One of the things I truly loved about covering sports for The Associated Press was the variety it offered.

I grew up playing baseball, basketball and football and I started playing golf and bowling when I was about 10 years old. So those were the sports that held my interest.

The pictures I cut out of magazines and taped to my bedroom walls were of stars in those sports _ Stan Musial and Eddie Mathews in baseball, Wilt Chamberlain and Oscar Robertson in basketball, Jim Brown and Bart Starr in football, Arnold Palmer in golf and Don Carter and Steve Nagy (who reminded me of my dad) in bowling. That was my Hall of Fame or Mount Rushmore when I was a teenager.

It was the AP that gave me the opportunity to discover so many other sports and to delve much more deeply. Over the years I got to cover Olympics and Super Bowls and Indy and Daytona 500s and much more. But, besides the major events, I got to cover some things like lawn bowling at the Commonwealth Games in Edmonton, Canada. And every event I got to cover, I also got the opportunity to meet and talk with people who I never would have known otherwise.

Some even became friends.

My five years in Indianapolis were a wondrous time of discovery, covering sports that I had only read about or seen on TV. I was introduced to the "Wonderful World of Sports" in person.

The first golf tournament I covered was the 1972 Girls' U.S. Amateur. The contestants were all under the age of 18 and the big name coming into the tournament was 14-year-old Nancy Lopez.

Initially, I wasn't very excited about watching a bunch of young girls teeing it up. But then I met Nancy.

She was mature and funny beyond her age and the world revolved around her. At least at the golf course, it did.

The first day of the tournament, I mostly stayed in the clubhouse, watching the scoreboard and waiting for the officials to bring the leaders in for their interviews. Nancy was the first-round leader and her interview was so much fun I decided to walk the course with her on the second round.

She had a group of young fans following her and after every shot, they would holler and wave, calling out her nickname, "Cha Cha." But Nancy was all business on the course. Other than smiling at the posse occasionally, she concentrated on her game.

At the end of the round, as she walked toward the clubhouse to sign her card, I moved up beside her, introduced myself and asked how she stayed so focused with all that was going on around her.

She flashed the beautiful smile that became her trademark during her Hall of Fame pro career, and said, "Golf is my business. I take it seriously. There's enough time to have fun when I'm done with business."

This coming from a 14-year-old.

Of course, she won the tournament and I got several great stories that week, although they probably didn't get that much play around the country, since it was a junior girls' event. Still, it was a great experience.

Another golf tournament I covered during my time in Indianapolis was the USGA Amateur Public Links Championship in 1974.

I hit it off with one of the top competitors on the first day, laughing and joking with him after he finished his round. It turned out he was about my age, Jewish and a long way from his California home. He reminded me of my college friend Steve Scheckter and I invited him to join Judy and me for dinner.

It may have been a bit of a conflict of interest, but we just enjoyed each other's company. He spent more time with us during the week and wound up finishing in the top 10 in the tournament. On the last day, I offered him a ride to the airport.

As he collected his suitcase and golf clubs from the trunk, he said, "By the way, are you and Judy doing anything tomorrow night?"

When I said we were free, he reached in his pocket and handed me an envelope, saying, "One of the tournament people gave these to me and I can't use them. You guys have fun."

As he walked into the terminal, I opened the envelope and found two tickets to the next night's performance of The Rolling Stones, part of  their latest U.S. tour. We eventually lost touch with that young man, but we'll never forget him or that performance by The Stones and their opening act, Stevie Wonder.

Another event that turned personal was the first combined Men's and Women's U.S. Clay Courts Tennis Championships in 1974. The men had been playing in Indianapolis for years, but this was the first time for the ladies at the same event.

The big story at the time was the romance between Chris Evert and Jimmy Connors, two of the biggest stars in the tennis world. Everybody wanted to know more about the pairing, of course, but they were being as secretive as they could be while playing under the public eye.

The day before the tournament began, I drove over to the country club to get some advance material and the first person I talked to was Julie Heldman, one of the top players on the women's side. She was cute, friendly and we wound up talking for quite a while, comparing backgrounds and careers.

Again, I invited her to join Judy and me for dinner.

Julie was very friendly with Chris Evert, but she was reluctant to talk about Chris' personal life to a reporter, even someone who was becoming a friend. I didn't push.

The tournament began and I watched and reported on some amazing tennis. I didn't talk to Julie, though I did watch her win her first singles match. At the lunch break, I was sitting in the shade munching on a sandwich when Julie came up to say hi.

"I wonder if you could do me a favor?" she asked. "Could I borrow your car for about an hour?"

Though I thought it an odd request, I wasn't going anywhere for a while. I gave her my keys and told her where the car was parked. I didn't even ask where she was going, since I figured it was probably a personal errand for someone who was constantly on the road.

As I was finishing up my writing that evening, I suddenly realized she hadn't returned my keys. I got up to look for Julie and saw her heading in my direction with a big smile on her face.

"Hope you got your errand done okay," I said. She grinned and said, "I didn't use the car. It was Chrissie who wanted it. She and Jimmy needed to get away from here for a bit. They both say thanks
and they owe you."

So my two-year-old Oldmobile Cutlass was used for a tryst by two of the most famous athletes in the world. Interesting, especially since I hadn't met either of them, yet.

That night, the promoters held a cocktail party. The competitors were required to make an appearance, so Judy and I did, too. I was hoping to introduce myself to the happy couple.

Judy, as I've mentioned before, has never been comfortable meeting celebrities, so we were keeping a low profile as people swarmed around the crowded room. I spotted Chris and Jimmy, surrounded by well-wishers and fans and decided not to be pushy about talking to them,

I handed Judy her usual diet soda and, as she turned to walk away, she bumped into Bjorn Borg, stepping on his foot and spilling part of her drink. Both of them were apologizing and Borg started laughing.

I introduced myself and Judy and Borg said, "Oh, you're the journalist who lent his car to Chris and Jimmy. They want to meet you."

He walked us over to the happy couple and they thanked me politely, not wanting to talk too much about where they went or what they did in my Olds. Chris blushed and Jimmy grinned as we chatted. Unfortunately, the relationship didn't work out and they broke up soon after.

In the end, Connors beat Borg and Evert beat Gail Chanfreau for the singles titles and our new friend Julie combined with Chanfreau to beat Chris and sister Jeanne Evert in the women's doubles. Connors and Ilie Nastase teamed up to beat a couple of German players in the men's doubles.

Billie Jean King, who I had met earlier at a promotional event for the tournament, joined the conversation at the cocktail party as the talk turned to tennis and competition. My relationship with Billie Jean was very helpful later on in Cleveland when I was covering World Team Tennis, the league she and then husband Larry King started.

She was invaluable in helping me get hold of Martina Navratilova and Borg, who both played for the Cleveland Nets during my time in Ohio.

As much fun as covering sports was, getting to meet the people involved was often the best part throughout my career.

