By John A. Meyers

On a fall evening in 1977, Tom Callahan, then a newspaper columnist with the Cincinnati Enquirer, was covering the fatal plane crash of the University of Evansville (Indiana) basketball team. Surveying the tragic scene where all the players and their coach died, he found himself looking at his assignment a bit differently from most of the reporters there, who were concentrating on straightforward news accounts of the disaster. Callahan was drawn to the quiet ironies, the little images that told the story behind the story: the neatly piled clothes that had fallen out of a suitcase, the bottle of after-shave lotion that was unbroken amid the debris. "Everything seems to survive," he thought then, "except people." For his story, he strung those images together, a sportswriter taking the reader to places and situations in the sports world where no purchased ticket would ever permit him entry.

This week Callahan, 36, goes behind the scenes of another sports story that is not truly a sports story at all: the football strike. Referring to the days when a strike was only a pitch, Callahan says: "The real world should of course peek in over the outfield fences in order for there to be perspective. But recently, lawyers, accountants and even narcotics agents seem to be storming those fences. There is a lot more sports news on the front page these days. Nobody laughs enough in sports now, including the people writing it. There are a lot of cranky voices and dreary stories."

Callahan, a sportswriter since 1967, unapologetically counts himself among those who would prefer that sport remain a special preserve, existing within its own metaphorical Qualities and ways of providing the fan with unexpected insights into human nature. "At the base of sport is a beauty, grace and excellence that is true to life," says Callahan. "The games themselves don't mean much, but a flash of perfection does something to the spirit that is worthwhile. People don't watch sport just to pass the time. They bring a passion to it. The best of sport is a kind of art, a ballet with its own virtuoso performances."

"Is sport essential, or just a plaything?" asks Callahan. "While a serious matter for many, sport may in reality be unimportant. This is the luxury of writing about sport: it is not monumental. In sport, a tragedy is a dropped pass. But because of sport's emotional and artistic component, fans develop a deep and personal involvement."

This week, as always, Callahan's goal is to take the reader behind the sport scene--and into the best seat in the house.

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