Every day you see Mr. Willie is a good day

There has already been enough written about Mr. Willie Smith. Countless newspaper articles, TV news profiles virtually every year, even a spot on ESPN's web site a few years ago.  By now, most everyone knows virtually everything about the man with the booming, gravelly baritone, usually ensconced in his general admission seat behind home plate at Historic Grayson Stadium, so why write about him again?  Because when you see him for the first time in a while, you realize why news people fall over themselves to interview him, and also why we love him so doggone much.

"How you doin' brother?  I didn't recognize you without the hat," Mr. Smith said as we greeted each other before a Savannah State women's basketball game.  It was the first time I had seen him since the Sand Gnats were eliminated from the playoffs last September.  He seemed to be limping more than usual, and maybe was a little more stooped.  But he was also typical Willie Smith.  "Oh, I got this thing going on with my legs," he dismissed with a wave of his hand, "but I'm here!  And I gotta be here to support my girls."  Were I in his shoes, I'd be lucky to be supporting my own rear end, much less as many sports teams as he supports.

Mr. Smith, now pushing 72, is rarely without his smile or the magnificent voice that resonates off walls and empty seats and that you still hear an hour after a game ends.  "Come on, now.  Let's play some defense."  Watching him attempt to navigate the stairs at Grayson or at Tiger Arena is excruciating.  Every step seems to shoot pain through his body.  I have never had the courage to ask him if it does, though, because he would probably just say, "Oh, I'm alright."  Then, he'd launch into a diatribe about how much Chipper Jones looks and plays like an old man and should just retire.

"These are my girls," he says of the Savannah State women.  Mr. Smith quickly amends, "well them and the high school girls."  The high school is his high school, Beach High School, he lets me know in case I didn't.  It's the only school that could have been his high school during his "separate but equal" youth.  "You'll see me at the men's games sometimes but I'm always here for my girls."  Mr. Smith doesn't need to say it's partly because the women's teams usually get about half as much attention as the men.  The way he says "my girls" tells you that.

"Sometimes, Mr. Crump comes out here, too.  You remember Mr. Crump?"  Mr. Crump is Mr. Smith's fellow permanent Sand Gnats season-ticket holder; they both have small plaques with their names on their seats.   Mr. Crump is the one who doesn't get stories written about him because, while he has also been attending Savannah baseball games for decades, you can't hear his voice clear across Daffin Park.  Perhaps someone will profile Mr. Crump this year.  Maybe I will even remember Mr. Crump's first name - it's on his seat plaque, but he's always sitting down and covering it up.  He generally doesn't fellowship with entire ballparks or arenas like Mr. Smith.

Speaking of which, that time has come. "Well, I gotta go say hi to my lady over here."   He could have been talking about 50 different ladies.  He also might have been referring to all of them because, sure enough, Mr. Smith will greet every single one before The Star Spangled Banner signals that it's game time.  As is customary, a handshake turns into a hug and a "Love you, brother!"  Then, he turns a shoulder as he toddles off and yells, "see you at the ballpark."  With the exception of family time, there aren't many better places to be than at the ballpark with Willie Smith.  Then again, Mr. Smith IS family.  To all of Savannah.

The officials for tonight's game, from parts unknown...

It may be older than your grandma's grandma, but that cliche about learning something new every day is absolutely true, even about things for which you thought you were well conversant.  For example, sports nuts like myself never completely learn everything there is to learn about sports.  Like the fact that basketball referees apparently don't have names.

I don't know if they have Orwellian numbers instead, but this heretofore unknown "fact" was brought to my attention this week by one of the officials at an Armstrong Atlantic State University basketball game in which I served as the public address announcer.  For reasons that will soon become clear, I will use pseudonyms to refer to this gentleman.

Shortly after making the usual pre-game introductions for the Armstrong men's game -  starting lineups, coaches, and officials - one of those officials, Slim Goodbody, said to someone at the scorer's table that it was against NCAA rules to read aloud the names of basketball officials.  Just before the end of halftime, Doctor X repeated this "rule" to me.  It was as if Stone Cold had given me the stunner.

