Loran - Smith

Loran

One asset from having a sports affiliation is the many ancillary options that are available. For example, you can follow one pursuit and become the beneficiary of unlimited “side” opportunities as an adjunct to the main objective. I remember a Georgia football assistant who had coached for Woody Hayes at Ohio State and was intrigued that this man who was a fierce competitor also had a bent for books. History was, he said, Woody’s favorite subject.

When the Ohio State team played on the road, Woody was always taking his team on Friday afternoons to a historical site or a museum in the area.

There was a time when Vince Dooley did that with his teams, but as the intensity to win championships increased, that routine went away. Teams started arriving at the hotel site with time to watch video tape, conduct walk-throughs and try to pack in as much repetition as possible for executing the game plan on Saturday.

For years, I had an opportunity to cover the British Open, which was a wonderful experience. By taking an extra week to travel across the Atlantic to a country on the continent, I got to visit most all of Western Europe and a lot of Eastern Europe.

Side trips were easy for the longest time. I remember the days when you could travel to the West Coast but stop somewhere like Denver or Salt Lake, for example, for a couple of days and that did not bring about a stiff penalty from the airline.

With spring training at full speed in Florida and Arizona, I recall the many great times to be enjoyed from following the sport of baseball. I recall the times I played golf or fished in the morning and then had plenty of time to get to the ball park for a spring training game in the afternoon.

One morning, I drove down to Ft. Myers from Tampa to see a former Georgia player who enjoyed fishing as much as anybody who ever made a cast.

He lived in a high-rise condominium on a bay and he was eager to get on the water, but it was a cloudy, overcast day. “Not likely to catch anything today in this weather,” was an immediate disclaimer. I shrugged my shoulders as he countered with, “…but you want to go, don’t you?” That meant he wanted to go.

We were near a stretch of mangroves and the lightweight reel I was using, along with my lack of expertise, kept bringing about garbled bird nests with my line. As I was cleaning out one of my backlashes, the line suddenly went taut for a few seconds, and I exclaimed out loud, “looks like I have something on my line.”

His reply, was, “He’ll be long gone by the time you straighten out that mess.” Before long all entanglements were fixed, and I was lazily reeling in my line when all of a sudden, a big snook almost jerked me out of the boat.

For the next half hour, I fought this snook who wanted to take me to the mangroves, but my host kept maneuver- continued from page

ing the board to thwart the snook’s objective. Finally, we wore him down, and when he tipped the scales at 25 pounds, I realized how fortunate I was.

My friend exclaimed, “People come down here and fish for years and never catch a fish like that, and you catch a prized snook on a backlash.”

I immediately realized the significance of the axiom, “I’d rather be lucky than good.”

Spring training offers the opportunity to play golf in the morning and enjoy an afternoon at the ballpark, but I prefer to fish, take in a museum such as the Edison Ford Museum in Ft. Myers. That is where Thomas Edison and Henry Ford spent their winters for many years. The museum tells their stories which are fascinating.

Naturally, Florida is more convenient than Arizona, but I prefer the sunshine state anyway because of fishing options. Serious anglers tout the lakes around Phoenix and the Salt River as outstanding, but Florida has greater appeal, convenience and more pleasant weather if it isn’t raining.

Inland Florida is where you find pickup trucks, camouflage clothing, scrub oaks and the best habitat for turkey hunting. One spring I met up with a friend in Palmdale, Florida, and he arranged for me to hunt for an Osceola turkey with a guide who could really talk to these wily birds.

Up long before day break, there was coffee and country music to help start your day You ride deep in the woods in a Polaris ranger and find a meeting place where the guide puts out decoys and then retreats to a small camouflage tent with windows where you can see out but the cagey Osceola’s can’t see any movement inside. It doesn’t take much to spook a turkey.

Accompanying me was Brandon Storey, a guide who can literally talk to a turkey. At first light, Brandon said, “Here they come.” He could hear them sashaying through the brush. They gathered around the lone hen. Soon one separated and fortunately my aim was expert and I owned a beautiful Osceola prize. Then I headed back to where I was staying, cleaned up and began singing, “Take me out to the ball game.”

Then there were times when a mutual friend, sportscaster Lindsey Nelson, arranged for me to meet up with the Great Red Grange at Indian Lake Estates in Central Florida. For about a half dozen years, I visited the Galloping Ghost at his home in March and tape recorded him a few times.

Spring Training is a very enjoyable experience, but the side benefits are what makes a trip to Florida in March so emotionally uplifting.