The ep01 Beginning at the Beginning

This is Jimmy Powers, and I've got a most interesting story for you today. This is Jimmy Powers. You know, I like to think I've been around the sports world a long time, 30 years worth,

but I'm just a cub scout compared to Grantland Rice. He served 53 years, over a half century, and was loved by more people perhaps than any person, including any or all of the presidents. Make no mistake, Granny not only covered history, he wrote it.

Naturally, the heritage of the era fell on the chosen few, the men who could put in words all the drama, excitement, and thrills of what they saw, and pounded out over the jammed wires of the various press services.

So as ever, out of necessity, were born the great sports writers of America, Damon Runyon, Ring Lardner, Paul Gallico, and Grantlyn Rice. Gallico has since turned his talents to fiction, Lardner and Runyon are gone, and so is Grantlyn rice. Now it's hard to say if we will see the likes of Granny Rice again. Today with radio and

TV, most sports fans here or see the big fights, the World Series, the Rose Bowl, the Kentucky Derby, and other top flight events. The need for an eyewitness is gone and most sports writers today just give the facts. Yes, Granny's book may well rest on how Rice saw life through those great sport

figures. For he coined a philosophy a way of life when he wrote, golf causes more self-torture than any game short of Russian roulette. The quicker the average weekend golfer can forget the shop he has dubbed, or knocked off line and concentrate on the next shot, the sooner he begins to improve and enjoy golf.