My first season covering the defending American Basketball Association champion Indiana Pacers was eye-opening.

I had grown up following college basketball and pretty much knew the ins and outs of the game. But, even in preseason practice, I could tell the level of talent on the Pacers was far beyond anything I had seen before.

This was a veteran team, led by superstar Roger Brown. The other starters were center Mel Daniels, forward Bob Netolicky and guards Billy Keller and Freddie Lewis. You may not be familiar with the names, but these guys could ball. In my third season in Indy, they added homegrown star George McGinnis, who kept the good times rolling and, during my tenure in Indy, they won two more ABA titles and made the playoffs every year.

The personalities on this team were all over the place.

Netolicky was a wise guy, Lewis and Daniels quiet and thoughtful and Brown was, at least for me, a foreboding figure. If he saw me coming and gave me that "don't even think about it" stare, I would veer off to talk to someone else. When he did talk to me, it was with an angry look and hushed, clipped sentences.

But I kept trying.

One day I was having my car serviced at a local dealership and there, in the waiting room, was Roger Brown, all 6-foot-5 of him stuffed in one of those metal and plastic waiting room chairs.

He looked up as I walked in and, when he saw who it was, got a sour look on his face.

I gulped and said, "Roger, why are you so put off by me? I've never said anything or written anything bad about you, and I think you're a helluva basketball player."

He looked at me with a blank stare for what seemed like a full minute. Finally, he said, "AP wrote some stuff about me back in high school that wasn't true. It cost me a lot."

Brown and fellow Brooklyn, N.Y. basketball star Connie Hawkins had been introduced to gambler Jack Molinas while in high school. Molinas was involved in a point shaving scandal and, although he was never accused of point shaving, Brown was banned by both the NCAA and the National Basketball Association for associating with a gambler, costing him a scholarship at the University of Dayton and possibly a future in the pro game.

He continued to play amateur ball until the NBA's new rival, the ABA, came calling in 1967. He was the first player the Pacers signed.

"Roger, that was in 1960," I said. "I was in high school. I had nothing to do with those stories and, if anything in those stories wasn't true, I apologize. But AP's reputation is that we always try to be fair and balanced. Give me another chance and I'll do right by you."

He sat and thought for a while before saying with a shake of his head, "Okay, I'll give you a chance. But you'd better not screw me." Then, for the first time, he gave me a smile and a wink.

From that day on, any time I needed a quote from Roger Brown, he was amenable. He even sought me out a couple of times when he felt the media wasn't being fair to him or his team.

But my go-to guy on the Pacers was always Billy Keller, a former Mr. Basketball at Indianapolis Washington, a graduate of Purdue and a very well-spoken and thoughtful young man.

After my second season covering the Pacers, I called Billy and asked him if he might be interested in doing a book together. I was going to call it "Four Feet, Eight Inches Under the Rim," a reference to his 5-10 stature in a world of giants.

He liked the idea and I got some interest almost immediately from a couple of publishers.

At first, Billy was excited. But, after a couple of taping sessions, he decided it was getting too personal and called it off. I still think the book would have sold like hotcakes, particularly in Indiana.

My first year covering the team, the Pacers had a media-staff basketball game as one of its pregame promotions.

The media in Indianapolis included some former college and pro basketball players, but I got invited to participate, too, along with some of the local newspaper guys with no particular sporting credentials.

Despite the nice jersey with my name on the back, I felt totally out of place, particularly when we huddled up before the start of the game and I looked up at the other players, most of them towering high above me.

The game was two 10-minute periods and I got into the first period for about one minute and never saw the ball, which was fine with me.

The stands were beginning to fill up when the second period began and I was watching comfortably and happily from the bench until whoever was coaching our team (I can't recall who) said, "Harris, get in there."

There were about three minutes left to play and everybody was having fun. There was a lot of shouting and jeering from the stands as the fans watched the chaos on the court.

I ran to an open spot near the corner, mostly to stay out of the way, and suddenly, the ball was heading my way, the pass thrown by TV sports reporter Jerry Harkness, the guy who made the shot that gave Loyola, Chicago a 60-58 overtime win over Cincinnati to win the national championship in 1963.

It was totally reflex, but I grabbed the ball, jumped and fired a shot from the corner and, miracle of miracles, it hit nothing but net. The crowd roared, the horn went off ending the game and my teammates mobbed me. It turned out to be the winning shot.

That was, by far, my greatest sporting achievement and the last time I played anything competitive except bowling.

The Pacers played their home games in the Fairgrounds Coliseum, a relic of a building on the grounds of the Indiana State Fairgrounds. Until they moved into their sparkling new Market Square Arena in downtown in 1974, there were times when the Coliseum was booked for an ice show, a circus, a boat show or something else that the Pacers had to find another place to play.

One of those places was The Wigwam, the gym at Anderson High School, about 40 miles north of Indianapolis on Interstate-69. The Coliseum seated 6,800 people for basketball, while Anderson's high school gym held more than 8,000 at capacity.

Game 3 of the second-round playoff series with the Utah Stars in 1972 was played in Anderson. Indiana trailed in the series 2-0 but beat the Stars 116-111 that night and went on to win their second ABA championship.

I filed my stories and headed for home on the stormy spring night. I was driving south on I-69, traveling about 5 mph over the 65 mph speed limit, listening to the radio, when I heard reports of possible tornadoes in the area. It was nighttime, but the sky seemed darker than usual and I had an odd feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Rain was coming down in waves, visibility was limited and the front of the car was being pushed side-to-side by the wind. I was just thinking how happy I would be to be home when a tremendous gust blew a sheet of water onto my windshield like a wave in surfing.

The windshield wipers were overwhelmed and I could see nothing but water for a long moment. When the windshield cleared, I realized the car was off the ground, soaring toward a bridge abutment at high speed.

Out of instinct, I was turning the wheel hard right which did no good at all since the tires were not on the ground. The bridge abutment was looming large when the wheels touched down with a thud and the car reacted to my steering, veering back onto the highway. I almost over-corrected, which could have turned the car over, but it wobbled a bit and drove on as if nothing had happened, still traveling at about 70 mph. 

I'm not sure how long I held my breath but, when I finally did let the air out, I gasped. It took a minute or two for my heart rate to get back to normal and my hands were shaking for a while. But I got home in one piece.

Thankfully, that was the last time I covered a game in Anderson.

The Pacers also played a playoff game that season at Indiana University's new Assembly Hall in Bloomington, about 50 miles south of Indianapolis.

My bureau chief at the time was very careful with his budget and often made decisions about coverage based on how much it was going to cost for mileage, food and lodging, much to the chagrin of his reporters.

The Pacers went on to beat Utah in seven games, earning the chance to play the New York Nets in the ABA Finals. The first game of that series was set to be played in Bloomington because a horse show was scheduled at the Coliseum.

