The Eighty Yard Run

The 80 Yard Run

Series
WBAI And NPR Playhouse
Original Broadcast Date
1978
Cast
Joe Frank
Format
Narrative Monologue, 1 hour
Chronology
Preceeded by by:	Jewish Blues
Followed by:	Early Stories From NPR Playhouse

"Now the story of my, as I like to call it, my infamous eighty yard run, is a rather twisted, convoluted tale."

The 80 Yard Run is the name of a program Joe Frank produced as part of the series WBAI And NPR Playhouse.

Synopsis

Joe tells stories of boxing in the early '60s. He begins by describing the notorious Emile Griffith - Benny Paret match (1962 March 24). His account is factually wrong. He must have known the facts. I propose he chose to make it more dramatic. You can read my detailed explanation at http://www.armory.com/pipermail/joe-frank-list/2020-October/001298.html The differences don't violate the essence of the story.

He moves on to bouts between Griffith and Luis Rodriguez (Joe says they fought 3 times; it was 4.), Griffith and Ruben 'Hurricane' Carter (the guy in the Bob Dylan song), culminating with Rodriguez's upset victory over Carter. I haven't read accounts of those fights but Joe got the winners right.

24:10: Hydra (Grover Washington Jr)

25:20: Joe talks about bullfighting.

27: Joe tells of the first great bullfighter to admit fear, 'El Gallo' (a nickname) Rafael Gómez y Ortega. The brief article in Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_G%C3%B3mez_Ortega , says that it needs additional citations for verification. It is so much like Joe's account I don't trust it. An Internet search turned up https://elsitiodeconcha.wordpress.com/2011/05/03/ahora-que-viene-la-feria-taurina-de-san-isidro/ which has a brief description of him; 2 other links copy this (I don't know which is the original.) Joe's account is consistent with this article; I suspect they didn't get anything from Joe. If someone knows more about bullfighting or an expert to consult I'd love to hear about it. In his next show, Arena, he mentions waiting for a book about another bullfighter.

31:30: Joe recurs to his 80-yard run; he's off to the University of Iowa for grad school at the Program in Creative Writing (nicknamed Iowa Writers' Workshop). He says the director when he was there was Paul Engle. Engle was the second director of the program, the one who promoted it to fame. He left this post in 1965. Joe says Engle dubbed Iowa City 'the Athens of the Midwest'. I can't find this citation, though others have made it and credited Engle for having made it that. Just about every Midwest town with a large university (e.g., Ann Arbor, Columbia MO, Madison WI) has claimed this title. (I've been: it's okay; haven't been to Athens - hope it's better.) (I e-mailed the workshop; they only keep records of alumni; Joe didn't graduate.)

33:20: Joe says Iowans love football (wasn't the case when I lived there, but their teams were weaker then.) He says their team was rated #1. The last year this happened was 1960, when Joe was 22. Joe says that Forest Evashevski was the coach; 1960 was his last year as coach. (He went on to become the athletic director until 1970.)

34: Joe tells of the mounting excitement before a football game.

39:10: Joe tells of the festivities after a major football game. Joe attends a showing of old silent comedies at the university auditorium. It's crowded. A woman behind him presses against him. He gets excited. Because of the darkness and the crush he doesn't find out who she is.

46:20: Joe joins a late-night football game played by intoxicated people with a pair of socks rolled up into a ball in a pasture. There were no boundaries so you could run as far sideways as you wanted. Joe gets the ball, outruns and fends off all defenders, makes the eponymous run, but bulls keeps him from scoring.

• Boxing - a small boxer fights a very large boxer.
• Bullfighting - the first bullfighter to show fear, and his final dedication.
• Iowa city - the Athens of the midwest.
• Football in Iowa.
• An erotic encounter in a crowded theater.
• An amateur football game with no rules.

Music

• "Son of Stiff Neck" - Larry Coryell & Steve Khan (from "Two for the Road", 1977)
• "Hydra" - Grover Washington Jr. (from Feels So Good, 1975) | YouTube

Commentary

Please see guidelines on commentary and share your personal thoughts in this section.

Bob Carlson from KCRW

"The 80-Yard Run was the first Joe Frank program I ever heard. It was produced back in 1977. It confused me and scared me a little, because while it was hypnotizing, it was also unsettling. Part of it seemed like autobiography, part of it was about boxers of the 1950s, and the end just spun off into a surrealistic dream. In other words, it had some of the same elements that Joe continued to perfect during his decades of work.

"I know that Joe didn’t like The 80-Yard Run very much. His is voice higher than his later shows, the sound mix isn’t always perfect, and Joe even takes a break to get a cup of tea halfway through. But I like the roughness of that very early episode. It shows Joe’s creativity while it was still percolating, while he was still getting a handle on what he was doing." [1]

Ira Glass

“I felt everything I understood about radio was broken in an instant,” Glass says, “when he said, ‘I am going to fix myself a cup of tea, and be right back in a moment.’ And there is this break” [2]