>> good evening everyone. my name is jennifer ferran and i'm a fairly new manager here at the carnegie library of pittsburgh's main library. i'm also the third string player you are getting tonight is the first and second were not available and i'm very proud that i stuck in that sports

analogy. i'm also very pleased to welcome you to this event tonight to the main local event. this event is one of many wonderful events brought to you through our partnership with pittsburgh arts and lectures to the library arts and lectures have been presenting events like this one for many years for broad ranges of audiences. we are always pleased for a very nice positive response to these events and we would invite you to next time bring a friend or two, help us promote these and keep them going. also i want to remind you that the library is open until 8:00 p.m. tonight so you can head over and get your library card after this event. i would like to recognize classic lines books and more. they will be selling books this evening, the "playing through the whistle" book and i want to make you aware that s.l. price will be sending 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 was hearing about ms. stephanie from, all with the staff at the library speaks extremely highly of her. we have a long-standing relationship with her being at pittsburgh arts and library. i've never met her for this evening so i have the greatest nation i will give you the great pleasure if you'll allow me to introduce her and she will tell you about the remainder of the evening. [applause] >> thank you, jen. we have a great audience for s.l. price. "playing through the whistle" is compassionate, truly compassionate, exploration of steel, football and american

town is the fourth book for s.l. price senior writer for "sports illustrated". along with more than three dozen cover stories for "sports illustrated" he has also written for "vanity fair," "new york times," "time" magazine and the african-american. assignments have propelled them across the u.s. that we are happy to have them spending so much time western pennsylvania and canada as well as columbia argentina cuba where he wrote a book about cuba, sports jamaica kenya france brazil australia greece japan korea and china. he has covered 10 olympic games two world cups and countless grand slam tennis championships. he is interviewed presidents george w. bush and bill clinton and played barack obama one-on-one at an iowa ymca. the reviews for this book have

been raving and going through "the new york times" whatever price writes about sports he hits it over the fence and i got to take into the field wall today. sports commentator for npr i paid to read a grocery list of skypers stock price right "usa today," price is one of the finest writers on sports anywhere. earlier today we went over to a sports history class of his and he shared that he stumbled upon aliquippa and in it he found a microcosm. quote aliquippa didn't just produce great football players. aliquippa is where america happened. please give a warm welcome to s.l. price. [applause] >> wow.

that was quite the welcome. i don't think i've ever heard me describe certainly in my own home that way. you know what's funny because this is i think being described as a lecture and you were here for a historic event because i've never really given anything known as a lecture before except to my kids and they have never listened even though i'm paying for their food and their rent and everything else. so if you don't listen i certainly will understand it. first of all thank you all for coming. this is a subject that is incredibly and oddly important to me. i think aliquippa is a special place and i think if anybody is from that area or from aliquippa specifically they would understand what i'm talking about. black friday bill clinton became

the fourth u.s. president to visit aliquippa by my account. i believe barack obama did spend some time getting some ice cream during the campaign but in the bounds of aliquippa i believe there are only four presidents who visited. first was jfk in 1962. two days later he got the news that the russians had put missiles into cuba and the entire cuban missile crisis began. i'm not saying there's any coincidence there. jimmy carter came and gave a town hall in george bush visited, george w.. i think that's significant obviously that bill clinton visited and not get to that in a second but on the same day aliquippa played hopewell high for the first time since 1997

and aliquippa is noteworthy to me. aliquippa relationship with hopewell was interesting. people know the tony dorsett obviously is from, well he is from the hopewell school district in play for hopewell. they love to claim him as their on and in some ways they should because he grew up more a hopewell kid than a aliquippa kid. anyway two things happening were significant to me and i will start with -- and what they mean by that is this is a town that 9500 people at this point and getting smaller. at its peak it was only 27, 28,000 maybe 30 thousand people but it was a town that was not by any means a large city and get there or something and the

presidents are testament to this, there's 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 about that and how they were still -- i was a limited story in the sense that it was about football. it was about football in the face of great difficulty in great pain and triumph amid that pain. it was a pretty graphic story and some people didn't like it because it may be women to the paying too much for the people that wrote about thanks me and not me but they wanted their story told. they wanted me to understand

what it took to make it out and triumph out of aliquippa. so i think anybody who comes from their because you often hear it say's aliquippa thing and you would understand. what i mean by that is anybody who grew up in aliquippa and left it never really leaves it behind. you really can't get away from it. it had its hooks in me and i didn't even grow up there. there was something about this place that i thought, there's something special going on here that i don't quite understand. it's not just football. it's henry mancini winning for academy awards in 1916, grammy awards. henry mancini growing up next to joe with terry whose son joe went on to win for academy awards for her "lord of the

