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SPORTS
Many years later, Salvatore's advice lingers
From left Lowell Cade, Tom Miller, Ernie Salvatore, and Don Hatfield meet at Jim’s Steak and Spaghetti House in April.
Purchase this photoMy name is Lowell Cade and I am an Ernie Salvatore protege.
I always said I had a "fun job." I got paid for going to the games and writing about hunting and fishing. There was bigger money out there to be made, but I have to wonder if it would have been half as much fun.
Recently, Marshall University honored my former boss, Ernie -- the "Big E" -- by naming the Joan C. Edwards Stadium "media center" for a Connecticut Yankee who began covering the Thundering Herd, first as the sports editor of The Parthenon, as far back as 1941.
"The Herald-Dispatch and Ernie Salvatore welcome you to the Ernie Salvatore Press Box." It's right there on the wall. If you are a local, area or visiting newsman you cannot miss it when you step off the stadium elevator.
I'm proud to say I know him. I'm also proud to say he knows me.
I had known who Ernie Salvatore was long before I met him for the first time. Living out in Wayne County all my life, my family subscribed to The Herald-Dispatch. And this was back when Ern was sports editor of "that other" Huntington newspaper, The Advertiser. But I had relatives who lived in areas of Cabell County where The Advertiser was delivered daily. And, any time I was in the city, I could stop by Nick's News on Ninth Street or the public library.
In 1955, the West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission broke tradition and brought the state high school basketball tournament to Huntington's Memorial Field House. The event had been a permanent fixture in Morgantown at Mountaineer Fieldhouse for -- well, forever, it seemed. But the field house was new, so the city fathers sold the SSAC on the idea for bringing the tournament south on an alternating basis.
I was a sophomore journalism student, and Parthenon sports reporter, in 1957 when the tournament made its second Huntington visit, but more importantly, I got a chance to meet and talk with Mr. Salvatore. I found out The Advertiser was going to need a part-time reporter, and got a chance to join forces with Ernie and Don Hatfield.
What a shot! I really was not ready, but it came anyway. There were classes at Marshall (then Marshall College), and classes in the newsroom.
One of the classes was entitled: "When You Pick Up the Typewriter, Kid, You Hang Up the Cleats".
What Ernie made perfectly clear was: don't come limping into my newsroom and expect to be relieved of an assignment just because you used poor judgment and (1) got whacked in a pickup football game in Ritter Park, or (2) sprained an ankle sliding into second base in an intramural softball game, or (3) got pounded into the wall in the Old Gym on campus in an intramural basketball game.
Another class was entitled: "Don't Take Anything for Granted."
In short, when Ernie made a game assignment he expected a certain rookie reporter to be at OnIzed Field near West Fifth St. to cover a Huntington East-Huntington High baseball game.
"Don't tell me it poured the rain up on Hal Greer Boulevard at 5 o'clock and you just thought the game was rained out!"
I don't remember if those were his exact words. It's been 50 years. But that's probably pretty close.
The background goes something like this. Yes, I was assigned to cover the game. O.C. "Doug" Greenlee's HHS Pony Express baseball program was one of the best in the state at that time, and Huntington East had just sent three-sport standout Johnny Frye to Duke University on a basketball scholarship.
Anyway, I was living near the Marshall campus. About 30 minutes before time to leave home to attend the game, the rain started. It came down in buckets. My friends assured me, "No game today!"
Wrong. Twenty-one blocks west, it hardly rained enough to dampen the infield. Fortunately for me, I was in the newsroom early because afternoon paper editors and reporters are up at 5:30 a.m. and at their desks by six. And, fortunately for me I had Coach Greenlee's home telephone number. I protected my "six" with some fresh quotes, or that might have been my last day.
Class No. 3 was called: "Be a Cold Fish."
This was undoubtedly the most difficult to master. What it comes down to is simple. A reporter represents a newspaper. He or she may have graduated from Marshall University or West Virginia University, or Huntington High or Vinson High or Wayne High. But when you are assigned to cover a story, whether straight news or sports, old allegiances are put aside. There's no cheering in the press box. You heart may be racing a little -- sometimes quite a bit -- like the day at Fairfield Stadium when Terry Gardner caught a walkoff touchdown pass from Reggie Oliver and The Young Thundering Herd upset Xavier, 15-13. That was Sept. 25, 1971!
Ernie taught me and half of Huntington how to use a dictionary. His readers sought definitions. The Old Guy has a wide vocabulary and loved to use it. I was more concerned with spellings.
I never did learn it all. I worked for The Advertiser and The Herald-Dispatch for 40 years ... and I just scratched the surface. But for what I did grasp, Thanks Ernie ... and Don Hatfield, too.
Tom Miller made it a foursome in about a year later, and what an addition he was.
Miller, with help from Don Hatfield and a little from me, has put together a Tribute to Ernie. It comes off Friday night, Sept. 12, at 6 p.m. at the Marshall Student Center. I hope you will be there. It should be a bash!
