Off to California (Soon, Anyway)
March 22, 2009 at 6:23 pm Tina Hay 4 comments
This weekend I’ve been finishing up a presentation on sports coverage that I’ll be making at our national editors’ conference next week in San Francisco. Alumni magazine editors gather once a year to talk about their craft, and while the tough economy means that a lot of editors won’t be able to attend this year, we still should have more than 200 in attendance.
The description of the sports panel mentions that “Our team of experts consists of a sports nut at a sports nutty school, a self-avowed sports novice who nonetheless has published a memorable athletics cover story, and one of Sports Illustrated’s finest practitioners of literary journalism.” Apparently the sports nut at the sports nutty school is me.
It’s true that I’ve been paying attention to sports since I was a kid. As evidence of that, I plan to show attendees this gem from a scrapbook I kept when I was about 11: an autographed photo of Roman Gabriel. I had quite the crush on Roman Gabriel. If you look closely, you can see that he wrote: “To Tina – Always a 110% – Roman Gabriel.”
I also read all of the books in the Chip Hilton sports series (anyone else remember those?), went to Pirate baseball games at Forbes Field, the whole bit.
And, as evidence that I work at a sports-nutty school, I’ll show them this information from our reader surveys:
A lot of alumni magazines don’t even have a sports section, but at The Penn Stater, it’s readers’ second-most popular section. I know that a lot of editors in the audience work at schools where sports isn’t quite as dominant as it is at Penn State, so my challenge will be to offer advice that’s useful to them as well.
Tina Hay, editor
Entry filed under: Other Penn State sports, Penn State football, The Penn Stater magazine. Tags: CASE, CASE Editors Forum, Los Angeles Rams, Roman Gabriel, San Francisco.
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1. Vince Verbeke | March 23, 2009 at 6:39 am
Tina:
I was an avid Chip Hilton reader as well. Your remembrance had me googling at once. This is a great article on the author from Sports Illustrated.
January 07, 1980
A Hero For All Times
Out of print, but enduring, are the 23 novels by legendary coach Clair Bee about the equally legendary Chip Hilton
http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1120269/1/index.htm
Have a safe trip!
Vince
2. No, I Don’t Have Any Antlers to Check, Thank You « The Penn Stater | March 23, 2009 at 8:04 am
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3. On Merlin Olsen « | March 11, 2010 at 5:36 pm
[...] I was a kid, the Rams were my favorite team, and in particular I had a serious crush on quarterback Roman Gabriel. I wrote to him—more than once!—to request autographed photos, and he always obliged. The above [...]
4. Linda G | January 20, 2012 at 8:07 pm
This is so funny. I, too, was the recipient of the same Roman Gabriel bw photo! I was seven years old when I received it in the late 1960′s.
My oldest brother presented me with a SI magazine while I was home from school, laying in bed, sick. RG was on the cover–I was transfixed. I wanted to marry him. I have no idea how I managed to figure out where to mail my proposal (I was living in Montreal at the time) but I sent it to the LA Rams organization. A few weeks later I received the autographed photo. It was signed, “Champions Never Quit” Roman Gabriel, LA Rams.