nagasaki a few years after an atomic bomb was dropped there in August 1945.

“But I couldn’t get in touch with the character, I didn’t understand what the story was supposed to be,” Knight says.

So, he put it away to work on short stories. While signing books in Gainesville, Fla., Knight met a man who told him he was a typist under MacArthur’s command in Japan following the war.

“And I realized it’s a much more personalized story,” Knight says, “which I hope is sort of a coming of age story.”

Knight says he read several biographies on MacArthur while researching the book and was delighted to discover that one of the general’s nicknames was “Bunny.” Big Mac makes guest appearances in the book as Knight has his main character become a babysitter for MacArthur’s son, Arthur.

Publishers Weekly says that “The Typist” is “not quite darkly comic, not quite ironic … driven by earnest, unaffected storytelling and the soft shocks it delivers render this a modest, entertaining story.”

I concur. It was a nice shift from Pat Conroy's pyrotechnics and it even made me want to dig out my copy of William Manchester's MacArthur bio "American Caesar" once I finish James Kaplan's fantastic new book on Frank Sinatra.

Knight won't knock your socks off, but he charms you with his cogent, quiet style and superb storytelling. It's great company for a cold winter's night by the fire.

“The Typist” is available from Amazon.com, other book outlets and through the Knox County Public Library. The New York Times review can be found here.

The coat and tie coach, gone for good

Read with amusement that Kevin O'Neill is going to USC.

Remember when he arrived on Rocky Top, big promises, fanfare and high expectations. The malaise that was Wade Houston was ending. Lopsided losses to Kentucky (on my birthday) would fade in time.

Slight aside: A friend told me once that his friend wandered into the athletic offices a day or two after a terrible loss. Houston had his feet propped up on his desk watching soap operas. When said friend held up the morning newspaper headline from the game, Houston straightened up, coughed and began to look busy. I don't know if the story is true, but if it isn't, it should be.

I always thought O'Neill was all mouth and no results at Tennessee. He was a foul-mouthed Yankee, bad representative for the university, sad example for the kids that might have sat a few rows up from the home bench.

Those who know more than me say he is a good coach, great recruiter, full of energy. I don't know.

I do know that he crept out of here with his 36-47 record, a literal thief in the night, for what he must have thought would be greener pastures at Northwestern. I still laugh at the image of Bob Knight insulting O'Neill after a game and Short Stuff trying to give it back to him. Amusing and pitiful.

Guess you can tell I never cared for him. And I don't care for that coaching style.

But, I'm out of touch. I like the old school, wear a coat and tie on the football sideline, stay stoic, know how to win and how to lose with class. Don't run your mouth. Be an adult. An added plus is when you show a little education, like maybe you know about a world outside of athletics.

I am one of about 10 people who still like John Majors. I still believe you don't show somebody who gave more to UT than anybody besides Gen. Robert Neyland the door without allowing the smoke to clear. I will never forget Johnny's mother, John Elizabeth "Bobo" Majors looking shellshocked that bleak Friday the 13th in Memphis.

"I gave one son to Tennessee," she said, thinking of her son Bill, assistant coach, who was hit by a train and killed in 1965 on the way to work. "Now I've given another."

But, then again, my alma mater is also the university that thanked George "Bad News" Cafego for a stellar multi-decade career upon his retirement by presenting him with a used van -- the means by which Tennessee's women's basketball team traveled to away games. Cafego never said a word, but it hurt him to the core. A bit later they welcomed back Doug Dickey with open arms, the Tall Guy who told his players he was staying, then slithered off to Florida.

The old-school breed of college coaches is long gone with the wind. I prefer solid defense to fun and gun offensive explosions. I dislike loud music at the stadium, a gargantuan jumbotron, fans cursing in the crowd. Doesn't matter now.

I'm waiting to see what Lane Kiffin delivers when talk must give way to what happens between the lines. We will see if the glitter turns to gold.

A good friend cautioned my do or die, show me soon, do so or I'm gone outlook. He needs two years. Give him a chance. He's inheriting a bad situation like we haven't seen since the end of the Battle years.

Maybe so.

But I just don't care for the arrogant, low-class Nick Sabans and Urban Meyers of the world, call a time out to throw another touchdown pass when the outcome is no longer in doubt. Outside of Howard Schnellenberger, we'll never see a coat and tie coach roaming the college sideline. Now it's visors and polo shirts, slobs that look like they just rolled out of bed, the Patriots coach sporting his homeless guy cut off sweatshirt.

The bright lights of modern college football mean win games or else. It is a business. Earn your bloated salary or take a hike.

The gentleman era is gone for good. I'm not so sure that is a good thing.