The second of my great sports moments also came in a football game. Our regular quarterback got banged up a little and the coach took him out for a few plays. I was the substitute quarterback and not a very good one. The first play I called was a run-around end with me carrying the ball. As I made my turn to go around the end, I saw four huge guys from the other team waiting to annihilate me. So I kept running towards the sideline and must have also run backwards because in the next day’s newspaper was the following quote describing this play: “Substitute quarterback Mechem was tackled for a ten-yard loss while he was fading to pass.” I really didn’t realize how far and wide (and back!) I must have retreated that it looked like I was “fading” to pass. Thank God our regular quarterback re-entered the game soon.
The final story occurred in a basketball game. We had a pretty good team in my senior year, and we advanced to post-season play where we were scheduled to play one of the top teams in the state. The game was played on the Ohio University basketball court, a large facility quite unlike the one on which we played our home games in Nelsonville. We had a very small gym that actually doubled as the stage for the high school auditorium. Just imagine—the back part of the foul circle was only a few feet from the centerline! I was very nervous as the game began because we had never played a team this good. We kept up for a while but then began to fall back. Our coach told us in a timeout that anytime our center or forwards got a rebound, I was to “fast break” towards our basket, and they were to throw the ball to me. We had done this scores of times, and the timing for it was pretty well burnt into my brain. Well, the moment came, our center took the ball off the backboard, I broke for the basket, and he threw the ball to me. I caught the ball, took the two or three steps that I was used to taking in the Nelsonville gym, and then went up for what I thought would be an easy layup. There was only one problem. The court was dramatically longer than the one I was used to so that when I went up in the air for the easy layup I was about thirty feet from the basket. Obviously, a layup was not in the cards, but I was already in the air, and as I recall I simply threw the ball at the basket. It was really all I could do. I completely missed the basket, and I came down thoroughly embarrassed. One of my more humbling moments, especially because it was in front of a large crowd.
I could write yet another book (probably more than one) about the rest of my high school years. But, again, this is not my autobiography. Suffice it to say, my high school years were happy. At that time, the world (well, at least the United States) was a very happy place. The war was over, the depression had been wiped out in the tsunami of the war’s industrial might, reconstruction of much of the world had begun, and “terrorism” was a word and a practice that did not exist yet.
BEFORE MOVING ON to the next chapter in my life, let me mention two pieces of my early life that had significant impact many years later.
When I was a little boy growing up in Nelsonville, one of my most eagerly anticipated events was the yearly visit of Gooding’s Traveling Carnival. This was a carnival of the 1930–1940s era complete with rides (none of which would have passed OSHA muster), games (very few of which one could ever win), sideshows, and food of every kind. Because the carnival used land directly behind my dad’s shoe store and he only charged a small amount of rent, Dad always got a lot of free tickets, which he passed on to me. I went every night with my pals and loved it.
This deep-seated love of the carnival reasserted itself in a most unexpected way many years later. While I was CEO of Taft Broadcasting Company, one of our areas of expansion was the themed-amusement park business. We moved in that direction after acquiring the Hanna-Barbera Productions company in 1966. In thinking about ways to enhance the Hanna-Barbera image, it wasn’t much of a stretch to see what Disney had done in their parks to merchandise the popularity of their cartoon characters. Therefore, we decided to build a large theme park just north of Cincinnati, named Kings Island. As an aside, I might note that the park was a success from the beginning and is an even greater success today—some forty years after it was opened.
While I firmly believed in the soundness of the business venture, I have to admit that I was overjoyed at my opportunity to reassert my “carney love.” Marilyn, the kids, and I visited the construction site several times every week for two years and literally watched it emerge from the ground. As the park was nearing completion and the thrill rides were being tested, I made a point to ride on all of them as soon as the builders of the rides would let me. It is probably a bit of a stretch to say that I was a test pilot, but I certainly tried out the rides long before they were open to the public.
Not long after the park opened, the Wall Street Journal did a front-page story about the park and made numerous references to my enthusiasm for the project. It was a very favorable article, but there was one phrase that made me the butt of many jokes. The author, knowing of my love for the thrill rides, described me as a “roller-coaster nut.” I suppose one could wish for a more distinguished description when appearing on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, but I loved it, and I certainly couldn’t argue with its accuracy.
So, I guess the moral of the story is “once a carney boy, always a carney boy.”
SINCE WE WERE growing up in the depression, my brother, sister, and I were all expected to have a job when we were not in school. When I was old enough to have a “real” job, my dad talked to the County Engineer and got me a summer job with the County Highway Department. Athens County, where Nelsonville is located, was a rural county with many dirt roads that the county was obligated to maintain. The work crew was a group of fellows of all ages and backgrounds. Some of them had worked for the Highway Department for many years; others were guys who were probably just trying to make a living while looking for a better job.
This was hot, tiring work, but at my age, it took a lot to wear me out. I dug ditches, repaired guardrails, cut brush, cleaned culverts, and did whatever else I was told to do. The older guys were really nice to me, and I honestly enjoyed the work. However, as I think back, I probably enjoyed it largely because I knew it would end in late August, and I would go back to school! By the way, the pay was extravagant—65 cents an hour! But to me at that age and time, it was a fortune.
I learned two very important lessons during the four summers that I was with the “Highway Boys.” First, as I just mentioned, my work was temporary, and I was young and looking to the future. But most of the guys I worked with were in a very different category. This was their life. This is how they supported themselves and their families. For most of them this was their future. It gave me a new and different perspective on the lives and dreams of what, I suspect, was the vast majority of people at that time.
The other lesson I learned came from an old guy who was very friendly to me from the very beginning. His name was Emmett, and he had been part of the highway gang for many years. He was an intelligent, pleasant man and very popular with all of us. He and I were working together one day to dig a trench for some pipe. He watched me stabbing furiously at the ground with my shovel and stopped me to give me some advice. He showed me how to shovel slowly and carefully and taught me all the tricks of the trade. He was obviously proud of the fact that he could do something well and that he could pass this knowledge on to someone else. This may seem a trivial incident, but it had a real effect on me both then and now. No matter how menial a task may seem, it can be done well or it can be done badly; it can be done with pride or with resentment; it can be done with total effort or with disdain. I think that lesson applies—or should apply—to any task that anyone ever undertakes. It’s funny how and where you learn important lessons!
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