Years ago, i thought you were both near list and now i know why. This is just fantastic. Thank you, tim. Old friend from college. Rave. Thank you all for coming. [applause]yone. Good evening, everyone. My name is Jennifer Pickel siren and im fairly new manager here at the Carnegie Library of pittsburgh and the third string players are getting tonight because the first and second were not available and i am very proud that i snuck in a sports analogy. I am also very pleased to welcome you to this event tonight, to name local event. This event is one of many i wonderful event plot to you through our partnership with pittsburgh arts and lectures. Ly the library in pittsburgh arts and lectures have beenn presenting events like this on for many years for broad ranges of audiences. We are always pleased for a very nice positive response to this event and we would invite you to next time bring a friend or two, help us promote peace and keep them going. I want to remind you that the library is open until 8 00 p. M. E tonights event had over and take your library card this evening. I would like to recognize classic lines books and more. They will be selling the bookok this evening. I want to make you aware that s. L. Price will be signing the book immediately after the event this evening. As i mentioned earlier, im newa to working at the main library, but one of my first experiences was hearing about ms. Stephanie islam, all of the staff at the library speaks extremely highly of her. Or have a longstanding wonderful relationship with her being executive dirk pittsburgh arts and lectures and i have never met her until this evening so i had the great pleasure and i will give you the great pleasure to feel about me to introduce ms. Stephanie from Stephanie Tran 11. Thank you, jen. Please got a nice group for s. L. Price purity is super, super nice. Youre going to love him. Playing through the whistle, his truly compassionate exploration of steel, football and american town is the fourth book for scott price, Senior Writer for Sports Illustrated along with more than three dozen cover stories for Sports Illustrated, has also been for vanity fair come at the New York Times, Time Magazine and the oxford american. They have propelled them across the u. S. Argentina, libya where he wrote a book. About cuba sports. Jamaica, pakistan brazil, australia and china. He has covered 10 olympic games, two world cups and countless grand slam tennis championshipss hes interviewed president s george w. Bush and bill clinton and played barack obamaplayed bc oneonone and in iowa ymca. The reviews for his writing not, raving, blowing. The New York Times whenever price writes about sports, he had said over the fence and i got taken today. Npr sports commentator i pay to read a grocery list if scott price threaded. Usa today, prices one of theth finest writers on sports anywhere. Earlier today we went over to a sports history class and he shared that he stumbled upon aru quick to and in it he found a microcosm. Didnt just produce great Football Players. Aliquippa is where america happened. Please give a warm welcome to s. L. Price. [applause] wow. Be mac well. That was quite the welcome. Nt h i dont think ive ever heard me describe, certainly not in myyde own home, that way. In its funny because i think this is being described as a lecture. Youre here for an historic event because ive never really given anything known as a lecture before except to make it and theyve never listened even though i paid for their food, ar their rent and everything else. So if you dont listen, i certainly will understand. First of all, thank you all for coming. This is a subject thats incredibly and oddly important to me. I think its a special place. If anybody is from that area specifically, i think they understand what im talking w about it last friday, bill clinton became the fourth u. S. President to visit aliquippa. By my count, barack obama did spend some time and hopeful of getting some cream during the campaign. But in the balance i believe theres only four president s have visited. The first is jfk in 1962. Two days later, he got news that the russians had put missiles into cuba and the entire cuban missile crisis began. Im not saying there; than they are. And then jimmy carter came and gave a town hall and george bush also visited at one point. George w. I think that is significant obviously that bill clintonin a visited you dont get that in a second. The same day, aliquippa played hopewell high for the First Time Since 1997 and that too is noteworthy to me because the relationship with hope all is interesting. W the to people know that tony dorsett ii believe this obviously from hes from the Hopewell School district and he played for hopewell. Aliquippa would love to claim them as their own and they should. They grew up. He went to hopewell. Two things happening were significant to me. Ill start with clinton. What i mean by that is this is a time of 99 people at this point and getting smaller. It is only 27, 28,000, may be a mess and people is a talent not by any means a large city. And yet there is something and i think the president is testament to this. Incredibly special about aliquippa. I first went up there in the fall in the 2010. The editor of Sports Illustrated named mark murray vet, who i believe his grandfather worked with the union and aliquippa and he said, see if your interested. Theyre producing incredible Football Players. Theyre winning championships in at the time is clearly dealing with the forces of the millillsu shutting down and obviously 25 years previously sorry, 15 years previously, mideighties. Go up and see what you think. So i went and wrote was essentially the longest piecey ive ever read for Sports Illustrated. I am there now 22 years. It was nearly 10,000 word and it was a specific story that aliquippa has produced