The Power of Words. A conversation with Frank McCourt

4/17/96
Hero, giant, mentor -
all the write stuff

By BILL PARRILLO
Journal-Bulletin Sports Writer

       EAST PROVIDENCE -- He would walk into a room and almost immediately heads would turn. Some of those gaping might not even know who John Hanlon was but they knew - just knew - he had to be somebody important with his shock of white hair and his regal bearing. His presence.
       It's an indescribable something that sets a person apart from those around him. You either have it or you don't. The great Joe DiMaggio had it.
       So did John Hanlon.
       John left us last Sunday at age 78, and with his passing goes one of the last links to a great, great era in this newspaper's history. He was a writer here for 33 years, and he was the paper's premier columnist for 23 years before retiring in 1982.
       He finished in general news, but the bulk of his column work was done in sports. For anyone who was around him then - as I was - it was a daily lesson in the art of newspapering. He was my Joe DiMaggio.
       That was a different era, of course. Back then we still used typewriters and paper and glue pots and cut the wire copy with scissors. John would walk into the office usually around 4:30 p.m., sit at his typewriter, scratch out some leads and transitions on copy paper, and then begin typing.
       He would finish by 6:30 or so, toss the story on the copy desk and head out the door, waving as he went. But by the time he reached the elevator nearby, a bunch of eager hands would already be reaching for his copy "to see what Hanlon wrote about today."
       He was a giant and, frankly, there were a lot of giants around here then. We had Michael J. Thomas, one of the best boxing and golf writers in the country. He covered everyone from Joe Louis to Bobby Jones. Then there was Barney Madden, a terrific writer/sports editor, and Frank Matzek, a leading baseball authority, and Frank Lanning, who knew no equal as a sports cartoonist.
       Most of all, however, we had John Hanlon.
       I'm sure he quietly cringed at times at some of the desperate writings of today - the forced one-liners to get attention; the assault on decency and good taste; the mean-spiritedness.
       John never needed to stoop to any of that nonsense. He wrote smoothly and easily and never forced anything. For the most part, he wrote as he talked; he didn't lecture or pontificate. And such was his persona that if he was critical, most people figured they had it coming. The word is credibility.
       In a strange sort of way, I always felt his strong point was the way he interviewed people. He rarely "interviewed" them; he talked to them. And he shook up more than a few of them.
       John, you see, had the unnerving habit of not taking many notes. Quite often, the back of an envelope really was enough. And I wish I had had a quarter for every coach or athlete who came up after talking with Hanlon to say:
       "Hey, he's a pretty nice guy and all, and he asks good questions, but you sure he's going to get what I said right? "
       "Sure," I would laugh. "Why?"
       "The guy . . . didn't . . . take . . . any . . . notes," the interviewee would say, gasping.
       "Don't worry about it," I'd say.
       Invariably, the person Hanlon wrote about would approach me:
       "Geez, you were right," they'd say. "It was just like I said."
       It is not, of course, the recommended way to interview, but it worked for John. I have no doubt that his credibility and his presence got him interviews that might be a struggle for others. John got them all - from the most notorious of crime figures to the most notorious of prima donnas. I'm sure they figured, upon meeting him, that at least they'd get a hearing.
       I remember a time in Newport, at a Hall of Fame tennis tournament. Writers Bud Collins, Allison Danzig and myself, among others, were getting stiffed daily by Pancho Gonzalez, the great tennis pro who made John McEnroe look like a choir boy. One of the last days of the tournament, Hanlon walked in and got an hour with the great Pancho. That bothered me for a very long time.
       He was the closest thing I had to a mentor in this business, but he rarely volunteered anything. He didn't want to push himself on anyone. He didn't want to presume that you might want to hear from him. He was a shy person in that regard. However, ask him a question and you got a full answer and then some. We often talked about writing.
       "Remember two things, Parrillo," he would say. "If you want to get the real picture, be there. And always be yourself."
       Despite his basic shyness, he was a natural leader. He was a genuine war hero, he was a lieutenant colonel in the 101st Airbone Division that parachuted behind the German lines on the morning of D-Day in Normandy. He then went from D-Day to the Battle of Bulge, where his unit played a key role in the defense of a famous Belgian town called Bastogne.
       I have had people from the 101st Airborne tell me that they have no doubt that John Hanlon could have been a four-star general had he chosen to do so. And there's no doubt in my mind that he could have been anything from a Senator to a CEO of a large corporation.
       But he chose to be a newspaperman because he loved to write and he loved writing columns. He wrote in this space for a long time. To follow him has been an honor.

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