An Unexpected Journey
And The Heroes Met Along The Way
It was January 25, 1995. I was standing outside the New York Marriott next to the big, strong, freezing Texas sports hero, who had become a good friend over the past year while we worked together on writing a book about his life and battle with panic disorder. This was not a good situation. Earl Campbell shivering in Times Square with temperatures in the teens. I wondered if there was anything else I could have done. At that moment, I wished I had declined the invitation to meet with a top sports literary agent, who claimed he needed a face-to-face meeting in order to consider representing Earl and I on our book. We only made the trip with the hope that it would result in a large contract with a major publisher.
After checking into the hotel, we sat in the suite awaiting our all-star literary sports agent. Earl started to look impatient, frustrated. An hour later, there was a knock on the door. I was relieved that the agent had finally arrived. When I opened the door however, there stood a woman with a battered and bruised face, her grey wool overcoat tattered and soiled. She introduced herself as the assistant to the agent, who she explained had something come up and wasn’t able to make it. Red flag! Frustration filled the room with only the condition of the woman in front of us tempering our anger.
The agent who insisted on a face-to-face meeting, requiring Earl and I fly to New York, couldn’t even show up for the scheduled meeting. Then, the woman in her mid-30s, who was in obvious discomfort, went on to tell us that she had just been mugged in Central Park. Well, where do you go from there?
Earl and I both felt very badly for her and expressed our sympathy, but knew right then and there, we would not be working with Mr. Bigshot no-show agent. Given her injuries, I told her that she should just go to the emergency room and get treated. She agreed. The meeting ended. I apologized to Earl, but he realized the circumstances were out of my control.
We did salvage the trip though, meeting a couple of Earl’s Italian friends at a posh Italian restaurant. It was a lot of fun! They were terrific fellows and it seemed to alleviate most of the frustration caused by the agent. We booked flights home the next morning and met Texas Governor Ann Richards in the airport. She couldn’t have been happier to meet the Tyler Rose, who is literally the fourth State Hero of Texas. She was full of energy and enthusiasm telling us all types of inside-Washington political stories. Another fun moment on a very disappointing trip.
So when I returned from New York and walked in the door of my family’s Orland Hills home, there stood my wife, Charlotte, with a strange smile on her face and holding a white plastic stick in her hand.
“You’re never going to believe this,” she said, realizing she was about to stun me with her news. “I’m pregnant.”
“That’s impossible!” I blurted out, not believing it, knowing how good she was at keeping track of her cycle. She then showed me the stick with two red bars across the middle. Looking at the stick, I knew it meant a significant change to our life and family was on the horizon.
A few weeks later, I was sitting in a small Italian restaurant on East Lake Street eating eggplant parmesan with my friend and former Sun-Times associate, Ernie Tucker, when my pager began beeping. It was my wife’s cellphone. (Yes they had cellphones back then) Ernie and I walked two blocks to the Sun-Times at 401 North Wabash where we knew there was a payphone in front of the historic building.
I dialed my wife’s number and our four year-old son, Sean, answered the large grey plastic phone and with great excitement said, “Dad, guess what? Mom’s got two babies in her belly.” I felt my face go numb. Ernie backed up a few steps and told me later that my face had turned pale and he thought someone had died.
“Sean that’s not funny!” I replied with as much composure as I could possibly muster at that moment. “Put your mother on the phone.” This was the beginning of a life’s adventure where God took our family down a path we never expected to be traveling. From that point on, it felt like a starter pistol had been fired and we were now in the track meet of our life, working to raise four kids, guiding them through school, sports, friendships, faith education and all of the financial burdens that come with a large family.
For two years, The Upjohn Company’s Director of Public Relations, Phil Sheldon, had been trying to recruit me to the Kalamazoo pharmaceutical company, but I was reluctant to make the move. However, knowing what it required to raise each of our first two children, Megan and Sean, I was certain I would need a solid job with normal 8-5 workday in order to survive the first year of raising twins with my wife. I couldn’t have been more right and grateful to Mr. Sheldon for bringing me to work in a town only two hours away from Orland Hills.
Upon arriving at the company for all of the mandatory paperwork and healthcare testing, my new boss brought me up to the accounting department where he introduced me to Dorothy Jeter, who was helping to manage my transition. Mr. Sheldon and Mrs. Jeter knew each other well, since there sons both played baseball together on a travel team, the Kalamazoo Maroons. Dorothy was very nice and helpful. With all that was required to help my family make the move, I really appreciated all of the assistance she provided all along the way.
My first day of work was April 15, and two days later, I was back in New York working with our agency, Ketchum, on the launch of Luvox, a new drug for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Our spokesperson, Mariette Hartley, was fully prepared in a media training session conducted on April 17 by Ketchum’s team led by their Senior Vice President, Stephanie. We were scheduled to conduct a press conference the next day, April 18, and satellite media tour the following day, April 19, from the HBO broadcast studio, beginning at 8 a.m. EST.
The press conference was a bit of a disaster with only four reporters in attendance, each a freelance writer whom I learned later that Ketchum hadd paid to attend and write a story. Stephanie explained that the other 15 reporters, who they told us would be covering the press conference, had something come up and weren’t able to make it. “It’s New York,” she explained. “That’s how it goes sometimes.”
The satellite media tour would be different however with 25 interviews already booked with TV news stations across the country. It was 7:45 am when the director brought Mariette and the physician spokesperson, Dr. Eric, into the studio to get them mic’d up and ready to begin the three-hour series of interviews. I sat with Stephanie and Mr. Sheldon outside the studio watching the monitor where we would see each interview.
The director of the broadcast team alerted all of us that the first interview would be with Good Day New York. The two hosts appeared on the screen. Mariette and Dr. Eric smiled as the first question came their way asking about OCD, what are the signs and symptoms, who can get this mental disease, and how is it treated? It was 8:04 a.m. and just as the doctor was about to answer, the host cut him off, apologized and said they had to go to breaking news. The Oklahoma City bombing had just taken place. Stunned faces appeared throughout the broadcast studio. The satellite media tour had to be cancelled. That is how I started my time with The Upjohn Company.
A month and a half later on May 29, 1995, I sat in my office at Upjohn when everyone in our group heard our boss announce at 4:30 p.m. that, “I’m going home early tonight to watch the Yankees game. A local kid is going to be playing shortstop.”
Little did I know that his announcement was a proclamation for the start of one of the greatest playing careers in the history of the New York Yankees by Mrs. Jeter’s son, Derek. That was a day to remember, a day to relish.
NEXT: THE CAPTAIN, A TRUE HERO ON AND OFF THE FIELD