great Football Players. We all met them at this point. Mike, tony dorsett, to some extent. Ll jarrell read this, ty law, sean gilbert and a slew of division e players. And athletes in general. So i wrote a story about that and how they were still it was kind of a limited story and defensiveness about the law ande about football in the face of great difficulty in great pain and triumph in their back pain. It is a pretty graphic story and some people didnt like it because it went into the paint to match. The people i wrote about paints me. Not me, but they wanted their story told. They want you to understand what it is to make it out in triumph out of aliquippa. You often hear and you wouldnt understand. Anybody whos grownup and lasted never really be said behind. Its got its hooks in you and you really cant get away from it. It had its hooks in me and i didnt even corrupt they are. They sent dan that i thought there was Something Special going on but i dont quite understand because its not just football. It is Henry Mancini when in four Academy Awards and i think 16 grammy awards. Wi Henry Mancini growing up next to shoulder terry whose son joe went on to win four Academy Awards for lord of the rings and avatar. It was james frank, the first black president of the ncaa. Jesse steinfeld corrupt on the street from joe in henry and Jesse Steinfeld became a Surgeon General under Richard Nixon and was fired for his opposition to the tobacco industry. It was forgive me for this. Could it be im falling in love . Does anybody know that song . That or steals. Thank you for coming. I cant tell you what an honor it is for me to have dr. Melvin steals here because in many ways,. Or steals experience told me how special aliquippa was because first of all he was incredibly honest to me when we spoke about his experience there. N how did i do on that song . Not bad. Not great. But what i thought was amazing was in doing my research, so im finding out all these other people who have come from ali aliquippa. And then im finding out if youre excited about the world series last night, you know, i spoke to Tito Francona and terry with the sun managing the indians last night and terry is from new brighton. Tito has lived for a long time. When i called them and said nohs evidence has been from new brighton now but im not. And from aliquippa. Make sure you say that. There is this pride of place that continues. Bad idea of greatness raising out of tragedy, out of pain is something obviously appealing to any human being does a writer at school. It happened on the football stes field, but to me, that story stuck with me because dr. Steals was teaching and aliquippaystemt School System at a time of great racial tunnel. I dont know if you told me this, but i stumbled upon this story for dr. Steals wrote a letter to the paper because he was accused wrongly of starting some rays tumbled and fighting and aliquippa for taking students to a movie called holes that anger. He wasnt the person responsible, but he defended himself there. Meanwhile, at a certain time and attention was tight, dr. Steals them as brother, who worked at jm al, they both studied music in philadelphia under the great there sits down and had a realtime attention right this beautiful song. Could it be im falling in love, which is about still send his way and happy anniversary. You should be up here. [applause] back to me with something aboutp aliquippa. The former basketball player and his family story is a tough one. His mother saw some airy test thing and he was emblematic of many blacks who had come up with the great migration. His family had come up in the 20s and 30s. But even not its toughest time, aliquippa is doing special things. As a writer, you cant resist a story like that. I know that there are many towns in western pennsylvania that has great athletes in this book is clearly not just about athletes. I know that many towns in western pennsylvania had labor troubles and problems with management and search might have problems after the mills shut down. Ve 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 mid80s 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 and so i think this town what has happened to it is important. So, when i say representative in the extreme i mean there were Labor Management tensions elsewhere but in aliquippa, jones and laughlin had a defacto police state, they called little hell and little siberia and they stoked divisions between ethnic groups. Kept them in plans. Part of that your family comesrt over, say you come from the ukraine or poland you will want to gather in the family in the community that you recognize but allen enforced that because that was helpful keeping people divide and stopping union organization. J and l would, as a tactic of division obviously thehe africanamericans who came up from the south got the worst jobs and the lower salaries and less chance of advancement, and j l would take it a step further. They would pay or intimidate black workers to start fights with whites and then very conspicuously allow the, both of them be hauled off to jail and very conspicuously let the black worker go free and inciting more resentment and more resentment. J l, famously or infamously, there is management tension everywhere but j l and harry mock and his police force kidnap ad man named george for passing out union cards and sent him toe insane asylum. The wife of the governor pi in. Ch and essentially rode into town and denounced j l and broke the psycho stranglehold on the town and the wagner act which is really the Foundation Stone of,a Legal Foundation of unionism in america and was based and certified before the supreme court, the test case involved the a la quip pa 10, including men, o royal boyle. One of the 10 black men was royal boyle, even there was great representation of blacks in aliquippa. Then