The day before the game, the bureau chief called me into his office and told me there was no budget for mileage (6 cents a mile at the time) and that I would have to cover the game on the radio from the office and use my Indiana University basketball stringer (who we paid a flat $10 a game to) to get post-game quotes.

It was not televised, so I listened to the game and kept score from the office. It was halftime when the phone rang. Everyone else was tied up, so I answered "AP, Mike Harris."

"What the hell are you doing in the office?" the voice on the other end asked. It was Hal Bock from New York Sports. He had called the bureau, hoping to have them relay a message to me about some quotes he needed after the game for a story he was working on.

I told him why I was in the office and he was appalled.

After we hung up, he called Wick Temple, the AP's sports editor, who in turn called the Indiana bureau chief, who in turn called me about 10 minutes later and, with a gruff voice, asked, "How soon can you get to Bloomington?"

I made it to the Assembly Hall press row late in the third quarter, covered the game and got those post-game quotes for Hal and myself. And I never had to cover another game on the radio.

High school basketball was king in Indiana when I arrived in 1970.

It was at that point the only state that still had all of its schools playing in a one-class tournament, crowning a single champion.

Some of the state's high school gyms seated more people than many college basketball arenas - and they were full and raucous on game nights.

One of the first stories I heard after starting my new job in Indianapolis was about the "Milan Miracle" of 1954, the year tiny Milan High School, totaling 161 students, upended mighty four-time state champion Muncie Central for the state title. Bobby Plump, the man who made the winning shot in the 32-30 victory, had achieved legendary status in the Hoosier state.

This huge upset was the basis for the 1986 movie "Hoosiers."

My first Indiana high school basketball season was busy. I was quickly learning the names and geographical locations of all the public high schools. The bureau was nearly overwhelmed by phone calls on game nights, reporting the scores of more than 200 games and highlights from the games involving the Top 25 teams in the AP poll, which was mine to compile and oversee.

After the last of the Top 25 scores had been reported by the school or a local paper, I took the highlights and wrote a roundup story, detailing the best moments of the night.

We had a checklist and, if somebody failed to call in (they were upset because their team lost or they had too much to drink or simply forgot), I had to chase down the score. More than once, I telephoned the local police in desperation to see if they knew the score. They usually did.

But just how important high school basketball was did not fully register until my bureau chief, Tom Dygard, called me into his office in February of my first year in Indy.

"Next Thursday is the high school tournament pairings draw,''  he said. "The only event more important on our calendar is the Indy 500."

The pairings for the tournament, determining where each team would begin play and how they would proceed through the tournament if they kept winning, were set by a blind draw at the Indianapolis headquarters of the Indiana High School Athletic Association.

Steve Herman was there for the start of the draw at 7 a.m., with an open telephone line to me at the bureau, where I typed in the pairings and sent them onto the wire as quickly as possible. At the end of the draw, I wrote a story detailing where the top teams would be starting and who they would be playing.

Radio stations across the state brought in local coaches and athletic directors to watch the draw come in on the wire in real time and discuss the significance. And the stations sold ad time for the shows. It was big time stuff.

That first year, everything went very smoothly and I began thinking about how we were going to cover the tournament. I had stringers set up at all the major venues and I was set to cover the semifinals and the championship game at Butler's Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.

But I wanted to do something splashy, something that hadn't been done before.

What I came up with was visits to each of the Final Four schools the week of the state championship.

I got permission from Tom Dygard to drive to the various high schools and then write one feature a day leading into the opening round of the tournament on Friday.

That year, the finalists were unbeaten East Chicago Washington and Elkhart, both located in the northwest corner of the state, close to the Illinois border, New Castle, just east of Indianapolis, and Floyd Central, located in the tiny bedroom community of Floyd's Knobs, in southern Indiana, just across the river from Louisville, Ky.

I started with favored Washington and was welcomed by school officials, who promptly held a pep rally in the gym to show me the school's spirit. The energy was almost overwhelming.

Elkhart was next and it was hard to find any evidence the school even had a basketball team. Other than a few hand-written signs out front and a "Good Luck Blue Blazers" message on the electronic sign board out front, there was little to show the team was on the way to the state finals.

I met the coach and a few of the players and they were definitely excited. But I had to work pretty hard to come up with an interesting story. A visit to the local mom and pop deli, where some of the Elkhart kids hung out, helped flesh out the story.

The trip to New Castle, one of the traditional powerhouses in Indiana basketball, was more rewarding. The New Castle Fieldhouse had a seating capacity of 9,325, bigger than a half dozen of the nation's Top 25 college basketball arenas. The school was decorated with "Win State" signs from the start of the driveway to the front entrance,and the excitement inside the school building was palpable.

Then came the near-two-hour drive to Floyd's Knobs, where the team was about to begin its first trip to the finals and everyone was trying to figure out the best way to celebrate the situation. Talking to the students, I could tell they were trying to be cool about the newfound basketball success, and having a hard time containing their feelings.

The stories all got great play in the state's newspapers and I was totally exhausted heading into the tournament itself.

Talk about starting from the top, though. The East Chicago Washington team, which wound up winning the 1970-71 title with a 29-0 record, was perhaps the best high school basketball team ever assembled, They overwhelmed nearly every opponent and each of the starters went on to play at a Division I college.

The team's center, Tim Stoddard, played at North Carolina State and eventually made it to the Major Leagues as a pitcher. Forward Ullyses "Junior" Bridgeman led Louisville to the 1974 national title, the 1975 Final Four and had a 12-year career in the NBA. Forward Pete Trgovich played at UCLA and was on the Bruins team that beat Louisville in the 1975 championship game.

The Washington Senators were a pleasure to watch and a great introduction to high-level Indiana high school basketball.

The next year's state finals were memorable, too. But not because of the teams.

The week of the finals I got sick. I had a sore throat that turned into laryngitis. I could barely speak above a whisper on the morning of the semifinals.

At that point, we were dictating our stories to the bureau on the telephone and my seat at Hinkle Fieldhouse was in the bleachers, directly in front of the Anderson High School cheerleaders and next to the school's pep band.

Working the 1972 Indiana State Basketball Tournament

Somehow, I croaked out my leads and made it through the day. By the time the finals began the next day, my voice had at least partially returned.

The pairings draw went well in 1972, but the 1973 draw proved to be one of my toughest days in the AP.

The bureau was in the process of switching to computers and, as often happens with new systems, there were occasional breakdowns. Unfortunately, the biggest breakdown we had was on pairings day.


 Moments after the draw began, the bureau computers went down. Even as the techs scrambled to get them restarted, the clock ticked away and the pairings sat on my screen with me unable to get them onto the wire. The phone lines lit up. People at the papers and radio and tv stations that had only the AP were angry and frustrated.

Meanwhile, UPI, which had not yet begun its computerization, was sending out the pairings with no problem.

After the system came back up and the pairings and the roundup were finally sent, Tom Dygard came out of his office with an angry look on his face.

