Wednesday, July 14, 2010

A Happy Kangaroo and Happy Dicks



Now I honestly believe that I was reincarnated from a kangaroo.

And speaking of Dicks…

Greatest Headline in the History of Sports Journalism

Happy Dicks was a linebacker at the University of Georgia in the mid 60's, which will make this article about the journalist from Georgia, the late, Lewis Grizzard, AÖ '68, that much funnier.

On the eve of the Georgia - South Carolina game 41 years ago, I was hanging out with three Sigma Pi brothers (the Hound, Tex , and Bake), drinking a few cold PBRs at the old Callaway Gardens Apartment on Atlanta Highway. We were discussing the upcoming game against the Gamecocks and lamenting the fact that we were going in with several key players out with injuries, including our starting DE, Billy Payne (who ran the Atlanta Olympics and is now Ch of the Board at Augusta National) and his roommate, MLB, Happy Dicks.

About 10:00 that night, another fraternity brother, Lewis Grizzard, came in after he got off work. Our buddy was inactive at the time because he had gotten married over the summer to his high school sweetheart, Nancy (the first of many--all with the same name--Plaintiff). In addition to taking a full load at the University, he was working two jobs to help pay for (as he called it) "this expensive habit." A talented young man, he was writing two columns daily - one in the morning for the Athens Banner Herald and one in the afternoon for the Athens Daily News.

Lewis walked in, went straight to the refrigerator, got a beer, plopped down in a chair, pushed his glasses back up his nose and announced, "Gentlemen, with any luck at all, tomorrow morning you'll witness journalistic history. I have submitted my column and if it gets by my editor - and there's a good chance of that happening, since he looked drunk earlier this evening - you'll enjoy the greatest headline in the history of sports journalism."

He refused to tell us what it was, and to be honest with you, we all forgot about it. As Lewis went home to his lovely, young bride, the four of us went back over to the Fraternity house to get a head start on the weekend.

The next morning, as usual, I went straight for the Sports Section. As I pulled it out, I could do nothing but smile, because our buddy had pulled it off. To this day, Vince Dooley calls it his most memorable column ever - all because of the headline, which read:

DOGS TO PLAY COCKS WITH DICKS OUT.

There's no doubt about it, it was "the greatest headline in the history of sports journalism."

He was certainly one of a kind. Grizzard, I mean.

5 comments:

middle child said...

Perfect!

Alexandra said...

How could that sneak past anybody?

Thank you for your so funny comment on my teenager with angst. He was just letting me have it in the car, and I WROTE IT ALL DOWN! Which made him even madder!!

ScoMan said...

First of all, the word verification is "Scomo".. which I think is great.

Secondly, the Kangaroo learnt that from Aussie males who do just sit around the park like that.

Thirdly, I worked with a guy who supported an AFL team with a player named "Dick". One week they were playing a team with a player named "Cox"

Dick got injured.

So his joke was "How can we beat them if they've got Cox and we've got no Dick?"

Lickety Splitter said...

LOL ... hey, shameless, I see you have been on youtube again. (Oh yeah, I hope you were able to view the last video I posted, I thought it was freaking hilarious!) I put the link on the comment box so you could find it. You may have to copy and post. I heard that dude's story on NPR of all places. I then sought out his blog.

As for our great Georgian ... Lewis Grizzard, I haven't heard his name in a while. That dude was also funnnnny.

JCF said...

Actually never happened. Just a Grizzard yarn. Here are a couple of links that explain it.

A typical debunking from me:

http://cfbwizard.com/2009/08/19/greatest-headline-in-the-history-of-sports-journalism/

And this is an amazing story of a guy who actually devoted considerable time in search of the Holy Grail:

http://patrickgarbin.blogspot.com/2013/02/oh-no-i-feel-so-blue.html