What happens
Jimmy Powers introduces the life of sportswriter Grantland Rice, who covered American sports for over fifty years. Powers recounts the sports writers of his era and Rice's philosophy about golf and living. He then tells the story in first person as Rice, beginning with his birth in Murfreesboro, Tennessee in 1880 and his family background. Rice describes his years at Vanderbilt University, where he played football and baseball, and his first jobs in newspapers in Nashville and Atlanta. He recalls marrying Catherine Hollis and the birth of their daughter Florence. Finally he receives an offer from the New York Evening Mail and makes the move to New York, leaving his family behind until they can follow him.
Murfreesboro, Tennessee, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Atlanta, Cleveland and New York City, from the late 1800s to about 1910
Characters: Jimmy Powers, Grantland Rice, Major Henry Grantland, Catherine Hollis, Martin, Henry L. Stoddard
Listen for: Rice's account of his first newspaper jobs and his move to New York to join the Evening Mail
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.