"We've had about a dozen cancellations from members," Tom said. "This is a disaster."

UPI tried hard to use our bad pairings day as a marketing tool. It was touch and go for a while but, in the end, Tom and the state salesmen managed to keep all the members.

Ironically, a year later, our computers worked smoothly and we got the draw out without a hitch, while UPI, which was playing catch-up on computerization, had glitches similar to ours the previous year. It was quite satisfying.

The pairings draw played out in a personal drama, too. In February, 1975, Judy was nearing her due date for the birth of our second child. Bright and early on the morning of the pairings draw, I kissed Judy goodbye and said, "Don't have a baby until I get home."

I had no way of knowing _ and Judy wasn't telling _ that her contractions had already begun.

The draw went smoothly and, as I wrapped up my writing, I reached for the phone to see how things were going at home. Our neighbor, who was going to stay with Tory while Judy and I went to hospital, answered.

"You'd better get home - quick," he said. "Judy is about to have the baby."

I drove home like a mad man, lucky not to attract the police. Judy said, "I didn't want to interfere with such an important day, but I've been waiting to have this baby since you left this morning."

When we arrived at the hospital, I dropped Judy off at the emergency room entrance and went to park the car. When I walked into the lobby, she was nowhere to be seen. I asked the lady behind the desk if she knew where the little woman with the big belly was.

She smiled and said, "She's upstairs having a baby."

I got there just in time. After putting on a gown and booties outside the room, I stepped in just as Lanni's head poked out. Talk about timing.

She was a beautiful baby girl to pair up with our handsome 16-month-old boy, Tory. The perfect family - and I got the pairings draw out, too."

Following the Madison Regatta, the next big sporting event for me was the U.S. Men's Clay Court Championships at a country club in Indianapolis.

Again, I was thrown into the deep end of a sport I knew very little about.

One of the biggest stars in men's tennis was Arthur Ashe, a black man in a white man's game. I decided to try to reach Ashe for my pre-tournament story.

The public relations people at the country club helped me reach Ashe's agent, who agreed to get him on the phone with me. He was as pleasant and helpful as he could be and I got a solid story out of the interview.

On the first day of the tournament, I tried to learn everything about the sport as quickly as I could. I was amazed at the speed of the serves, wondering how anybody could return a ball rocketing toward you at nearly 130 mph. But, somehow, they did - and often with great flair.

Reporters were not allowed in the clubhouse so, at the lunch break that first day, I bought a hot dog and was sitting and eating in the shade when I heard someone hollering.

"Mike Harris, are you out here?"

I stood up and walked toward the shouting until I recognized Arthur Ashe. I introduced myself and we shook hands.

"Listen, I just wanted to thank you for that fine story,'' he said. "It made me look good and it made the sport look good. I wanted you to know I appreciate it."

We shook hands again and he walked away. It was one of the best moments of my career.

As you might expect, I silently rooted for Ashe to win the tournament. But Cliff Richey wound up beating Stan Smith in the final. Ashe did combine with Clark Graebner to beat Ilie Nastase and Ion Tiriac in doubles and I found that tennis was a game I really enjoyed watching.

The rest of that summer was very quiet on the sports front. There were no more events to cover, so I spent many hours in the office. It gave me a lot of time to think about how I wanted to cover Indiana sports.

I read through years of daily reports to see how things had been done in the past and I came up with some ideas for reinventing the sports coverage once things heated up in the fall.

My sports responsibilities in Indiana included covering Indiana and Purdue football. We sent a staffer to every home game of both schools. If both played at home the same day, I covered one game and sent someone from the office - usually veteran reporter Steve Herman - to the other. I got to pick the best game for myself.

Besides writing game stories and notes columns for Sunday's newspapers, we were also responsible for follow-ups for the Monday morning and afternoon newspapers. Since most people who were interested had already read the game stories, we had to come up with fresh quotes and feature ideas for those follow-ups.

In reading those stories from previous years, I could tell that was not always an easy task. The follow-up stories rarely broke new ground or had anything of value for the reader.

I came up with the idea of calling the IU and Purdue coaches on Sunday, after they had seen the game film, for fresh perspective. Now all I had to do was sell the coaches on the idea.

I called Johnny Pont, the coach at IU since 1965, introduced myself and broached my idea. He was hesitant. Finally, he said, "If you can get Bob DeMoss (the new Purdue coach) to do it, I'll do it. Let me know."

DeMoss, who was just taking over the reins from a very successful coach, Jack Mollenkopf, was amazingly receptive to the idea.

"This is a new job. Let's do some new things,'' He said.

We agreed to his taking my call at 11 a.m. on Sundays after home games.

When I talked with Coach Pont, he was surprised to hear the reaction of Coach DeMoss, but agreed to a call at noon on the Sundays of home football weekends.

Then, I had another idea.

During my time in Chicago, I often heard the very busy sports guys lamenting the fact that they had to cover Notre Dame, even though it was in Indiana. Of course, South Bend was a lot closer to Chicago in miles than to Indianapolis, but the Fighting Irish were a legendary football program that I wanted to cover.

I asked my bureau chief, Tom Dygard, how he felt about the idea of us taking back Notre Dame football coverage from Chicago. He surprised me by saying, "It should rightfully be ours anyway."

When I called Jerry Liska, the Midwest Sports Editor in Chicago, with the idea, he jumped at it.

"Notre Dame is all yours," he said happily. "I hope you enjoy it. They're good people."

I then called Ara Parseghian, the coach at Notre Dame since 1964. He was pleasant but leery, saying, "My Sundays are pretty full. I usually get up very early, watch the film for the first time, eat breakfast with my family - the only time I get to see them on football weekends - and then go to the office for the rest of the day."

"How about right after breakfast?" I asked, hopefully. "I only need about 10 minutes."

There was a long pause, a big sigh and, finally, he blurted out, "Okay, we'll do it." He then gave me his home number and said, "Call at exactly 8:30 or I'll be gone."

Getting Notre Dame for the Indiana bureau complicated our scheduling, although there were very few weeks when all of the Big Three played at home. And South Bend was a 2 1/2-hour drive on what was then a very dangerous, mostly two-lane U.S. 31.

Still, I was very excited to have brought Notre Dame back into the Indiana fold.

The first football Saturday that fall, I was in Bloomington, Ind., for Colorado's 16-9 victory over the Hoosiers, the first of nine losses for IU that season. Steve Herman covered Purdue's 15-0 loss to Texas Christian in West Lafayette. It was the start of a 4-6 season for the Boilermakers.

Meanwhile, Notre Dame was in Evanston, IL, clobbering Northwestern 35-14, the beginning of a 10-1 season.

Checking out those season records, you might understand better why I wanted to cover Notre Dame football.

The calls to Coach Pont and Coach DeMoss went well that Sunday. The follow-up stories had fresh quotes and perspective and I felt really good about it.

