Bob Leavitt is a big bear of a man. Half teddy, half grizzly. One day, he could tear you apart mercilessly for some sloppy work in the newspaper, and the next day he would leave a box of Christmas fudge in your mailbox. In my formative years at The Peoria Journal Star, he was one of many mentors who helped shape my journalistic worldview.
He taught me how to singlehandedly keep a full stat sheet for high-school football and basketball games, using only a Bic four-color pen and a sheet of graph paper. He taught me that the most comfortable way to write a story was to prop my feet up on the desk, recline back in the chair and rest the keyboard across my knees. I am typing this in that exact pose.
What Bob really taught me, however, was that I was human, and humans make mistakes. Finding me despondent over a mistake in the paper one day, Bob sat down next to me and let out one of his heartbroken sighs. “Well, Vess, what can I say?” Of course he knew what he was going to say. “Look, doctors bury their mistakes, O.K.? Lawyers lock theirs away. We print our mistakes in the paper for the whole goddamned world to see.”
What Bob really taught me, however, was that I was human, and humans make mistakes. Finding me despondent over a mistake in the paper one day, Bob sat down next to me and let out one of his heartbroken sighs. “Well, Vess, what can I say?” Of course he knew what he was going to say. “Look, doctors bury their mistakes, O.K.? Lawyers lock theirs away. We print our mistakes in the paper for the whole goddamned world to see.”
And with that, he slipped away into the night to deliver 15 inches of impeccable copy on deadline from some high-school gym somewhere in Central Illinois.
For Leavitt, getting things right or wrong was important, of course, but maybe not as important as learning from those mistakes. Those part-timers who learned from our mistakes were welcome to Leavitt’s tutelage. Those who didn’t were ignored until they came around, or flittered off into new professions.
I was still a cub reporter when I drew an assignment to accompany Leavitt to Collinsville, Ill., for what was essentially one of the biggest stories of the year: Dick Van Scyoc, the legendary basketball coach at Peoria Manual High School, was one victory away from the state’s all-time record. It was not just a journalistic vote of confidence from the sports editor to get the assignment; it was also a signal that Leavitt thought he could put up with me all day. He did not suffer fools lightly, often flying into a frothy, red-faced rage in the face of incompetence or ineptitude.
And this story had to be a big deal for Leavitt, too, who is just as venerated as Van Scyoc in Illinois high-school sports circle. This was a record decades in the making for both of them, one that began for Van Scyoc before I was even born and one that Leavitt had been covering for God knows how many years. Yet, as happens in life, our paths somehow came to this convergence where 69-year-old Van Scyoc was going to be cast into immortality and 23-year-old me was going to chronicle it. Of course, for Leavitt, whose age was somewhere ambiguously between ours, was typically low-key about the whole thing. For Leavitt, it seemed to have of boiled down to nothing more than a long fucking drive in the middle of winter. To Leavitt, it was almost a comical conspiracy. Here Van Scyoc had won the vast majority of his games within two miles of the Journal Star, and yet the record-breaker was going to come more than 150 miles away. Van Scyoc was probably in on it, in Leavitt’s mind. Anything to inconvenience Bob.
There were dozens of coaches who got much warmer treatment in the paper from Leavitt, who perhaps saw Van Scyoc as nothing more than a running total of victories. Because as much as Leavitt respected Van Scyoc, he never missed an opportunity to point out that the soon-to-be winningest coach in Illinois history already held the record for the most losses. Nor did he ever fail to mention that in spite of all of those victories, Van Scyoc had never won a state championship. Any mention of the impending record invariably came with those two disclaimers attached to it. And I’m pretty sure Coach Van had caught on to that over the years.
We had left Peoria early in the morning in one of the Journal Star cars, giving ourselves plenty of cushion for a nearly three-hour drive and a 3 p.m. basketball game in Collinsville, in suburban St. Louis. We drive mostly in silence, not a lot of chit-chat, listening to Meat Loaf’s “Bat Out of Hell” album, which I had been forewarned was a staple of any road trip with Leavitt. So we hurtle down I-55, just your average college student and middle-aged sportswriter in the company car listening to “Paradise by the Dashboard Lights” on a Saturday morning.
We near Collinsville and get off the Interstate, Leavitt telling me that he’s not entirely sure how to find the high school. As surprised as I am to learn this, I am not at all surprised to learn that he knows of a good taco stand along the way.
Bob finds the taco stand north of Collinsville as if he’d been going there since he was a teenager, though he claims he’s never been there before. We order a couple of tacos and a couple of tamales from a kid who looks like he was sent from Central Casting just to work the counter of a taco stand in Southern Illinois. As the kid is packing our bag, Leavitt leans forward on the counter and says, “Say, would you happen to know where Collinsville High School is?”
“Sure,” the kid says. “I go there.”
“Then you’re our man. How do we get there from here?”
“From here?” the kid asks, inadvertently lighting Leavitt’s patience fuse. Leavitt’s chin drops slightly toward his chest and his eyes close, but he pulls it together enough to say, calmly, “Yes. From here.”
“Hmm, let’s see,” the kid says, staring at something on Saturn. The muscles in Bob’s forearms tense up as he grips the counter; his jaw likewise clenches. “O.K., the first thing you have to do is first pull out of our parking lot.” He pauses again and barely escapes death from the evil from behind Bob’s sunglasses. “Follow this road awhile, and when you see the big ketchup bottle, just turn right and that road will take you to the high school.”
There is a long pause, and I have to admit that even I’m not sure if I’ve heard this kid right. Leavitt’s head stays stock-still, his death glare focused right between the kid’s eyes.
“Did you just say,” Leavitt says measuredly, “that I’m looking for a big ketchup bottle?”
“The big ketchup bottle, yup. Just turn right there.”
“The big ketchup bottle,” Leavitt says again, clearly no closer to understanding this directive. Leavitt looks at me, but I have no answers for this. This is between them. The kid is still smiling, oblivious to the fact that he is poking a stick of incoherence into the hungry gut of a big angry bear.
Leavitt turns back toward the counter. He is bemused. “And you’re telling me that I can’t miss the big ketchup bottle?”
“You can’t miss it.”
“You’re sure? There’s absolutely no way to miss the big ketchup bottle.”
“None. It’s really big.”
This is the moment where Bob either reaches over the counter and silently strangles this kid or simply says O.K. and cuts his losses.
“O.K."
I follow Bob out of the taco stand, and we climb back into the Journal Star car without a word between us. There is nothing but the sound of the wind and the tires on the wet pavement. After but a few minutes, a bend in the road reveals before us what can only be described as the Eiffel Tower of ketchup bottles. It is at least 150 feet tall and bright red. The label, in 20-foot letters, says, "Brooks Old Original Catstup." I don't say a word, and honestly, I don't even know what word I would say, but Leavitt turns his head toward me and shows a sly little smile. He knows he's been had. Then, as calm as your grandfather sitting outside the barbershop, he says: "Whaddya think, Vess? Is that the big ketchup bottle? ... Or do you suppose there's a bigger one down the road?"
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