Cspan, where history unfolds daily. In 1979, cspan was created as a Public Service by americas Television Companies and brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. This is booktv on cspan2, television for serious readers. Heres our primetime lineup. That all happens tonight on cspan2s booktv. My name is jennifer picklestyran and im a fairly new manager of the carnegie Pittsburgh Library and also the third string player youre getting tonight because the first and second were not available. Im very proud i snuck in the sports analogy. I am also very pleased to welcome you to this event tonight. This event is one of many wonderful events brought through partnership with bubba bubba arts and lectures. The library in pittsburgh arts and lectures have been present events like this one for many years for broad ranges of audiences. We are always pleased for a nice positive response to these events and we invite you to bring a friend or two to help us promote and keep them going. We want to remind you the library is open until 8 00 tonight so dont forget your library card after the event this evening. I would like to recognize classic lines books and more, selling the book this evening, playing through the whistle book, and want to make you aware they will be signing the book immediately after the event this evening. As i mentioned earlier i am new to working at the main library but one of my first experiences, hearing about miss Stephanie Flom. All the staff at the library speaks highly of her. We have a longstanding wonderful relationship with her being executive director of pittsburgh collectors. I never met her until this evening, and i give you the great pleasure to allow me to introduce Stephanie Flom who will tell you about the remainder of the evening. [applause] thank you. Super super nice, you guys are going to love him. Playing playing through the whistle steel, football, and an american town, compassionate, truly compassionate exploration of steel, football and an american town, the fourth book for sl, his name is s. L. Price, Senior Editor of Sports Illustrated, along with 3 dozen cover stories for Sports Illustrated he has also written for vanity fair, the new york times, Time Magazine and oxford american. Assignments across the us so we are happy to have him spending time in western pennsylvania and canada as well as colombia, argentina, libya, cuba where he wrote the book about cuba and sports, jamaica, kenya, france, pakistan, brazil, australia, greece, korea and china. He has covered 10 olympic games, two world cups and countless grand slam tennis championships. George w. Bush and bill clinton, and barack obama, one on one in iowa ymca. And the reviews have been mad, raving, glowing. Whenever price writes about sports he hit it over the fence. Npr sports commentator, i paid to read a grocery list of scott price. At usa today, price is one of the finest writers on sports anywhere. Earlier today we went to a sports history class at pitt, and he stumbled upon aliquippa, a microcosm, quote, aliquippa didnt just produce great Football Players, aliquippa is where america happened. Give a warm welcome to s. L. Price. [applause] that was quite the welcome. I have never heard me describes, certainly not in my own home, that way. It is funny because it is described as a lecture. You are here for a historic events, i have never given anything known as a lecture before except to my kids and they never listened, i am paying for their food and rent, if you dont listen i certainly will understand. This is a subject that is incredibly and oddly important to me. Aliquippa is a special place. If anyone is from that area, aliquippa specifically, can understand what i am talking about. Last friday, bill clinton became the fourth us president to visit aliquippa by my count. I believe obama did spend some time in hopewell getting some ice cream during the campaign but in the bounds of aliquippa i believe only four president ande president s are testament to this, theres something incredibly is special about aliquippa. I first went up there in the fall of 2010. An editor at Sports Illustrated named mark who i believe his grandfather worked with the union in aliquippa and he said see if you are interested. They are producing incredible Football Players to win championships and the town is clearly dealing with the forces of the mills shutting down and obviously 25 years previously, sorry 15 years previously, go up and see what you think it so i went up and i wrote was essentially the longest piece i have ever written for Sports Illustrated. It was nearly 10,000 words and it was a specific story about how aliquippa is produced great Football Players. Mike ditka, tony dorsett to some extent Darrelle Revis ti lung, sean gilbert and a slew of division i players and just incredible and athletes in general. So i wrote a story a so i wrotebo a story about that and there was limited story in the sense it was about football and it was about football in the face of great difficulty and great pain and triumph amid that pain. It was a graphic story and some people didnt take it because it went into the pain too much but people i wrote about thanked me and wanted their story told. They wanted you to understand what it took to make it out of triumph in aliquippa. Anybody who comes from there, you hear it and aliquippa thing and you wouldnt understand. Anybody who grew up in aliquippa and left it never really leave it behind. You really cant get away from it. It had hooks in the, there is something about this place, Something Special going on that i dont understand. Nottb just football but Henry Mancini winning four Academy Awards and 1616 grammy awards, Henry Mancini growing up next to joeoe terry whose son, joe, wen on to win four Academy Awards for lord of the rings and avatar. James frank, the first black president of the ncaa, Jesse Steinfeld grew up down the street from joe and henry ends became Surgeon General under Richard Nixon and was fired for his opposition to the