Granted, this is my first season doing P.A. announcing for basketball games, but in every game I have announced for Armstrong and Savannah State University, the names of the officials have been read aloud.  One of the biggest thrills of the season was the chance to announce the name of an Atlanta Braves hero of my youth, Bruuuuuuuuce Benedict, an accomplished basketball referee since his retirement from baseball.

Still, since it was my first season, perhaps I had missed something.  Maybe Tallulah Bankhead was correct in that I shouldn't have given out his name.  So, I consulted the Bible of college hoops, the official NCAA rule book.  Well, what do you know?  There didn't seem to be a word in the entire book about public address announcing and whether or not I was allowed to say the name of The Midnight Rider or any other official.

I didn't want to think that Paul Bearer was making up a rule, so I next consulted the professional P.A. announcers group, the National Association of Really Loud Yellers (NARLY).  The closest reference I could find was under the group's P.A. Announcer Code of Conduct.  Guideline number five reads:  "Announcers shall respect the individuals who are responsible for the conduct and administration of athletic games and events, such as coaches, officials and administrators, and avoid making any comments that reflect positively or negatively on them."  I know for a fact I never said anything negative about Rey Mysterio, so I was still puzzled.

Finally, I got somewhat of an answer from my friend Mike MacEachern, Sports Information Director at SCAD and occasional clock operator at Armstrong games.  He said that, in the past, he was sometimes discouraged from giving out the names of officials to the public as a way of preventing gamblers from getting to them; to help prevent undue influence on the game.  However, as far as Mike knew, it was not an actual rule.  Besides, Bullet Bob Armstrong carried an air about him that seemed impervious to gamblers or any other untoward advances.

Perhaps the problem goes deeper.  Maybe Gorgeous George doesn't like hearing his own name.  But good P.A. announcers do their absolute best to make everyone's name sparkle.  Why, during the women's game earlier in the night, an official named Amy Todey was thrilled that I didn't call her "TOAD-ee" as many announcers have this season.  Her name is pronounced TODD-ee, although if I am not supposed to name the officials, she'll have to be Zelda Gilroy next time out.

Still, I'd like to give Cactus Jack the benefit of the doubt, so I hope he can forgive me for reading his name over the microphone prior to the game.  Should he officiate another game in which I am lucky enough to announce, he shall remain nameless.  Or, maybe he could wear a mask and be Mr. Referee Number Two.  From "Parts Unknown."

Sorry, Chipper. Benny "The Jet" Rodriguez already did that

So Chipper Jones allegedly knocked the cover off a ball in the batting cage today.  Allegedly.  Benny "The Jet" Rodriguez did that about 18 years ago or so, so scoreboard.  And he did it without Viagra.

Rob Neyer from ESPN to SB

Awesome to see Rob Neyer still going strong with his brand new gig as National Baseball Editor for SB Nation.  His first column is a gem, which is no surprise to anyone who read Neyer during his 15 years with espn.com.  Shoot, there was no such thing as espn.com when he started.  As if we needed another 'old' moment - in my day, we didn't have no dadgum internets.  We chiseled our breaking news on marble and limestone and we liked it!

I was still hoping Rob would walk in to his new place carrying the ESPN Championship Belt and proclaim himself the Real World Champion, but I suppose that shtick was already taken. 

A song for your sweetie, barbershop style

(published in the February issue of Coastal Senior)

She might be at work, putting away files or entering data on the computer.  Perhaps she’s at home, in the kitchen or the garden.  Guys, regardless of where your Valentine is on Valentine’s Day, she probably wouldn’t be expecting a visit from four dapper gentlemen in red sport coats and ties, bearing a long-stemmed rose and a Valentine’s Day card.  Oh yes, and a couple of love songs to let her know how you feel about her.  It’s a unique gift from a unique group of distinguished men; the 13^th Colony Sound, Savannah’s barbershop singers.