rings" and avatar. it was james frank the first black president of the ncaa and jessie stein told his corrupt down the street from -- and jesse steinfeld became surgeon general and he was fired for his opposition to the tobacco industry. it was, forgive me for this, could it be i'm falling in love? ♪ does anybody know that song? dr. steals, thank you for coming. and i can't tell you what an honor does for me to have got your steals here because in many ways dr. steals experience told me house daschle aliquippa was

because first of all he was incredibly honest to me when i spoke about his experience there how did i do in that song? not bad right? not rate. it wasn't the spinners but -- so that what i thought was amazing was in doing my research , so i'm finding out all these other people who have come from aliquippa and then i'm finding out if you are excited about the world series last night i spoke to tito francona and that's that's terry sun managing the indians last night and terry is from new brighton. tito's with the new brighton for longtime but when i called and he said everyone says i'm from new brighton but i'm not. there is this pride of place that continues and that idea of greatness rising out of tragedy,

out of pain is something that is obviously appealing to any human being but as a writer it's cool. happened on the football field but also dr. steals to me that story stuck with me because dr. steals was teaching in the aliquippa school system at the time of great racial tumult. i don't know if you told me this but i stumbled upon the story were dr. steals wrote a letter for the paper because he was accused wrongly of starting some raced tumult and fighting in aliquippa for taking some students to a movie called also the anger. he wasn't the person responsible but he defended himself there. meanwhile a certain time when attention was at its height dr. steals and his brother who

worked in janelle and studied music under great spare in philadelphia sat down and add a real-time attention would write this beautiful song. could it be i'm falling in love, which is about well she is still his wife. happy anniversary. congratulations. you should be a peer. [applause] but that to me was something about aliquippa. a former basketball player and you know his family story coming from down south is a tough one. ..

produced great athletes and i know that many towns had labor troubles and problems with management and certainly problems after the mill shut down but to me it's the representative of the extreme of what has hit western pennsylvania and i would argue the force that is were cut loose in western pennsylvania in the mid-80's when an entire vital working class was cut out of having the foot hole in the american dream and we are dealing with the oh forces still

that were never really properly addressed, and so i think this town and what has happened to it is important. so when i say representative in the extreme, i mean, there were labor management tensions elsewhere but had a police state run-in in little siberia and a part of them was your family comes over. let's say you come from ukraine and poland and you want to gather in the community because they forced that because that forced people to be divided a. as a tactic of division obviously the african americans who came up from the south got the worst jobs and the lower

salaries and less chance of advancement. they would pay or intimidate black workers to start fights with whites and then allow to go to jail and let the black worker go free and unsighting more resentiment and more resentiment . famously or infamously, harry and his police force there kidnapped a guy for passing out union cards and had him sent to an insane asylum.

denounced jane ellen. and the wagner act, the foundation stone of legal foundation of unionism in america and certified before the supreme court, the test case involved including one of the men, one was a black men, so even then, there was a great representation by blacks. and then the crack epidemic, drugs had been a problem all over america and it hit like a typhoon and you had situations where, for example, tony's nephew was running the biggest crack house in town.

his -- the crack was broken finally by a former quarterback who was attach today dea and state policemen and it is -- things happen in big and broad extreme strokes for whatever reason and i have to say that remains a mystery to me. at the very least we wanted to say how and what happened but i don't know if i'll be able to fully explain why it produces so many great football players even more than the norm in western pennsylvania, why so many dramatic things that forced -- cultural forces that have worked their way in a negative sense through the rest of the culture blossom, today the mayor walker, he's the first african-american mayor in history and again

football is the -- is the -- not just a place of community togetherness and expression, but he just -- it's just a central narrative thread that's unavoidable and it did you want just belong at the pit or in the football field, walker's sister deidre was killed by football player and because of that he was motivated to finally run for office and take office. it's been an extraordinary combination of elements that have made aliquippa.

yeah, aliquippa is good, we are just as good. and i'm not denying any of that. but i did -- but there are two things that work when i decided to focus on aliquippa. there were so many names. there are a lot of names that people don't know and i include a lot of names and every once in a while it's relieving to the reader and to understand their story because they've seen them on tv and they recognize. that was helpful. there was something about the up -- town. it was a place where america happened over and over again and continues to do so.

