Dan Rather Interview (page: 5 / 9) Broadcast Journalist	Print Interview

How did you get your start as a reporter?

Dan Rather: Well, I had started this little newspaper (and that really overstates it) in elementary school. I had worked on the newspaper in junior high school, but not much because I was ill a lot of the time.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. I worked on my high school newspaper. I hung around newspapers. I sometimes would take the bus downtown and just hang around the old Houston Press. I ran coffee there and sort of struck up friendships with newspaper people. And I wrote a lot and kept a journal. It was only years later when I read a Walker Percy essay on the difference between a journal and a diary that I even knew the difference between a journal and a diary, but it turns out I was actually keeping a journal, as crude as it was. A journal is you tell what happened and what you thought about it.

[ Key to Success ] Preparation

My break really came when I got to college. That I can't emphasize too much. I think this may be a lesson for parents even to this day. My mother did not have a clear plan about how I was going to get to college. She didn't know enough to lay out a plan but that didn't stop her from absolutely knowing that I was going. I was going because she was going to will it. She did not have a clue as to how this was going to happen, where I was going to go, but I was going to go to college.

As the day approached for me to graduate from high school, and I was either going to college or not, the only thing I could see was that maybe I'd get a football scholarship. I had started on our team my senior year and we had a good year. We played for the city championship. We lost, I'm sorry to say. I still remember the pass I almost got that might have won it for us.

But as the year was winding down and my graduation loomed and my mother is saying, "We're going to college," and I'm saying to myself, "I don't know where or how." I went to our head coach, Lamar Camp, and asked him if he'd give me a letter of recommendation to play. And he looked at me and he said, "Well, has anybody talked to you?" And I said, "No." And he didn't dismiss me, but he basically said, "Well, if somebody is interested in you, you tell them to contact me and I'll talk to them." Well excuse me, sir, that wasn't a heck of a lot of help!

Get the Flash Player to see this video. I hitchhiked up to Sam Houston State Teacher's College, which was on the Dallas Highway, 70 some odd miles north of Houston. It was a small college and I thought, "Well, the University of Texas, SMU, Rice, A&M, our larger football factories have failed to recognize my prowess so I'd probably have a little better luck at a smaller place." And I hitchhiked to Sam Houston State Teacher's College. And I didn't know who the football coach was but I asked. It was a guy named Puny Wilson. I asked where he was and they said they thought he was in the gym watching basketball practice. I went to the gym and I sidled up to him and I introduced myself. He looked at me like I was a hitchhiker with pets. I told him I was a football player and that I'd appreciate it very much if he'd consider me for a scholarship. And he looked at me, and looking back on it, I think he was kind of amazed but I also think he kind of respected it. He had not heard of me, which was no surprise, but he basically said, "Well, when do you graduate?" I told him I was a midterm graduate. I said, "Well, I graduate in two weeks." It was just after Christmas in January. He said, "Well, spring practice starts (I've forgotten the date) sometime in March and I'll be glad to see you there." I left the gym absolutely walking on air because this to me was my ticket to get to college.

[ Key to Success ] Perseverance

Foolish? Yes, but when you're young a lot of foolish things happen. And I hitchhiked back home. I recognize hitchhiking has gone out of fashion, but in that time it was very common for people to , and for people to give hitchhikers rides. A different era.

I proudly announced to my mother that I had a football scholarship to Sam Houston State Teacher's College. What I had was a try out, but I needed it so badly that I convinced myself I had a football scholarship.

Anyway, when it came time to enroll, my mother took me to Sam Houston, and this was the first college campus she had ever been on. She went with me to the registrar's office and asked what it cost to get in. I explained to her, the "scholarship" didn't start until football practice started. I guessed that's the way it worked. She cashed a $25 war bond that we had left over from World War II. Went to the bank in Huntsville and cashed the $25 war bond to put 20 some odd dollars into the $40 tuition and fees that it took to enroll. And I enrolled. They carried the rest of it.

The story gets long from there. I did go out for football practice and I did reasonably well. They just couldn't run me off. They ran over me a lot because defense was never my strong suit but I did what I could and I stayed out. They didn't want to have to tell you that you weren't going to make it. If you were number nine on an eight-depth chart that ought to tell you something. It didn't tell me anything.

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