“All the guys love the singing Valentines,” says the chorus’s current president, Bob Kearns, 64.  “We’ve be doing them practically since the chorus began, and they are one of our main fundraisers.”  Helping a group of guys with their own unique way of preserving the Great American Songbook is something Kearns never expected to be doing at this stage of his life.

A former board member of the Long Island Philharmonic in New York, Kearns moved to Savannah five years ago after making numerous business trips here doing aerospace engineering work.  “One morning while singing in my church choir,” Kearns says, “a guy told me ‘you’ve got to come with me to sing with this group that meets every Monday night.”  It was the 13^th Colony Sound, and Kearns joined up at a time when a cappella singing appeared to have long since peaked in popularity. 

Barbershop singing traces its beginnings to, where else, barbershops, where four or more men would sing a song without music (or a cappella).  A good example is the 1903 song “Sweet Adeline” which you may remember the Marx Brothers singing in their film “Monkey Business” (the only time, by the way, that silent brother Harpo Marx used his voice in a movie).  By 1970, barbershop singing had undergone a national revival thanks largely to the Broadway hit “The Music Man”, later made into a successful film. 

1970 was the year when what was then called “The Savannah Chorus” received an official charter from the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America.  Someone eventually decided that mouthful of a name was a tad long, and the national organization shortened it to the Barbershop Harmony Society.  Names changed in Savannah, too, as the chapter later became ‘The Coastal Chordsmen’ and, in 1984, the 13^th Colony Sound.

The last few years have brought another renaissance in barbershop singing, at least in Savannah.  “We went from a time many years ago when it was unusual to have choruses with fewer than 40 guys down to a chorus with just 15 guys when I joined,” Kearns says.  Now, things are picking up thanks in part to some innovative marketing, such as the chorus’s occasional get-togethers at Spanky’s near Savannah Mall.  “We’ve got it back up to 30 members,” Kearns says, “and we’re shooting to get it back up to 40.”

 Many of the chorus’s members are longtime prominent Savannahians, most in their 60’s and 70’s.  Then, there’s Dan Gillespie, 89, who as a young man helped build the atomic bombs used during World War II.  Gillespie hasn’t let an Alzheimer’s diagnosis keep him from singing tenor, and it hasn’t taken away his quick wit.  Backstage during one of the chorus’s shows, observing a bit of chaos in getting another act on stage, Gillespie quipped “building atomic initiators was easier than this.”

The 13^th Colony Sound has gotten a bit younger over the last couple years, particularly with the addition of music director Jeremy Conover, 33.  He joined three years ago, and bearing a music degree and a pedigree as a singing coach and champion barbershop singer in the Midwest, brought a more ambitious musical agenda for the chorus.  “We’ve put on two full-fledged stage shows largely because of Jeremy’s work with us,” Kearns says, including last year’s “Remember Radio”, a recreation of an old time live radio show.

Given the ages of many of the chorus members, they also decided to do their best to get the next generation involved in barbershopping, at first recruiting students from Savannah Arts Academy and Armstrong Atlantic State University and, in 2009, forming the young men’s Savannah Storm Chorus.  “This music is our life blood,” Kearns says, “and if we don’t teach those younger guys about it, the music will die on the vine.”  It appears the music is in good hands, as Savannah Storm won a national Barbershop Harmony Society championship for their age group in their first year of existence, and recently went back to national competition in Las Vegas.

Lest you think Barbershop singing is for men only, the Moon River Chorus might have something to say about that.  Joe Ryan, one of three charter members of the 13^th Colony Sound still singing with the group, started the women’s chorus in 1995.  They meet every Thursday at 7:00pm at Whitefield United Methodist Church on Waters Avenue, and all women who like to sing are welcome.

As for the men, “we’re trying hard to have fun every Monday night,” Kearns says.  They meet at 7:00pm at the Benedictine school cafeteria.  Who knows; this time next year you might be part of one of the 13^th Colony Sound’s quartets, singing to someone’s sweetheart on Valentine’s Day.

Note: If you’d like a 13^th Colony Sound or Moon River Chorus quartet to sing to your Valentine, they are available February 10^th – 14^th.  You can make a reservation by calling (912) 351-7388.