i -- like i said, it was a place of -- a place that had great racial trouble in the early 70's starting in the early 60's when there was black cheerleaders in the school for football and basketball and so on but it really hit a head and was not unique in the -- in the county or even in the nation at large but it really got pretty nasty. i want to -- but i want to take you back to a couple of things because i can't -- i can't tell you how much you're dealing with the writer here. not very good at speaking and not -- it's not my training so

i'm just going read a little bit about a great man named jenoparoli who -- i'm going to read this. it's all going to come full circle. you'll finally say this guy is making weird sense. actually, hold on. i'm not going to go to jeno paroli yet. it's good to have a famous name to deal with a little bit, so let me -- so just everybody knows mike, i don't need to make an introduction. he was a little mike and his dad was big mike at the time. but little mike had this and he knew rules, he was constantly breaking the rules anyway seeking out mischief and taking beatings in return. he went to titusville university

and he beaned a buddy over the eye. big mike found out. the belt came out. that was garbage cans, kid's glasses open, big mike always found out. nearly burned the woods down. my dad smoke lucky so i stole a pack and with a couple of my buddies, we were sitting in there and smoke strikes when you were 7 year's old and so there goes the woods and there go the woods. that goes into the weeds. the wind is blowing. firemen came. my dad is sitting there having dinner. what happened to the woods. [laughter] >> i didn't know that was funny. my mother said you will have to ask your son. that was it. boy, i got my ass whooped. that was the worst one i ever

got. i don't think i've smoked a cigarette sense. do i smoke cigars. the safest place for such a soul, wasn't meeting a bit of defined parameters is sports. it was a perfect fit. little mike played with a bottomless furry. they stole a ball autograph by pirates trainer, smacked one in his first and during a pony game after a few walks mike stalked out and made him switch positions and when the shortstop made an error he took the kid's place too. another time playing legion ball, ashton dropped a game-winning fly ball and little mike chased his brother out of the stadium, ran him down and thrashed him before they got home. i tell you, it was bad, i never felt like i was doing anything wrong. never, ever. that's changed, right?

i knew others didn't feel the way i felt but i had tunnel vision. i don't know where you get that exert tiff feeling, i don't know where it came from but growing up it started with marbles and i hate today lose at whatever it was. you know why, i expected to win. i didn't ever expect to lose, never. that's why losing was so hard. that was a new attitude for a town that by the time he entered high school in '53 he had football gloary. the teams would regularly compete for titles. ashman's style the grid iron call for fist in the face toughness resinated with no single ever go could and winning made it irresistible. making the high school team became a badge of honor. why? that was part of what you were meant to be said jonathan who played a year behind, why would

a guy my size, why would a guy my size be a starting division 3 football. i'm not that good. i would not come home until i told my father i made first team. whatever it took, senior year in high school, senior year in college. that's what had to be done and many of me out there. you didn't dare embarrass your family, your uncle, your friends or your navy base and they didn't care if you got your ass kicked, johnny got his ass kicked. that's what it took. you still hear that all of the time. the kid is tough, tough player. that's the difference and some of the other schools and it's a big difference. the reason i read that to you is because i feel like didka really did set the tone. he was inventive in many ways by ashton and that sort of manic

lagger -- larger than life theory, you've never met a boring player, boring star player and they're fascinating to talk to, interesting, larger than life, just a bit crazy. i want to read you one other thing about hope well. this is about jeno paroli. future oppose master, historian, forever devoted partisan of aliquippa move today hopewell. paroli had been married and now he's making enough to leave the and ever more cramp, come through island and you could feel daily heave until they day they carve you out in a box.

raccoon and a man could carve out space there and quiet alast. hadn't 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 three-bedroom bungalo and many children would graduate the same year. all the men drove coming in from hopewell or even as far and the father of future kentucky basketball computer -- commuted as a young man to work in the furnace, he lasted a year,

driving later on route 51 point to blazing fire. you see the red line he said, i used to work right beside that thing. for those who did stay the compensation and average wage of 24 hours a day, 196, enabled steel workers to put steel and take a social step up the ladder and a small sample of the nation's 25 biggest cities, u.s. suburbs grew. nobody blames them. it was just natural. you do what's 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 it's 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 -- i'm 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 were surprise that had we won because we thought they were tougher than that really. who didn't and, indeed, there has been no greater upset announced the following monday. it had been 25 years ashley declared since he had been so stunned by a loss. aluiquippa fans sat silent waiting for the next miracle, the times went on. their expressions would not exchange if the earth had opened up and some would have welcomed him. so that hopewell is a strange --

