THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING (PART II)

 

“… Always leave them wanting more.”

Mrs. Rosenzweig’s counsel to her oldest son’s flirtation with elementary school on-stage performances came to mind yet again only this week.

The thought did resonate that my Mother’s admonition might just as easily apply to the writing of these notes. Still, the temptation to go on with recollections precipitated by the 100^th anniversary of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, remained palpable.

I could, as many of you have by now probably guessed, go on… and on… and on.

I won’t.

Honest.

But then, there were so many favorable reactions to my last warm island notes, especially those that emanated from folks who were actually there… in that Coliseum audience… all those years ago. One-time fellow classmates responded with fond remembrances of that “opening” night’s events. Very special.

My Mother aside, perhaps I could be forgiven one more memory.

I had previously recalled my “opening night” as Yell King of the University of Southern California. Let me now jump to that season’s end. My last hurrah.

It was the eve of the SC-UCLA game… our final game of both the season and of my senior year. I was attending a party hosted by the University President for some of the school’s important alumni. Scott Fitz-Randolph, the student body president, and I were the only two undergraduates invited. At the party, one of those alumni engaged me about the “show” I put on at every game. He was complimentary, and I was flattered to be asked how I came up with material every week for what amounted to a three-hour show each Saturday. He wanted to know if I worked from some sort of script.

“There is no script,” I said. “It’s all ad-lib; it’s based on whatever is happening on the field and in the stadium.”

He didn’t believe me.

I told him about my summer, how I singularly focused on being prepared for that first game and that first game only, sharing my theory of the importance of capturing the crowd on opening night.

"I can do anything now," I said, "they are on my side."

Then, taking a leaf from the Loretta Young movie, The Farmer's Daughter, I added, "I could say 'fish for sale' and they would cheer."

He shook his head in disbelief. We made a wager: ten dollars, a not insignificant sum in those days, particularly to a 20-year-old kid still on a hundred dollar a month allowance from home.

The next day was the big game. The last of the season and against our crosstown rival, the Bruins of UCLA. Throughout the season, my co-cheerleaders and I had always made some kind of an entrance… enhanced by everything from a vintage convertible touring car to a U.S. military tank. I must have wanted to prove I needed no such leverage on this day, as I simply strolled out of the Coliseum tunnel.

No light effects, no hidden band, no special cars, no military tanks; no show- business pyrotechnics whatsoever. Just a leisurely walk of perhaps 200 feet to stand before six thousand members of the rooting section of my alma mater.

I walked that distance with my hands in my pockets. A stroll is all it was. Now I stood before them; space, and the microphone on its stanchion, were the only things between us. I stood there, surveying the crowd, milking the moment. Finally:

"Are you people excited?"

My voice rebounded over the crowd in the manner of an orator at some political convention of the long ago.

"Yesssssssss," came the resounding response from the rooting section. The sound  washed over me, returning nanoseconds later from across the field as an echo.

Then, as I would throughout, and channeling Williams Jennings Bryan as best I could:

"Are you prepared to cheer?"

"Yesssssssss." And again, the echo from across the field.

I paused for only a moment… maybe two:

"Do you recognize me as your leader?"

Once again, the near-crazed multitude answered:

"Yesssssssss!"

I looked up and stared at the crowd, as if to challenge their devotion, individually and as a group. Finally, nodding, giving them the benefit of a definite “perhaps”:

"No matter what I say, will you cheer?"

This time it was an even louder:

"YESSSSSSSSS!"

"If," I then took a most deliberate pause for effect, "I were to say, 'fish for sale,' would you cheer?"

"YESSSSSSSSS!!!”  

It was the loudest affirmation yet; the sound cascaded over me. I took in the fullness of the moment, nodded, and moved even closer to the microphone:

"All right then:

FISH FOR SALE!"

What happened next was total pandemonium. Over two minutes by the Coliseum clock of horn-blowing, noise makers, confetti tossing, and cheering.

The one-time doubting alum came down to the field, cash in hand. Now, ten dollars richer, I watched my Trojans tie the favored Bruins.

65 years later it is now yet another treasured memory to celebrate, along with the realization that had I… in 1958… invested my ten-dollar winnings with Warren Buffet’s then fledgling company, the extraordinary value of that stock today would still not match the grand memories of my glorious times at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

Okay, Mom. That’s it. I promise.

 

Barney Rosenzweig