tobacco industry. It was forgive me for this. Could it be i am falling in love anybody know that song . Doctor steel, thank you for coming. I cant tell you what an honor it is to have doctor melvin steel here because in many ways doctor steels experience told me how special aliquippa was. He was incredibly honest to me when we spoke about his experience. How did i do on that song . Bad . Not great. What i thought was amazing, in doing my research i am finding allll these other people who ha comend from aliquippa and findi out, if you are excited about the world series last night i spoke to francona, terry with his son managing the indians last night and terry is from new brighton and tito has lived in new brighton for a long time but when i called, everybody says i am from new brighton but i am not. Im from aliquippa. Make sure you say that. There ishe a pride of place tha continues. And that idea of greatness rising out of tragedy, out of pain, is something obviously appealing to me. As a writer it is gold. It happened on the football field but doctor steel, to me that story stuck with me because doctor steel was teaching in the aliquippa School System at a timeea of great racial tumult a dont know if you told me this but i stumbled upon a story where doctor steel wrote a letter to the paper because he was accused wrongly of starting race to malt and fighting in aliquippa, for takingin some students to a movie called halls of anger. He wasnt the person responsible butle he defended himself and meanwhile at a certain time when tension was tight, doctor steel and his brother who worked in j and ellen studied music, philadelphia under the greats, at a time of tension right this beautiful song could it be i am falling in love about his wife. And happy anniversary. Congratulations. You should be up here. That to me was something about aliquippa. A former basketball player, his family story from down south is a tough one, his mother saw some tough things, he was emblematic of many blacks who had come the great migration from thee 20s ad 30s. Even affects toughest time, aliquippa was special things. And and it is not just about athletes. Pennsylvania have labor troubles, problems with management. Aliquippa is representative in the extreme, the forces that were cut loose, in the mid80s when it an entire crowd of tough, was suddenly cut out of having the american dream, we are dealing in this campaign with those very forces that were never properly addressed. There were not labormanagement tensions, and little siberia, and part of that was your family comes over from ukraine, poland and want to gather with the family and the community recognize. Jane enforced that, was very helpfulec and keeping people divided, j and l, and got the worst jobs. And janelle takes it a step further, very conspicuously to allow them to jail, but the black worker go free and incitinggh more resentment, mor resentment there is management tension everywhere but j and l and his police force kidnapped a man for passing out union cards and had him send to an insane asylum. E and broke the psychic stranglehold to the town. The wagner act which is the foundation stone. And a great representation of blacks in aliquippa. And the crack epidemic hit problem , drugs were a all over america and the epidemic hit aliquippa like a typhoon and you had situations where tony dorseys nephew was running the biggest crack ring in town and the crack ring was broken finally by mike warfield, former aliquippa quarterback attached to dea and state policeman. Things happen in aliquippa in broad w strokes. For whatever reason, i have 2 say that for me the mystery to me. What happened in aliquippa, i wont be able to fully explain why aliquippa produces so many great Football Players more than the mnorm, why so many dramati forces, cultural forces that worked their way in a negative sense through the rest of the culture blossoming in an extreme way in aliquippa, walker is the first africanamerican mayor in aliquippa history. Not just a community togetherness, and the central narrative thread that is unavoidable when you talk about aliquippa, doesnt belong in the pit and the football field, walkers sister was killed by an aliquippa Football Player and motivated to move for office and take office. It has been an extraordinary combination of elements to make aliquippa what it is. I was challenged, i get letters once in a while or notes from other towns in western pennsylvania, aliquippa is good, you should write about i am not denying any of that. Two things at work ii decided focus on. One if there were so many names, makes life easy for a writer. There were a lotes of names peoe dont know. I include a lot of names. Every in a while, tony dorsett and understand the story, you have seen them on tv and recognize them. That is helpful. Extremes, really made me believe, a place that produced football, great football but where america happened over and over again and continues to do so. Like i said it was a place it was a place that had great racial trouble in the early 70s, and there was a lack of black cheerleaders in the school for football and basketball. It really hit a head and was not unique in the county or the nation at large but got pretty nasty. A couple things,an i cant tell you how much you are dealing with a writer here, not very good at speaking, not my training. Just going to read a little bit about ad great man named gino parolee. I am going to read this. Will all come fullcircle. This guy is making weird sense. Actually, hold on. I am not going to do that. I will go to make didnt go. To have a famous name to deal with a little bit. Everybody knows mike ditka. He was little mike, his dad was big mike at the time but he had this quirk. Respected, he felt better in a world of rules yet he was constantly breaking the rules seeking out mischief, taking out beatings in return, he went to saint titus element physical, served as an alter boy but also the time he stole a Christmas Ornament from the tree of a nearby