transitions

Two American icons made transitions yesterday April 18, 2012,  and we will likely not see their equals again. . The first, the "winningest"  coach in NCAA basketball history, Pat Summitt, stepped down, eight months after being diagnosed with early onset dementia.  It would be sufficient as a memoriam just to recognize the number of wins that the Tennessee Lady Vols amassed under her tutelage, but anyone who played for her would tell you she was so much more than just their coach.  She has a career winning percentage of .842,  8 national championships, 14 conference titles, 8 times NCAA coach of the year, Coach of the Century. More significant than that however,  is the success in life of her former players.  70 former players are currently coaching, and UT had a 100% graduation rate for her students completing their eligibility; Pat Summitt produced 20 All- Americans and 12 Olympians, and 13% of all her players became professionals. All this in 35 seasons. The diagnosis early in 2011 of Alzheimer's became simply another hurdle to be met. She is the very antithesis of the good ol' boy coaches who are idols until caught with their feet firmly imbedded in the clay. (and that is an alarmingly large list, expanding daily!)

                The other transition is the final one made by Dick Clark. Many younger persons will only identify him as the old guy who they found to be simply an amusing anachronism  when he  counted down New Year's Eve.  To a teenager growing up in western Maryland however, where local radio played only two  kinds of music (Country and Western), Dick Clark was the young man who was clean cut enough to allay the concerns of  the parents who thought Rock and Roll was the devil's music, and smart enough to know that we wanted to see and hear what local radio wasn't, for the most part, playing.  When I was twelve years of age, I knew I loved rock and roll. I also knew I could only hear it at night, when AM radio signals broadcast from WKBW in Buffalo, NY and WLAC, in Nashville, TN would  "skip" enough to reach western MD. Imagine my delight when Dick Clark convinced ABC  to go national with a TV show which not only showed us new dances and styles, and played the music we loved, but also showed us artists, especially  ones  we'd never see on Ed Sullivan, because they were Black, like Little Richard or too raucous and controversial, like Jerry Lee Lewis. Dick Clark was truly a visionary in the early years of TV.  The success of American Bandstand spun off local versions in most American cities.  What he did throughout the first thirty years of his long career was cutting edge, sometimes for the better, sometimes just schlock, but always profitable.  Dick Clark ,  rewrote the book on television  in the late afternoon for teens , as Johnny Carson did  late at night for adults.  There have been many imitators, but few  with similar broad appeal.