The next week I made my first trip to South Bend. I had been there before, but not long enough to see anything but the football stadium. This time, I drove up on Friday and toured the Notre Dame campus, gazing with some awe at the famed Golden Dome atop the main campus building and at the 135-foot-tall mural on the Hesburgh Library, nicknamed Touchdown Jesus because it overlooks the north end of the football field and depicts Jesus with his arms raised.

Then I stopped into the office of Roger Valdiserri, the school's sports information director. Roger greeted me like an old friend, though it was our first face-to-face meeting. He took me on a quick tour, introducing me to several people in the athletic department, including Athletic Director Ed "Moose" Krause, who welcomed me and gave me his direct line.

Finally, Roger took me into Coach Parseghian's office and introduced me.

"I don't know what you got me into with those calls, but my wife isn't very happy about it," he said with a grin.

I assured the coach that I would keep the calls short and told him how well it had gone the week before with Coach Pont and Coach DeMoss.

The game was a rout. Notre Dame clubbed over-matched Purdue 48-0.

I had covered a game in South Bend during my stint in Rockford, but this felt different. I felt a sense of history sitting in Notre Dame Stadium, along with the usual sellout crowd of 49,075. More than that, though, the way I had been received by the people at Notre Dame gave me a feeling of kinship. Even the lopsided game couldn't take away from the feeling.

I got plenty of post game quotes from both coaches and a few players and wondered what else I could possibly ask Coach Parseghian on Sunday morning. I thought about that a lot on the drive home Saturday night.

Bright and early on Sunday, I went into the office to prepare for the call and to write the follow-up story. Indiana had been on the road that weekend, so all I had to write was about Purdue-Notre Dame.

I was a little nervous as I dialed Coach Parseghian's number at precisely 8:29 a.m.

A woman answered and I said, "Hi, this is Mike Harris from AP calling for Coach Parseghian."

She said, "He's expecting your call, but he's finishing his eggs. Give him a minute. This is his wife, Katie. Where are you calling from?"

As the minutes ticked away, Mrs. Parseghian quizzed me on my personal life and my job. Finally, she said, "Okay. Here's Ara. Talk to you again soon."

Ara got on the phone and, not only answered my questions, but brought up a few things on his own. It was a very successful call that lasted considerably longer than 10 minutes.

That became our ritual: talking for five minutes or so with Katie and then being passed on to Ara. And, even though I never met her in person, this lovely lady became a friend, and the coach and I developed a nice bond.

I was sitting in the office on a December day in 1974 when I got a phone call from Roger Valdiserri. He said coach wanted to talk to me. It was the first time he had ever called me.

Ara got on and said, "Mike, I'm going to announce my retirement as coach of the Notre Dame football team in one hour. I'm totally exhausted and it's time for me to step down. I wanted to give you the story first. Nobody else will have it until an hour from now."

I thanked him profusely, offered my congratulations and best wishes to him and Katie, hung up and began writing.

The editors in New York Sports thought it was some kind of practical joke when the story popped up on their monitors. They called me for confirmation and we beat the opposition onto the wire by more than an hour - an eternity in wire service time.

Coach Pont was replaced by Lee Corso in 1973 and Coach DeMoss was replaced by Alex Agase that same year. Both Corso and Agase agreed with little hesitation to continue the Sunday calls.

Coach Parseghian was replaced by Dan Devine, who blew me off every time I tried to get him to set up a Sunday call. But it never became an issue, since I was on my way to a new posting by the time the 1975 college football season began.

I occasionally covered important basketball games at Notre Dame as well, including one of the highlights of my career on Jan, 19, 1974.

UCLA came to Notre Dame with a record 88-game winning string and went home with its first loss since January 23, 1971 on the same court. The game went down to the final seconds when Dwight Clay hit the winning jump shot from the corner for a 71-70 Notre Dame victory.

The students rushed the court and overran our court-side press table. I grabbed my phone and notebook, ducked under the table and dictated my story to Indianapolis. The UPI writer wasn't quick enough. His notes and phone instrument were grabbed up and he was about 10 minutes late with his story.

I won the competitive play in newspapers that carried both AP and UPI by a score of 24-0. That led to a letter of commendation from the sports editor in New York and eventually to my promotion to the sports job in Cleveland.

Here I am talking with UCLA Coach Johnny Wooden the day before the game with Notre Dame

And, immediately after I left Indiana, the new state sports editor gave Notre Dame sports coverage back to Chicago, saying he didn't have time for it.

I found out soon after starting my new job in Indianapolis that sports was only part of the job, even though my title was Indiana Sports Editor. There was a 10-person staff in the Indy bureau and everyone was expected to take news or broadcast shifts.

A new part of my journalism education was learning to write broadcast copy, a style meant for radio or TV people to rip off the AP wire and read over the air. It was a different style than what I was used to, but it didn't take long to adapt.

Another part of the job was to work the news desk, answering phones, culling stories from the local papers and handouts, editing other people's copy and coming up with feature stories. Since there are few major sports events in Indy in the summer, I was thrown onto the news side very quickly.

I always preferred to write about sports. While working the news desk provided a great learning opportunity, I would have much preferred to stick to what some pundit termed "the sandbox of journalism."

I have to admit I was a little lost on the days when I was on "sports assignment" in those first few weeks. I came home after the first assignment day and told Judy I just sat around the office all day waiting for somebody to tell me what the assignment was.

It finally occurred to me, after about three days, that I was meant to make up my own assignments on those sports days.

Indianapolis had only one professional team at the time - the Indiana Pacers of the American Basketball Association. The Pacers had just won their first ABA title and I decided a good way to start my sports beat in Indiana would be to write about the team.

I contacted the Pacers' PR person and asked if she had any ideas for a good off-season feature. She suggested writing a story about how Bobby "Slick" Leonard, an Indiana basketball legend and now the coach of the Pacers, had built a championship team.

Sounded good to me. I got Slick's phone number and he could not have been more welcoming.

"Hey, let's get together and talk," he said. "Meet me at the Country Club of Indianapolis at 9 tomorrow morning."

Sounded good to me. A breakfast interview with a great news source.

When I arrived at the country club, Slick was nowhere to be found in the clubhouse. Finally, I wandered down toward the golf course and there he was, sitting in a golf cart. Next to him in another cart were two very big men, who I quickly found out were Mel Daniels and Bob Netolicky, two of the Pacers' stars, both topping out at 6-foot-9.

"Are you ready to play?" Slick asked with a big grin.

I started to make excuses, but he said, "You wanted to talk to me and I'm on the golf course every day. If you want to talk, you have to play."

He even brought clubs for me, although they were a very old set with worn-out grips.

Then he said, "It's you and me against those guys. We'll play $10 a hole."

I was making $160 a week and had maybe $20 in my pocket. But, what could I say?