they have a strange relationship hopewell and aliquippa and there had been many efforts in recent years or at least flags thrown out by the aliquippa district officially or unofficially to somehow get emerger because obviously the population is getting smaller. hopewell has no interest and at least so far, so there's been -- there's a lot of resentment in aliquippa toward hopewell and even sort of their brother, it's ashame because everybody from hopewell, many of them have the aliquippa roots. so let me just tell you a little bit about tony dorset, so eventually when dr. steel was

there, hopewell became the power in aliquippa, hopewell became the power and aliquippa fell in terrible times. a lot of it was because of the racial problems in the schools were devastating. the tables have completely turned since hopewell shock win. vikings were the power. that more than anything accounts for persistence of query. hopewell folks dismissed the entertainment of this notion, of course, no previous dorsets went to aliquippa high. it would have been easy. the boundary runs through the middle, right through one home's kitchen in fact, of the mount vernon housing project in plans 11 and hoping from one school to the other is a tradition.

offensive coordinator head coach. for example, grew up in the 70's and dad wanting him to go to hopewell in eighth grade. lasted a few days in the school. a neighbor had told on him. he wasn't alone. hopewell endorsed and in high school ebb -- enrolled only a token handful. kids trooping out of their homes, would look to see a bus, tony grew up living the life in plans 11. his older brothers were part of a local gang drinking beer and hustling. tony ran with baby bugaloos. when it came to playing league

football, dorset was not able to play due to age and weight limits. in any other era, he was there for the taking, but in the spring of 1970 the schools were walking calm, safe and even so his mother was taking no chances, he kept tony home a few days when aliquippa head its peak. that day had passed. it was a terrible place to go to school. indeed, any aliquippa was looking to get out too. i almost attempted to do the same thing. it was a struggle playing for aliquippa. the chance to win a ball game every once in a while was zero to none. it is that many aliquippa talk

about era, the one that got away. all charm would come back and begin the program's revival. dorset was finishing career and 40 year's later it still stings. i never would have let him play for hopewell, he said. i had got his ass. [laughter] >> i never lost anybody to hopewell. i used to get them from hopewell. i usedi used to take their players. when i got the job at aliquippai never lost a player to hopewell again. and so this is my last did on hopewell and aliquippa. worked as assistance and kept an eye on frank, he knew that only a crisis a moment where if you

believe would be right time and the right time came in 1997 and handed him the football program too. elsewhere in america the two sport coaches, that was the point. this was a desperate act of a desperate town. aliquiipa was debt and 85% qualified for free lunches, 300 were special education pup ills requiring more teachers and funding and 65% were black. most of the visitors at stadium had to be closed because no money was available for repairs. local officials kept launching trial balloons about emerger with hopewell all unanswered. everybody in aliquippa assumed it was a matter of race and ensure that daughters would never date a black boy. they think they are better than we are are a white aliquippa

known as white chocolate. ma makes you better than me? i dated a hopewell girl in high school and today that feeling has left me a bit. i want to see the teams do well. you still have something down inside you that they thought they were better than us. then again with all the news, the only sure thing was reining in the team was the visible way to show that the town was worth fighting for. the board needed to stand firm on any of the most visible assets. so that was 1997 and that was the last time hopewell played aliquippa until the other night and won 35 in aliquippa at the

pit. and all this just goes to say or to show that for me sometimes a town, small town isn't just a small town, sometimes it's a lot more and aliquippa to me there's a lot more, there's a lot of american history there, there's vital american history there that's essentially important to us to this day and sometimes the game is just a game and sometimes it isn't. i would argue that that game hopewell and aliquippa is loaded in a way that it no where is. that's it for me. no one wants to hear me read anymore, i'm sure. happy to take questions. [applause]

>> thank you, scott. alan, you want to turn the microphone on, please, and weave got lisa rooming -- roaming with the mike. feel free to raise your hand. feel free to raise your hand and we will repeat the questions so everyone can hear it. and we have a question. >> somebody has to have a question. >> all the way up there. >> why are there no photographs? >> did anyone hear that? the question was why were there no photographs? >> to tell you the truth i think it was a financial thing and e stettic thing that i don't really know. first of all, i was going to have the pay for the photographs and gather them and to tell you the truth, i in terms of

deadlines we were running up against it and there was something on my editor -- maybe it was money. i don't know. i understand it. >> on that note, one of the students this afternoon played and wanted to ask you about the pit. can you visually get -- describe the pit because it sounds like a pretty special place. >> the pit is a -- was a wpa stadium, work progress administration and built in 1937 in the state of pennsylvania, an astonishing number were put up so quickly. i'm amazed at how slow infrastructure takes place because they throw up stuff fast. and the pit is falling apart.