the crack epidemic hitdruga alley quip past the crack epidemic hit aliquippa like a typhoon. For example, tony door sets nephew was running the biggest crack ring in town. His, the crack ring was broken finally by mike warfield. A former a la quip pa quarterback who was things happd and extreme strokes. That remains a mystery to me. I wanted to say how and what happened in aliquippa, i wont be able to fully explain why aliquippa produces so many great Football Players even more than the norm in western pennsylvania. Why so many so many dramatic things that forces, cultural forces that worked their way in a negative sense through the rest of the culture, sort of blossom in such a extreme way in aliquippa. Today the mayor of aliquippa is duane walker, the first africanamerican mayor in aliquippa history. Again football is a threw line through all of this. Football is not just a place of community, togetherness, and expression of pride but, he, it is just a central narrative thread that is unavoidable when you talk about aliquippa. It doesnt just belong in the pit or the football field. Dwane walkers sister, was killed by an aliquippa football player. Because of that he was motivated to finally run for office and take office. Its been a extraordinary extra combination of elements that have made aliquippa what it is. Again i was challenged rightfully at a, at, i will get letters every once in a while or notes from people from other towns in western pennsylvania, alley quip parks you should write about braddock or clareton were just as good. Im not denying any of that, but there are two things at work when i decided to focus on aliquippa. There were so many names and famous names. Makes life easy for a writer because there are a lot of names people dont know. I include a lot of names. Every once in a while it is relieving to the reader to see ditka or to see tony dorsett and understand their story. They have seen them on tv so they recognized and so that was helpful. The idea of extremes, representation in the extremes. There is something about this town that really made me believe, as was said, said in the introduction, not just a place that produced great football but a place where america happened and continues to do so over and over. I, i, i like i said, it was a place of, it was a place that had great racial trouble in the early 70s, starting even way back to the early 60s when there was a lack of black cheerleaders on, basically blac cheerleaders in the school for football and basketball and so on but it really hit a head, 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 things because, i cant, i cant tell you how much youre dealing with a writer here. Not very good at speaking, and not, it is not my training. So im going to read a little bit about a great man named geno per rolly, it will all come full circle. You will finally say this guy makes some weird sense. Hold on. I will not go to geno piroli yet. I will go to mike ditka, it is great to have a famous name to deal with. So let me, just Everybody Knows mike ditka, right . I dont need to make a introduction. Okay. He was little mike and his dad was big mike at the time. But little mike had this quirk. He knew the rules. He respected rules. He felt better in a world with rules, yet he was constantlyly breaking the rules anyway, seeking out mischief, taking beatings in return. The he went to st. Titus elementary school. Served as altar boy. He stole a Christmas Ornament off the tree at the nearby library and bean ad buddy in th. Eye. Six stitches, nuns found out, the belt came out, big mikesut belt. Tomatoes thrown at houses. Garbage cans turned over, kids glasses broken, big mike. Nearly burned down ditka said. My dad smoke luckys. Co we were in cement culdesac and sitting all over, smoking lucky strikes when years old, youre dizzier, and there go the woods. That goes into the weeds. We tried to put it out. Wind is blowing. Finally got it out. Firemen came. My dad looked up and said what happened to the woods . [laughter]. Te i didnt know that was funny when i wrote it. My mother said, you will have to ask your son. Charlotte ditka is a great character as well. That was it. Boy, i got my ass whooped. That was the worst one i ever got. St i dont think i smoked a cigarette since, ditka paused, but i do smoke cigars. The safest place for such a soul, needing mayhem mixed in the with comfort of defined parameters was sports. It was perfect fit. Anything that snacked of competition, little mike played with bottomless furry. They stole a ball autograph by pi etrain nor first kid hit a home run. Ditka smacked one in his first came. In pony league, mike pitching, mike stalked out and made them switch positions. When the shortstop made an error he took that kids place. Another time playing legion ball, ashton who went on to a fine College Baseball career at bucknell, drop ad gamewinning flyball. Little mike chased his little brother out of the stadium and jumped fence and ran him down and thrashed him. It was bad, ditka said. I never filth like i was doing anything wrong. Never ever. That has changed, right. I knew others didnt feel the way i felt. I had tunnel vision. I dont know where you get the competitive feeling. Growing up it start the marbles, playing tag, touch football, stick ball i hated to lose whatever it was. You know why . I expected to win. I never expected to lose, never. That is why losing was so hard. That was a new attitude for a town that by the time ditka entered high school in 53 had its first taste of the football glory. Y. Baseball brought its first wipll town and basketball teams would regularly compete for wipl titles. Ashtons toughness resonated like no clean single or give and go ever could and winning made it irresistible. Making the High School Team became a badge of honor. Why . That was part of what you were and part