Dan Rather Interview (page: 6 / 9) Broadcast Journalist	Print Interview

Did that experience of trying to make it on the football team in college teach you any kind of a lesson?

Dan Rather: Tremendously. That was something my father taught us, playing sports and coming up. Before I got to Sam Houston I had a lot of faults and some flaws, but there wasn't any "give up" in me. I stayed out for football and at the end of spring practice, football players on scholarship lived at the Bearcat Den. We were the Sam Houston State Teacher's College Bearcats, and I was not invited to come to the Bearcat Den. I was having a very hard time staying in school.

The journalism professor --they only had one, Hugh Cunningham -- was keeping me afloat in school. I stayed with him some. He kept my head just above water. He kept telling me, "This football thing is..." First of all, he thought it was ridiculous. He didn't want to tell me I was no damn good, but he pretty much knew it. But I clung to this idea that the scholarship was just around the corner.

What I learned from it is that there is tremendous value in persistence. Now my persistence in football did not ever get me on scholarship, much less get me much playing time, much less ever being a star at football. But I stayed out that spring, I stayed out to the end of spring practice. At the end of spring , I was the only nonscholarship player still out. When football practice took up before school started in the summer, I was there. I got there a day-and-a-half early. I was the last person before the first game that was still out there without a scholarship. I eventually got to suit out a time or two, but I never got to play.

It's hard to explain. They did have to tell me, finally. Coach Puny himself. Coach Puny Wilson, All-American Texas A&M in the '20s, when all the pickers for All-American were in the Ivy League, he was a bona fide All-American. I finally was ushered into his office, and it was his job to tell me that I would not be on scholarship for the fall. They had to tell me because I just kept coming out. And looking back on it, I think the equipment people just said, "Well coach, what do we do with this guy?" I think the assistant coaches probably said, "I'll say this for him, he's stuck in there, but we don't have a place for him."

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Anyway, Coach Puny told me -- he was kind about it but he was also forceful about it --that not only was I not getting a scholarship but he made it pretty clear that I wasn't likely to have one in the future. If I was a project, I was too big of a project for Coach Puny. And I left his office and it was raining, and I walked in the rain, and I cried about it, which I'm not proud of. I shouldn't have, because I was already grown, but it meant a lot to me. But in I guess kind of a perverse way, I had some pride that I really had stuck it out. And you know, you never know when you're a teacher, you may say something to a child or even a young man who is a student, that you have no idea it's going to stick with him for a long time. But Puny, who was a kind of idol, partly because he was a coach, also because he'd been All-American -- you know, big, raw-boned country guy. The only thing he gave me -- he didn't give me a scholarship, he didn't give me any hope, he didn't give me any phony expectations, but he shook my hand. He says, "You didn't quit." And so in my disappointment, in my --I think it's not too strong a statement -- my crushed state, I had that. Now my journalism teacher, Hugh Cunningham, when I went to him, he said, "Well thank God! Thank heaven. That foolishness is over. You know, you're not a football player. You're weren't going to be a football player. It's not compatible with my making a journalist of you. So let's suck it up here and let's have some supper and let's talk about how you're going to be a great journalist."

[ Key to Success ] Perseverance

Was it important to have someone tell you that?

Dan Rather: I don't know what would have happened. I couldn't have stayed in school without Cunningham. He arranged for me to stay in school, partly out of his own pocket, partly out of borrowed money. He drummed up all kinds of jobs, some of them cockamamie jobs to keep me in school.

What do you think he saw in you?

Dan Rather: I think he saw determination. I also think he saw that I wanted it badly. Those two things are related but not exactly the same. He also saw that I could write a little bit. Looking back on it, I was really a clumsy bad writer. But remember, he's at Sam Houston State Teacher's College. He's not at the University of Texas or the University of Missouri where he graduated. This was an average cow college, a backward school. I'm not denigrating it in any way because I owe it a great deal.

But he saw it in me. "This kid has wanted it for as long as he can remember, worked on his high school paper." When he sat me down to write a news story, I at least knew the rudiments and he knew I wanted it badly. I think those are the things he saw in me. He also saw that whatever talent I had was pretty raw, but he knew he was a good enough teacher. I think what he had seen in the football is, "He'll stick with it," and "If you stick with it for four years at Sam Houston, under my tutelage, I think I might be able to make something out of you." Or as Hugh would probably say it, "I think I can help him make something of himself."

And you stuck it out.

Dan Rather: Yes, absolutely. I took off after that. Once the football was out, he arranged for a job at the local radio station.

Was that how you got your first job?

Dan Rather: Yes.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. This was not a college radio station. It was a commercial radio station, 250 watt AM station, lowest wattage allowed by the FCC. KSAN, run by the late Pastor Ted Lott. He was the whole thing, but he needed somebody part-time to help him, and Hugh got me the job at the radio station. I wrote ads. I tried to sell ads. I wasn't any good at selling. And it was great for me. For one: it helped keep me in school. Two: there was so much to do you didn't have time to think about it, and so you just did it. Three: it was such a small environment that I was allowed to make mistakes, and you learn by making mistakes.

[ Key to Success ] Preparation

After the football scholarship business went, Hugh said, "Look, you should start writing about sports," and at that time I was pretty good at writing sports, and quickly became the sports editor of the paper, and later became the editor of the paper. And so once I got under this gifted, caring teacher's wing, and once he got out of me this football madness, things began to turn really good for me in college. With a combination of working in the oil fields in the summer and the part-time jobs during the school year (I never had fewer than three) there wasn't any money to spare, but it kept me in college.

Did you want to be a sports writer?

Dan Rather: I wanted to be any kind of newspaper man. Did I want to be a sportswriter? Yes. Did I want to be an obituary writer? Yes. Did I want to do Martha Stewart Living columns? Yes. You know, my whole goal was to get on a newspaper and get a newspaper job and be a newspaper man.

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