it's clearly in need of great repair and it's a tough, very tough place to come into not just because aliquippa is so intimidating as a team and town now because reputation proceeds it because the visitor visitors locker room, hell hole cramp, unlit hole in the side of the stadium and sort of going back to what i was saying, yet, the stadium is wedged on the top of a high heel and it's gorgeous, the surrounding -- there's no better place to see high school football game. i would argue, i'm sure everybody would argue with me, but i'm saying in terms of -- everybody has their favorite place. it's really a gorgeous place to see a high school football game. >> great, have a question? right here.

>> well, it's not really a question, but when you were talking about j&l it reminded me about a folk song writer what did j&l steal, pittsburgh. i didn't sing it. [laughter] >> your rendition was better than my singing. >> i did sing it to him earlier. >> it's funny, though, because j&l started off as this incredibly brutal boss in the -- well, started off weirdly started off with the idea of building a utopia for the steel worker. pretty quickly because things got out of control they brought in harry and clamped down in a vicious way on the pop swlis but post world war ii, i can't tell you how many people speak lovingly about j&l and the relationship after -- after world war ii. essentially after the wagner act

went through. j&l gave in and became a far more paternal and partner in the town that many people look upon loving. they don't say the same about ltv. to read the history -- this was a place called little sigh -- siberia. little hell, to change and have people who even experienced that really speaks to how much of a partner in town and really strikes me. >> can you talk about how the team is striving against all odds? >> since i wrote -- this book went into -- i mean, i finished it in january and since then, i mean already another chapter is being written.

aliquippa decided to go, single a high school and decided to move up and it's always a two-way school and decided to move up to 3a to compete but it's a town with only essentially 3,000 boys in the senior class. and meanwhile, meanwhile you have this town since january the team has been raaged in a brutal way. suffering for leukemia. the wives with trying to get a bone marrow. the team in 2003 championship team was, i believe, the seventh or eighth player killed, his body was found on the side of the aliquippa road.

awarded the purple heart twice for service in iraq. another player committed suicide at one point in the summer and the day the book published two were involved in murder in town. so and meanwhile the team is eating two and seated number one in first round of playoffs. it is -- it is frankly astonishing that they're able to do that and it maybe a case of misplaced priority and it's remarkable and it's a tribute to the coaches and specially the assistant coaches, there's almost 20 of them who are there in aliquippa who come and

volunteer, very few who are paid, they're all former players and they demand a standard from these players as do the families, in fact, people keep asking. this is not a place where people lose a game, it's not ought to boy, you'll get him next time. it's y'all suck. it's your dad, your uncle our your cousin and they make you feel like crap and he said, you know, when he got to bill parcells with the patriots and parcells was notorious for haying rookies and was really, that's all you have? [laughter] >> it's an astonishing place. i keep thinking it's not going to last and i keep thinking that

they're going to stop producing division one player and yet it's still happening. and i really thought this year -- 35-30 that's not aliquippa standard. i'm not predicting their demise this year, i really thought with all the hits tape on the field and that they had gone in place that they were going to have a very hard time this year. they had a harder time but i'm wrong yet again. >> wow. >> questions over there. >> i think it's gone down. i've been to a lot of games where certainly the stadium is not jammed pack. the interest in the team remains and you certainly have a former steel workers under this roof that's been set up for them at the pit but the interest in

football remains, i would say the attendants at nonbig games specially has gone down. to me, which again you sort of think, wow, are people really interested in this town. you look at four different teams and four different age classes. there's still kids on the waiting list still. so it's weird that sometimes i think the intense interest in football doesn't necessarily equate to attendants every week but when it comes time for a big game, i expect a big contention. >> someone over there. >> hi. two questions for you, please. you in your book it's mentioned about an nba legend. that nba legend norvich by any chance? >> yeah, i'm sorry, yeah. if you're talking about the beginning of the book. >> i have no read the book.

my wife told me. >> coached them and played basketball in the 30's and grew up until he was 13 and was in aliquippa and was basketball coach and by the way, you know, after his great senior season then got pissed off during a basketball game and punched a wall and broke his hand but he was playing if i'm right and i might have that a little bit wrong but what he said to me was that he was better than everybody on his team. that little shit. that shit was better and shooting the hell out of the ball. >> my father actually told me stories about pit playing against -- >> against press? >> yeah. >> what was he saying about this game in. >> he was a tough player.