They made me go first and I was able to at least hit the ball, sending it maybe 150 yard down the middle. Slick then crushed a drive about 250 yards, which made me feel better about the money. That is, until Mel and Neto hit their drives about 300 yards each.

I struggled around the course, playing my usual impossibly inconsistent game, and we lost almost every hole. But they were all fun guys and, after a while, I stopped worrying and just enjoyed being on the course and talking with them. I also managed to take notes as we went along.

Finally, we reached the 18th hole and Slick said to the players, "Well, guys, looks like you whupped us pretty good. We owe you about $200. That's $100 apiece."

I gulped and, wondering what I was going to say to Judy, I was about to tell them that I'd have to bring them the money later when they all burst out in laughter.

"You should see your face,'' Mel said. "It's priceless. Welcome to Indy, Harris."

Turns out it was a setup. They were just putting me on about the money. Thankfully!

Over the next four-plus years, I had a great time covering one of the best all-around basketball teams in history as they won two more ABA titles and then were absorbed into the National Basketball Association. And I loved spending time with Slick, who told great stories and gave even better advice.

My first out-of-town assignment in Indiana came on the Fourth of July weekend, a bit of a problem since our wedding anniversary is July 3. Judy, who in later years accompanied me on this assignment was disappointed but very understanding about my absence.

I was sent to Madison, IN, a city of about 40,000 on the banks of the Ohio River for another first in my budding career - an Unlimited Hydroplane race.

Before I covered my first Indy 500, I had at least seen race cars on television and read about races and race car drivers in the newspaper. Unlimited Hydroplanes, boats that traveled at speeds up to 200 mph, were totally new to me.

Indiana bureau chief Tom Dygard told me the Madison Courier was a key newspaper member and that I should make sure to help them out as much as possible. In fact, I was to use the Courier newsroom as my office while in town.

I arrived at the newspaper and was introduced to everyone as "AP's sports guy." The managing editor and sports editor offered to take me down to the pit area and introduce me to some of the key players. I was thrilled to accept their offer.

First, they introduced me to Jim McCormick, the driver of the community-owned Miss Madison. You could immediately tell how much pride was involved in having that boat representing the city and how much it meant to bring the regatta to town each year.

I met all the big names of Hydroplane racing, the major leagues of power boating, that day. The top drivers were Bill Muncy and Dean Chenoweth, who piloted the Miss Budweiser, owned by Hydroplane power broker Bernie Little.

I hit it off immediately with Mr. Little, a close friend of August Busch, owner of Anheuser-Busch and a P.T. Barnum-type character. He started telling me the history of the sport, but in a very personal way. I was captivated.

Everything was new to me. When I went back to the newspaper to write my first story - a preview of the upcoming race - my head was spinning. Too much information to cull through and organize into a sensible story.

I decided the safest thing was to keep it simple. The story I dictated to the Indianapolis bureau for the AP wire was about as basic as possible, insuring there would be no big mistakes. But it was nothing that a fan with even a rudimentary knowledge of power boat racing wouldn't know.

That evening, as I thought more about the story, I became a bit embarrassed thinking it was way too simplistic.

The next day was the day before the race and I was determined to make my race lead-in a better, more satisfying effort for the readers and for me. As I walked into the newspaper office, I caught sight of a stack of that day's papers on the counter. I was horrified.

Across the top of the front page in large bold print was the headline: "Thunderboats set for big race in Madison." And under that headline, in print almost as big, was "By Mike Harris, AP Sports Writer."

I asked the managing editor why he would use my story on a local event and, with a surprised look, he said, "You're the AP guy."

That was the first time that I realized just how big writing for the AP really was. From then on I did not take that status for granted.

Even the Indy 500 didn't quite prepare me for the speeds and sounds of my first Madison Regatta. The Unlimited Hydroplanes are nicknamed "Thunderboats," and that's exactly what they sound like. And watching the rooster tails of water flying out behind the boats is spectacular, as well.

I talked quite a bit that week with Bill Muncy, who won the Gold Cup, the pinnacle of power boat racing, eight times. He was totally optimistic about life and Hydroplane Racing.

"When you're out there on the water, it's a wonderful feeling," Muncy told me. "It's just you and the boat and, win or lose, it's an incredible feeling, one I wouldn't trade for anything."

That's pretty much the way I felt when I was caught up in covering an event like the Madison Regatta, the Indy 500 or even a political rally. It was where I needed to be at that moment. And I was just starting to understand that feeling as my career began to take off.

Judy and I were supposed to be heading home to Chicago the day after my first Indianapolis 500. Instead, we had two urgent tasks to take care of in Indy.

First, we needed to find a place to live that would be available in two weeks. Amazingly, we were able to tick that box almost immediately, finding a two-bedroom townhouse on the near north side of Indianapolis for $160 a month, including utilities.

It was part of a U-shaped 26-unit complex called Pennwood Homes and our new apartment was at the base of the U, furthest from the street. It was an easy drive to work, not far from shopping and in a neighborhood that was changing but still safe.

The next thing we had to do was visit the Indianapolis Zoo.

Judy had been volunteering in the animal nursery and the children's zoo at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago. Just weeks before coming to Indy, she found out that Lincoln Park was going to hire some women as paid zoo attendants.

The problem was that the jobs, like many in Mayor Richard J. Daley's Chicago, were patronage positions. She was told to contact our alderman to get a recommendation. Unfortunately, the neighborhood we lived in had the only Republican alderman on the entire north side of Chicago.

"Young lady, you don't want my recommendation,'' he explained. "That would probably insure that you didn't get the job."

But she did wind up getting a recommendation from a local businessman, a contact of Judy's Aunt Irene. She was offered the job but, before she could begin the new position, we were on our way to Indy.

Tears were shed.

So, here we were, the day after that first Indy 500, on our way to what was then a small zoo on the west side of Indianapolis. It was Memorial Day, so none of the zoo officials were working. But a keeper told Judy the only way she could work at the zoo was as a volunteer. She was sad but ready to start all over again.

The day after we moved into our new apartment, I drove Judy to the zoo where she was accepted as a volunteer in the kitchen, cutting up meat for the big cats and setting up meals for all the other animals.

It was disappointing, but it got her into the zoo milieu.

Eventually, she was asked to start helping out the keepers when needed. It turned into a 40-hour-a-week job, half in the kitchen and half in the rest of the zoo. But Judy persisted.

She came home one day with a bemused look on her face and told me one of the zoo bigwigs had told her women couldn't be keepers because they weren't strong enough.

My diminutive Judy, who had been throwing around 75-pound bales of hay earlier in the day, asked him for an example.

He said, "What if the barn caught fire and the elephant was inside. How would you get it out?'

Knowing that no man, except maybe Atlas, was strong enough to carry an elephant out of a burning barn, she replied, "I'd make two trips, if necessary." Apparently, that shut him up.

When the zoo hired a new curator a few months later, he called in each person who worked there for an interview. When it was Judy's turn, he said, "I don't like part-timers. Do you want to work here or not?"