library. He been to buddy over the i. Blood, six stitches, the nuns found out, it came out. Tomatoes thrown at houses, garbage cans turned over, big mike always found out. Nearly burned the wood down. My dad spoke lucky, and a couple of my eddies in a cement culdesac, would all over, we were sitting there. Smoked lucky strikes when 7 years old and didier so there goes the woods and there go the woods are not the weeds. The wind is blowing, finally did get it out, firemen came. We were sitting there having dinner, looks up and says what happened to the woods . I dont know. That was funny. My mother said ask your son. Charlotte ditka is a great character. I got my ass whipped. That was the worst one i ever got. Ditka paused. I did smoke cigars. The safest place for such a soul, leaving a bit of mayhem into the comfort of defined parameters was a perfect fit. Anything that a smacks of competition little mike played with aur bottomless theory. Officials announced they stole a ball autographed from the first kid who hit a homerun, ditka smacked one in his firstst game. Brother ashton was pitching after a few walks, made them switch positions. When the shortstop made an error, another time playing legion ball, ashton who would go on to a fine College Baseball career at buck dropped the gamewinning flyball in centerfield, and jump the centerfield fence and thrashed him before it got home. It was bad, didnt feel like i was doing anything wrong. I know others didnt feel the way i felt that i had tunnel vision. Dont know where it came from but growing up it started with marbles, playing tag, touch football, hated to use, i expected to win, didnt expect to lose, that is why losing is so hard that was a new attitude for a town that by the time he entered high school and 53 had just had its first taste of football glory, baseball brought the first win l crown and basketball teams confuse the wpi l titles. The pulverizing style, gridiron call for toughness resonated with the family like no clean family ever could and winning made it irresistible, football was preeminence, making the High School Team becameme a badge of honor. That was part of what you were and what you were meant to be. Why would a guy my size, john is about this big, why would a guy my size be a starting guarded division iii football. And would be embarrassed to come home. I would not come home until my father knew i didnt make first team. It took until my senior year in high school, that is what had to be done. Many of me were out there. You didnt embarrass your family, uncle, friends or neighbors, didnt care if you got your ass kicked, but gave the kid all he had, that is what it took. You still hear that all the time. Tough player, that is aliquippa. That is the difference in some of these other schools and a big difference. I feel like ditka did set the tone. He was invented in many ways by ashland. That sort of manic, larger than life theory became an aliquippa hallmark for star players. You never met a boring star player. They are fascinating to talk to, just a little bit crazy. I want to read one other thing about hopewell. In 1953, future aliquippa postmaster, future aliquippa historian, devoted partisan of health of high sports moved to hopewell. That is what you did an aliquippa given the chance. Had worked as a pipe fitter for eight, now making it up to the evermorere cramped neighborhoodn west aliquippa. Wasnt like his dads time anymore, come to ellis island, live so close you could feel it daily heat like a beast breathing until the day they cart me away in a box. Box. Raccoon and a man could carve out space there and quiet alast. Hadnt they had enough excitement. Moving was the most tangible reward for the most promise people had fought more in world war 24 2 and better life. You could count and raised kids in peace. At least nine other veterans moved to geno street was a threebedroom bungalo and m living room, kitchen, maybe a basement. Many children would graduate high school the same year. All the men drove to know comine in from hopewell or said or even the stars moon township. Vince, the father of future kentucky basketball John Calipari commuted into aliquippa as a young man, sweating all five pants every eight hours. He lasted a year. Driving later on route 51 with his son he would point to the blazing fires skimming along the horizon. See the red line . I used to work right beside that thing. If i stayed i went and died. For those who did stay the compensation carved up by the union, an average wage of 24 hours a day, pensions 1096 enables steelworkers to put some distance between work and home. Take a step of the social ladder. Aliquippa was a small sample. 18 patients with five biggestbit cities began a 30 is like a net population. U. S. Suburbs grew by 60 million people. Nobody blames them. It was just natural. You do whats best for you and your family. Still a place to lay your head in. The men went to work and whistle blew and the sand rock festival and political italian and the bishop waving, home village to so many italian, they went to visit mom and pop and the unattached or not would drive in for the weekly dance on the second floor of the italy hall, somebody spub records and they squeaked from all that leather and sweat. I just want to talk about hopewell one more time. In 1961 hopewell had gotten big enough from the people leaving aliquippa. Hopewell high, very close by, 3 miles or so from the pit as its now called and so in 1964 which was the year of carl ashman in aliquippa history, aliquippa played hopewell. They played for something called the steel bold trough trophy and he went on pitching, went onto pitch many teams in the major leagues and he was only known as im trying to get and so what happened was that hopewell late aliquippa beat hopewell that night. This is how he put it. Before that, good and bad, one pure moment by which to measure, helped take down the toughest guy around. Everybody was really surprised that we won, everybody. Even the guys on our team w