College Sport TV that is. CSTV is an all college sports TV cable network founded by a friend of mine, Chris Bevilacqua. I have some legend stories to tell about Bevi such as why Jerry Seinfeld and George Costanza’s high school gym coach was named Mr Bevilacqua or how I met William Baldwin through Bevi, but they will have to wait for another day because this story is about – surprise – an UncleLar niece, Stacey Wild (just an FYI, I didn’t take the photo, it came from her Facebook profile – unfortunately, I think the link will only work for my Facebook buds, Chris and Elliot)
Stacey is a Penn State freshman who is majoring in journalism – she also swims for Penn State’s water polo team. About two months ago, CSTV canvassed Penn State’s journalism department looking for students to co-host a TV show that CSTV broadcasts called Total Access. Total Access is weekly show that takes place on various college campuses around the country (this month the show features Penn State, Ohio State, Notre Dame, and Stanford). It’s a TV magazine style show that tries to show you a little bit of the personal side of college athletics. While the show has a studio host most of the on campus segments are hosted by a local student (usually an athlete). Stacey was fortunate enough to be selected to be the host for CSTV Total Access Penn State Orange Bowl special. So she got to travel all over South Florida in the days leading up to the Orange Bowl showing folk all the normal pre-game hype that precedes a bowl game – pep rallies, night life, beach bashes, tailgateing, etc. (worked out to be a pretty nice gig for a kid just a few months out of high school). The show will broadcast on CSTV on Thursday night at 10PM EST (9PM CST time – the Utah folk will have to check their local listings) and I thought she did a very nice job.
Stacey relationship with me is similar to Natalie Berrena’s (they’re not just any old UncleLar nieces). I have a special affection for Natalie because I used to date her mother. And I have a special affection for Stacey because I used to live with her mother. She loves to introduce me to people with the comment “Larry could have been my father”.
When I moved from State College to Pittsburgh in 1977, I moved into a two bedroom apartment in Monroeville, a suburb of Pittsburgh (13 miles closer to State College – I lived there so the trips back to Happy Valley would be shorter). I had only been in Pittsburgh for a few weeks when I ran into an old acquaintance, Pat Fagan. Pat had been a member of the Pi Beta Phi sororiety at PSU and I had gone out with a few Pi Phis (actually too many – it seems a friend of mine and I once made a bet about how many Pi Phis we could get a date with – unfortunately, they found out and we paid a bit of a price for our little indiscretion, but that’s another story for another day).
Pat was getting her MBA at Pitt and was due to graduate soon. She was lamenting to me that she had just gotten a job with IBM in Pittsburgh and would be going through six months of training to sell copiers and typewriters (for you next generation Falls who have never seen a typewriter this is what one looks like – think of it as your computer keyboard attached to your computer printer minus the middlemen of the computer processor and display 🙂 ).
Pat was a little frustrated because she was going to have to move out of her apartment in Oakland (where Pitt is located) and find a new place to live yet she had no idea where her territory would be once she finished training (it could have been as far south as West Virginia). She said she was having an impossible time trying to find a place with just a six month lease. Since I had an extra bedroom, I just suggested that she move in with me – which she obviously did.
Pat lived with me for about a year and, while Stacey likes to joke about me being her father, there wasn’t much chance of that because Pat and I had a very much platonic relationship. We did sometimes have trouble convincing people of that because in that day and age guys and girls didn’t live together platonically very often (for that matter, they didn’t live together non-platonically that much either then).
The reality of the situation was that there wasn’t much opportunity for us to get involved anyway. I had a girlfriend that I would see almost every weekend (Joanie, the girl I mentioned in a previous thread – she was still in school and I would spend most weekends back in State College). And Pat, well she had TWO boyfriends, so there was definitely no time for me. I have to give Pat credit for ingenuity the way she juggled the two guys. Eric, the one in Pittsburgh, didn’t know about Fritz, the one back in State College. Fritz, however, did know about Eric. Pat was from State College so she simply convinced Eric that she was homesick and had to go back and visit her family all the time.
I could never understand why Fritz would put up with the arrangement but I guess he knew what he was doing. After about a year of living this dual life, Pat dumped Eric, quit her job with IBM and moved back to State College and married Fritz. They’ve been married for well over 25 years now so I suppose things worked out well in the long run.
That’s my Legend story for today. Hope it was mundane enough.
PS – check Stacey out if you get the chance Thursday at 10 EST (or set your TiVo – you all do have a TiVo don’t you?)