She was hired for the magnanimous sum of $1.25 an hour. But the money didn't matter. Judy was finally a zoo keeper - one of the first female keepers in the country.

Her area was one of the few indoor caging areas. It included the vet clinic, the new animal quarantine, the nursery, the snakes and the big cats.

Every winter, animals from around the zoo were brought in to winter caging, which was part of Judy's area. That included birds, tortoises, monkeys and other animals.

It was a small zoo, so the animal collection had to be carefully controlled. If the animals got too big for their cages areas, they had to be traded to other zoos.

But Indy did have a pair of beautiful Tigers that Judy loved. She also became the chimp mama, adopting a young female chimp named DOC (donated to the zoo by the Downtown Optimists Club) and wound up caring for and training a baby elephant, which eventually became part of her area.

There were also times when she brought home animals that were in need of constant care, like babies that needed around-the-clock feeding or injured animals that had to be watched.

I never knew what I was going to find in our bathtub or in a cage in the living room when I got home from work.

One time, we had a three-foot iguana living in our bathtub for a few days. I asked Judy to remove the iguana and clean the tub before I showered. She then cleaned the tub before putting the iguana back in.

"Why should it live with your dirt," she said.

We were sharing one car in those days and, on one memorable morning, she asked me to stick around after dropping her off because she needed a ride to the veterinarian to get three baby leopards their shots.

Several people nearly drove off the road staring into our windows as those cute little leopards played on top of the front seat as I drove.

Most of the time, though, the zoo was just very hard work. There were frigid winter mornings when she had to carry a pail of hot water, a hatchet to break up ice in the troughs and a blowtorch to unfreeze the locks on the cages. Shoveling up behind the animals was a daily major task. And there were times when the animals didn't want to cooperate, when she had to capture monkeys that had escaped from their cages or find snakes that had somehow wriggled out of their aquariums.

It was full of challenges that Judy truly loved, and I got to hear some great stories over the dinner table.

When she got pregnant with Tory at the beginning of 1973, Judy decided not to tell the people at the zoo. Since she wore a baggy, gray jumpsuit and rubber boots at work, most of the people there had no idea she was expecting until she walked into the director's office several months before Tory was born.

"I'm giving you my two weeks notice,'' she told him. He said, "Why are you leaving?"

At that point, she unzipped the jumpsuit and showed off her very pregnant belly.

We talked about her finding a way to continue working at the zoo after the baby was born, but Judy decided being a full-time mom was going to suit her just fine. And, when Lanni came along just 16 months after Tory, that turned out to be a very wise decision.

I know she missed the zoo and the animals, but Judy was and is an amazing mom and, once Tory came along, she never looked back.

 The thought of covering a major sporting event like the Indianapolis 500 was both thrilling and daunting.

I would have been primed and ready if it was a stick and ball sport. But, auto racing? I was definitely heading into the unknown.

The morning after I heard I was going to the Indy 500, Judy was taking the car to work, leaving me to take the bus and subway. I asked her to stop at a bookstore and see what she could find about the 500. When I got home that night, she had two books for me.

The first, "They Call Me Mr. 500" by Andy Granatelli, who owned the car in which Mario Andretti won the 1969 race, I quickly read it cover to cover. It told the story of the Granatelli family's long involvement in auto racing and, in particular, the Indy race. Lots of good background, although I found out later that you had to take anything Andy said with some questions.

The name of the other book Judy found was a bit misleading. It was titled: "My First 500," and it detailed the life of a very colorful prostitute. Skimming it, I found nothing in it about Indy.

Early in the week of the 1970 race, Judy and I drove the 3 1/2 hours to Indianapolis. It was a very exciting time as we speculated on how this assignment could help me get back into sports somewhere down the line _ maybe even get me to AP's New York Sports department and a national beat.

As we neared Indy on Interstate 65, we saw the skyline of Indianapolis and the city's one and only skyscraper at the time - the Indiana Bank Building. This definitely was not Chicago.

Chicago bureau chief, Al Orton, had instructed me to get to Indy on the Tuesday before the Sunday race and report immediately to Indianapolis bureau chief Tom Dygard to get my marching orders for the week.

We drove to downtown Indy, where the AP office was located in the Indianapolis Star-News Building. Suddenly, there was an unexpected traffic jam. It turns out the Indiana Pacers had won their first American Basketball Association championship and were taking part in a victory parade through downtown. That made it impossible to drive to the office since the parade was going right in front of the building.

Welcome to Indianapolis, Judy and Mike.

I found a parking place on the street a few blocks from the parade route and we walked the rest of the way, darting between parade vehicles and drawing a glare from a nearby traffic cop as we ducked into the building.

We walked into the AP office, which was buzzing with activity. Mr. Dygard's secretary finally noticed us and asked who we were. She went into Mr. Dygard's glassed-in office, told him we were there and he beckoned us in.

Before I could introduce myself, Mr. Dygard, smiling brightly, said, "So nice to see you. Have you two done any apartment-hunting yet?"

I stared at him blankly and said something brilliant, like "Huh?"

"We're really happy to have you here,'' he said. "Our previous sports editor, Eric Prewitt, is already in San Francisco and we need you to start as soon as possible."

That's how I found out I was the new Indiana sports editor. Now it made sense what Mr. Orton had said about not letting him down.

At that point, I was 26 years old, had been with the AP for 15 months and been in the journalism business full-time for just under three years. And now I was about to become AP's youngest ever regional sports editor to that time.

We set a date for me to start in my new job two weeks after the 500 and Mr. Dygard told me to call Bloys Britt, AP's Motorsports Writer, to get my orders for the rest of the week. Judy and I left the office in a happy daze.

It was the first time I had ever traveled for business, other than going home to Madison and my parents' house when I covered the Wisconsin high school basketball tournament for the Rockford papers.

I was obviously a last-minute addition to the Indy crew and the hotel they put us in was a dilapidated Howard Johnson in a grungy neighborhood near downtown, next to a Burger King restaurant that reeked of old cooking oil. But it seemed glamorous to us. We were on a business trip and, like the song says, movin' on up.

I didn't want to do anything stupid and wasn't sure that bringing Judy along was going to be okay with the AP. But we were also short on cash, so knowing that AP was paying my way, we only ate fast food for supper and shared one meal each time we ate. That got pretty old pretty quick, so I finally decided it was okay to buy two burgers. But we still shared one order of fries and a large drink.

I called Mr. Britt at the track that afternoon. In a southern accent so thick you could cut it with a knife, he suggested both Judy and I meet him and his wife for breakfast the next day at 7 a.m. They were staying. at the Holiday Inn on the far west side of Indy, near the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Not knowing what to expect, we walked into the lobby of the Holiday Inn at the stroke of 7. There was no one there. We checked out the dining room and it too was nearly empty. I tried calling Mr. Britt's room and got no answer.