>> my question is did you beat barack obama one-on-one? [laughter] >> here it is again. all right. so you're a less tough crowd than the kids because all they cared, i hadn't played in a long time. but obama i will say is quicker than me and -- but i will tell you two stories, one is that -- is that -- i needed to -- i suddenly realized that i got to play him one-on-one and i had to write a column in 2007 in iowa, just before he won iowa and became barack obama. he never plays one-on-one. so i played him two games one-on-one and in between talked

to him, for 40 minutes. unbelievable. i realized that, oh, my god, you can learn about somebody playing basketball. what are they like so on and so forth, how do they act, do they -- i don't know. and so i realized i can't stop the game every point and write down what happened. [laughter] >> what am i going to do? >> i see my 13-year-old son and film this for me. you have to learn how to use camera and he came with me to iowa and again i hadn't played him a while and i said to my son, you are going to have to film this, i'm your dad but don't pay any attention to me.

you to keep the camera on obama the whole time. before the game, obama warming up and he's across the gym floor and i'm my son now, my son is filming and filming obama and i know this because we have the film of this and he's filming obama who is going across and obama comes takes a look and goes under the basket and believe me that was not a problem and then he comes along and my son is still doing it. you better keep the -- and unlike me who when obama came to his side, i would have put the camera down and filmed my shoe and instead my son, this is the time when he -- he flip it is camera and he's holding it like this. you have this view of obama and obama -- so now i'm obama and my son is like what the heck and obama is like, so, what kind of

game does he have? [laughter] >> and my son gives me up. he's like, yeah, he hasn't played, he's not in basketball shape. he said his shots are off. everything we talked about. what was interesting is obama was kind of tiki tack, he didn't call every foul. he said, you could get shot for doing that. he would always go whoa whenever i would shoot, i thought that was cheap. at one point i said to him, all right, this is for the presidency and he was at the top of the key and he hit it and he didn't say anything, believe me, i didn't think of the line. i just sort of threw it out there. did you hear what i said, why do you think i hit it, i will tell you -- that film of him where

he's like gaming me out was actually, it wasn't the slick smooth great order obama, it was the kick-ass competitor. he was sizing me up. you can see him and my son actually got the best moment of it because it was really the most revealing thing i've seen about obama. he's incredibly nice and smart guy but what people don't normally see is the killer and he is that as well. so but i hadn't played in a long time. [laughter] >> and how did you do? >> i lost both games. now, he said -- in the first game, you know, he basically -- i can't remember the score. it was not pretty. by the way it's much better for a writer if you lose. you win, what are you going to say, yes, i beat obama. there is an element there. in the second game, before the second game, you know f -- i figured if you back me down more, you will score more.

oh, yeah, why am i shooting for -- that was a closer game. >> you have someone right here. >> i'm from aliquippa i'm glad that you did the book. >> why doesn't the world recognize it? >> that's why i'm glad that you put it in writing but two comments, you mentioned carl. my uncle who was really -- one of the biggest ever aliquippa fans felt that he was the boast football coach ever and the answer to your question maybe there are some divine intervention involved that his influence hasn't faded. >> no, he was, you know, and also he had what the family called a paper heart. he had very bad heart trouble. his daughter died of heart

troublic at the age of 30-32. he was incredibly tough guy, frank morocco second success or was playing football game and got punt smashed into his face and carl walked up to him and frank went back in the game. get back in there and i talked to other people. don's brother spoke. he thought actually ashton was too hard on guys that way and he felt -- jene says, you know, i don't think he cared about his players as much as i would have liked him to. but over all, he swears by him and a lot of people who also notably enough, i think it was richard who is now receivers coach with the steelers and richard and others really didn't notice any kind of racial

component with carl ashman. they thought she he was a straight shooter and respected him for that. >> you mentioned the name jeno, he's my italian mom and both my ukle passed away in june and he attended funeral. who are these girls? and my mom, she's slipping a little bit but she recognized four faces just like that jeno was happy because he's still active and just keeping aliquippa the place that it always has been. >> he really is a walking history book and knows more