Dateline: At the turn (almost)
“The future starts today, not tomorrow.”
Pope John Paul II
Do you think we are all just oyster crackers floating in time soup?
The technical term for that is, “Predestiny,” that all things are already figured out and we are just going along for the ride. All our tomorrows are already penciled in, our ticket in, our ticket out done punched.
If this is the case then in fact there is no future we can do anything about, about is already done, a mystery to only those it’s about.
Oyster crackers floating in circles in the bowl of time soup, we’re the stir, not the spoon.
The stir.
But what if we’re on our own, all of it, that the goal was just getting the bang to be big and after that, we’re just collateral sparks.
I believe us to be the only collateral sparks in the universe that are even aware of the possibility of a thing called “future” and that the coolest thing of the big bang was the sparks, us.
And that whoever lit the fuse, knew that all along and is just sitting back watching and enjoying the light show, leaving it up to each and every one of us, to shine.
Sparks=1
Oyster Crackers=0
Yep, that’s what I believe.
“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
It is simply time for our sparks to glow brighter. We’ve lit the trail, now it’s time to cut new paths.
I’ve been reading the stuff long time B.A.S.S. employee and VP Of Publications and Communication Dave Precht has been columning about, cool stuff about where we’ve been, who took us there and brought us here, no name folks who through passion and love became big names in the annuals of B.A.S.S.
Sure, Ray Scott, but other folks like Bob Cobb, Harold Sharp, Helen Sevier, no names when 49 years ago they signed up as employees to work with this “fledgling,” and that’s being kind, organization.
I don’t know a one of them, except Ray, but they and others whose names we may never read about, they were the collateral sparks of Ray’s Big Bang idea.
Ray Scott is a showman, is larger than life and was the perfect person to be in the spotlight when this match got lit, I mean perfect person, but never forget those who stood back a few feet in the shadows and who loved this crazy idea as much as he did.
Time now to light up that shadow a bit, the names have changed but the sparks remain.
“To win the marketplace you must first win the workplace.”
Doug Conant
It is hot but the breeze off Kentucky Lake makes it a pleasant not gawd awful hot.
The banging sound of bass boat and Tundra hitch metal, the slip of tires on gravel, country western tunes float out of the speakers and rise above the murmur of the quickly growing crowd.
I am drinking something called “Blue Cherry (huh)” sweat, er, energy drink and wondering why the guy sitting on the docked pontoon boat ever thought it was a good idea to take off his tee shirt.
“Hey db.”
Walking up a sort of steep incline is Dannette Jackson, a 16-year B.A.S.S. employee, in the tournament department, who deals with things that are mostly mystery to me.
Let me be brutally honest here, I’ve been around a bunch of big, medium and small events, sports and music, and I know what it takes to put on a great show—it takes an army of folks.
B.A.S.S. has an army out here of maybe a dozen people, with maybe just 1/4 being actual employees of the kingdom, and yet these folks manage to do a flat out amazing job at every event no matter the weather, no matter this is their third week on the road, never mind some hotels are good, some are not, never mind a boatload of things.
I hang around with the names you never hear, the backstage folks other than the media because you know the media is the media and for the most part I stay away.
I know how to type, I’ve learned how to tighten a lug wrench thing and that was cool.
“So Dannette, what’s up?” and then I reach out and we give each other hugs.
“Oh nothing.” And if anyone who has ever met Dannette cannot hear her saying that then I’m a lying fool.
Journalism secret, I’ve won more awards on two words than any other two words and those two words are exactly these: “Oh nothing.”
“When you listen, its amazing what you can learn. When you act on what you’ve learned it’s amazing what you can change”
Audrey Mclaughlin
So according with equal parts Dave Precht and Google the first Bassmaster Classic was in 1971…48 years ago.
Our 50th Classic is two years away.
Dannette though is ahead of the curve on that, “So tell me this ‘oh nothing.’”
“db it’s nothing I was just thinking about how to make the Classic better. It’s great, but we’re always looking for ways to make it better.”
Now before she gets going because I know a Dannette get going moment coming when I see/hear one I say this, “Dannette you know I’m a reporter, are you telling me this as db buddy, or db writer, and if you are going to get into something good here can I write about it, flat out yes or no.”
I’ve saved countless friendships this way.
“Sure but why would you want to write anything I would say…” Once again entire careers are built on sentences just like that, and the key is to not say anything, if they want to talk they will.
“I’ve been thinking about the Classic, you know what would be great, we should invite back every living Classic winner and put them all together on a nearby lake and let them have a fishing tournament between themselves, just a couple of hours. It would be great for the sport.”
I think this is such an amazing idea I want to be perfectly clear about this, it is not my idea it is Dannette Jackson’s idea, and it is a grand one, or, classic one.
As many previous winners as possible, as far back as possible, fishing on some pond near the big show and how cool for it to happen for the 50th.
“Dannette I love that, you know what would be cool as well is that when we wheel in each Classic competitor into the arena we have a former Classic winner driving the truck that pulls the boat in.”
But Dannette wasn’t done…
“Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.”
Stephen R Covey
“I know the Toyota Bassmaster Angler of the Year title is big, huge but we should also have our own Man-of-the-Year award voted on just by the anglers for one of themselves, these guys do so much good work out there, so much volunteering and helping in crisis, we should have a Man-of-the-Year award as well.”
And as I looked at her, she just smiled, a humble smile, a smile from someone with a great idea who might not think anyone would listen.
I stood there in the Kentucky Lake heat, the two of us just looking out over the crowd and I started to remember J.J. Watts giving his Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year speech where he stood humbly on stage, hands in his pockets and said this: “This award is so much bigger than one man, this award is about the inherent good that lies within humanity.”
These anglers out here know what’s what, they know who does what off the water, they should be given the opportunity to say thank you to one of their own who goes above and beyond their game.
And we and anyone not an Elite angler needs to stay out of it and just honor the person they pick.
“Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirit. We are all the same in this notion: The potential for greatness lives within each of us.”
Wilma Rudolph
In the first issue of Bassmaster Magazine Ray Scott wrote this: “It is my plan that we lift fishing up to public par with golf, bowling and pocket billiards. It’s high time the public found out we exist.”
In the subsequent 50 years the public has found out that we exist, in our next 50 we need to show them we belong.
Belong.
Transcend the game we play and enter into the culture of our age.
We need to honor our past or our future will not honor us. Find all those who have hoisted that Classic trophy and make them a part of the 50th and every Classic beyond, make no mistake it is on their backs that this sport was built, and it will be with their smiles that it continues.
The greatest of sports are those whose athletes are as great off the field of play as on it. We need to honor those who show “the inherent good that lies within humankind,” or as I say, the kind in man.
Until we do these things we will not be able to “lift fishing,” as the man who started it all wrote back then.
We at B.A.S.S. must take our place on land just as much as we have done on the water.
And one other small thing, honor those who do so much for us, we need to hang a banner in the rafters for the fan.
You want to “lift fishing” to the par of other sports, honor your fans, your 12th man, your 500,000th man with a banner that will hang above them and says thank you for all it was then and will be 50 years from now, you who will lift us.
To Dannette Jackson, thank you for caring, and to all those other employees of B.A.S.S. who not only work there but love it and dream of things to come, and who will take us there.
And may God bless all the collateral sparks out there.
Light the way,
db
“Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.”
Jimi Hendrix