Thinking we had been stood up, I wasn't sure what to do. Mr. Dygard had given me my track credentials, so I could just drop Judy off back at the motel and go on to work. But  we decided to hang around a bit longer.

Finally, around 20 minutes after 7, a very large man - about 6-2 and maybe 300 pounds - with bushy white hair sauntered into the lobby, looked us over with a grin and said, "Y'all the Harrises? I'm so sorry. We forgot y'all were coming this morning. We already ate, but we'll join you for coffee."

He introduced us to his wife, Moselle, who greeted us warmly. We sat and talked for a while, getting to know each other before Moselle asked Judy if she's like to accompany her to the ladies room. Off they went, leaving me to talk about Indy with Mr. Britt.

When the women came back, I could see it was all Judy could do to contain herself. After a few minutes, the Britts excused themselves and Bloys said, "See you at the track. You'll find the press room right behind the garages."

It was all jibberish to me, since I had never been to the speedway. But I was excited to get there.

After they left, Judy said, "I could hardly believe it. When we got to the bathroom, Moselle said, `We were so happy to see y'all. With the name Harris and being from Chicago, we was afraid y'all would be black.' "

Now we knew why they didn't wait to eat with us.

Since auto racing was and is almost an entirely white sport, there were rarely any problems about race or color. But, from that day on, I was always aware of the underlying bias, particularly when I was covering NASCAR.

After dropping Judy off at the motel, I found my way to the speedway. Driving in the main gate on 16th Street was an eye-opening experience. The race track is a 2 1/2-mile oval which, at the time, had a nine-hole golf course inside it. The grounds are massive and huge grandstands stood alongside much of the track.

It took me a while to find the right parking area and a while longer to locate the press center, a one-story clapboard building backing up to the garage area. Bloys, who rarely left the building during the work day, except for lunch, was hunkered down in one cozy corner.

He greeted me pleasantly enough and said, "You want to get to work?"

My first assignment - which I later realized was a hazing, like a new construction worker told to find a left-handed monkey wrench - was to get an interview with A.J. Foyt, the biggest star in the Indy Car series and the biggest name at Indy.

I took my notebook and walked to the entrance of the historic garage area, unsure where to go. The old garages were mostly closed up tight, their massive wooden doors pulled down to ensure privacy. There were no signs identifying which team was in which garage, but I finally found a track office that had a diagram of the garage with car numbers and team names.

I found Foyt's garage and knocked on the door. A short, surly man opened it a few inches and said, "Yeah, what do you want?"

"I'm Mike Harris from AP and I'd like to talk with Mr. Foyt."

With no reply, he slammed the door shut.

I was standing there, feeling forlorn, thinking about what I'd say to Bloys and trying to work up the nerve to knock again, when an older man drove up in a golf cart. He was wearing a cowboy hat, an enormous belt buckle, cowboy boots and a big smile.

"You all right, son?'' he asked. "I'm JC Agajanian. Who are you?"

I introduced myself and told him my sad story. I soon found out "Aggie," as he insisted I call him, was a longtime car owner and race promoter from California and an influential man who made a fortune in pig farming and garbage collection.

"Let's see what I can do for you,'' Aggie said, knocking on the door to Foyt's garage. The little man again opened it. But his glare turned to a smile as he saw who was knocking.

"Hi Aggie. What can I do for you?,'' he said.

"Can I talk to the boss? I want to introduce him to somebody,'' Mr. Agajanian said.

I trailed them into the garage, feeling like a real interloper. We walked up to a handsome, powerful-looking man, who turned out to be A.J. Foyt. He was fussing over what appeared to be a transmission and his hands were full of grease.

Mr. Agajanian said, "Tex, I want you to meet Mike Harris. He's new to the AP and wants to talk to you. I think you should help him get started in our sport."

Foyt chuckled and shook my hand, giving me a handful of grease. "What do you want to know, kid?"

It was one of the best interviews I had with the irrepressible and unpredictable Foyt in the more than 40 years that I wound up covering auto racing and having my ups and downs with A.J.

I went back to the media center, sat down at a typewriter across the room from Bloys and wrote a story. When I handed him the copy 30 minutes later, he looked at me like I had just slapped him in the face.

"How did you get these quotes?" he asked.

"I talked to Mr. Foyt," I answered.

I had no more problems with Bloys, who treated me like a pro from that point on.

The rest of the week was a blur, as was the first of my 47 Indy 500 race days. But I do remember getting up at 4:30 in the morning to make sure my car was in line for the AP's police escort to the track from downtown. It felt amazing to be zooming past hundreds of other cars on the way to the speedway and driving through the main tunnel into the track.

On race weekend, some of the big names from AP Sports joined us at Indy. There was General Sports Editor Bob Johnson, columnist Will Grimsley and Jerry Liska, the Midwest Sports Editor from Chicago. It was all very exciting and scary to be in that elite company. I mostly listened to the conversation in the press center.

Mr. Johnson, who I had not met before, made it a point to welcome me to sports and tell me he was going to keep an eye on my progress.

In those days, more than 300,000 people showed up on race day and the air was crackling with a feeling of electricity. The Indy pre-race festivities go on for hours and are like no other event. The hair on the back of my neck was standing on end almost from the time I got to the track until the 33-car field roared through the first lap of the race at 11:35 a.m. following a 25-minute rain delay and another short delay when Jim Malloy's car crashed on the pace lap.

That first year I was mostly an afterthought. My assignment was as an observer in the south end of the pits, watching to see if there were any incidents in my area during pit stops. The long pit lane was divided into three sections by the AP and my section never had an issue that day.

I knew the speeds that the cars reached on the track, but seeing them go by one after another in a blur of color and noise was a sensational feeling. When they came down the pit lane and pulled into their stalls, the crews got busy and it was like watching a mini ballet. The movements were precise and done quickly. Four fresh tires and a full tank of fuel in about 20 seconds.
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Other than watching the action unfold in front of me, my only job was to use a phone located behind the pits to call in after caution periods to report on anything that I might have seen. I had nothing to report and could barely hear the person on the other end because of the engine noise.

The checkered flag flew in just over three hours, with Al Unser earning the first of his four Indy 500 wins. With three caution periods in the race, Unser's average speed was just under 156 mph.

After the race, I waited in the chaotic press center until Bloys finally called me over and said, "Write a story about the best finishing rookie."

It took me about five minutes to figure out that the top rookie was Donnie Allison, a NASCAR regular and the older brother of stock car star Bobby Allison. Then I had to track him down. But I got lucky, catching Donnie just as he was about to leave the track. And I got a bonus when Bobby walked up to congratulate his brother and gave me the opportunity to interview both of them.

They could not have been nicer or easier to deal with and that was definitely a precursor of times to come.

It was over and I still knew next to nothing about auto racing. But I did know, as Indiana sports editor, the 500 was going to be a big part of my life the next May and for the foreseeable future.




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