Copyright by John T. Reed

My oldest son Dan called my wife and me on Friday, 6/13/08 to give us news he knew would be important to us. Tim Russert had died.

Doggone it!

My wife always DVRed and watched Meet the Press. I liked to watch Tim’s other show, Tim Russert, on MSNBC as well.

He had an almost unique and wonderful combination of qualities:

A. authenticity
B. extreme likeability
C. substance

The only other prominent living people I can think of with that combination are Doris Kearns Goodwin (who revealed herself to be totally in the tank for Obama, as opposed to being an objective profesional historian, on Charlie Rose on 8/19/09) and Tiger Woods. The recent death of William F. Buckley, Jr. reduced that list by one.

The Buffalo Bills
Historian Goodwin was a frequent guest on Russert’s shows. Like Russert, she was also a famous sports fan. She loved her Red Sox; Russert, his Buffalo Bills, as well as the Yankees and Washington Nationals baseball teams. The Bills became a little bit more important to me a few years back when I was writing a new edition of my book Football Clock Management and I called the Bills to try to interview their retired, long-time coach Marv Levy about their whole game no-huddle offense. He was kind enough to call me and talk to me for about an hour. Later, when I sent him the finished book, he sent me a testimonial for it which immediately became, and still is, the most prominent one on my reader comments page.

Come to think of it, Levy belongs on that list of authentic, extremely likable, substantive, prominent people.

Fatherhood
Ironically, Tim died the friday before Father’s Day. Fatherhood was more important to him than to most people. One of his best-selling books was called Big Russ & Me. He also wrote Wisdom of our Fathers.

Big Russ was his father of whom he often spoke and whom he called after every Meet the Press Show. He also often talked of his only child Luke as well. Russert had recently gone to Italy with his son who just graduated from Boston College. I actually took my youngest son, Mike, who had never been out of the U.S., to London, Paris, and Rome at the end of May, 2008. It would have been fun to have run into the Russerts in Rome.

On May 11, 2008, Russert had this exchange with Clinton money man Terry McAuliffe:

"But it's not impossible for Hillary Clinton to win," said McAuliffe. "A lot of people have said that. Big Russ, if he were sitting here today—nothing's impossible. Jack McAuliffe, if they were with us today, they're probably both in heaven right now Tim, probably having a scotch, looking down saying, you know what: this fight goes on. It's good for the Democratic Party. Millions of people coming out to vote, it's exciting."

Not missing a beat, Russert quickly corrected him.

"Big Russ is in the Barcalounger [in Buffalo, not heaven] still watching this," he said. "God bless him."

Tim is survived by Big Russ.

Roots
I can relate to Russert’s middle-class, Buffalo roots. I grew up in the lower-middle-class New Jersey suburbs of another Northeast Rust Belt city, Philadelphia. The adults in my life were not college grads, didn’t have much money, didn’t know much about the world beyond the metro area, but they were good people who knew enough about what’s important.

I understand the late Senator Pat Moynihan’s comment to his then assistant Tim Russert. They were at a reception cocktail part full of Ivy Leaguers. Russert graduated from John Carroll College and Cleveland-Marshall College of Law. Moynihan was concerned that Russert would be intimidated. He told him, “You can learn what they know. But they can never learn what you know [from growing up middle class in Buffalo].” In addition to growing up on one of the lower socio-economic rungs of the ladder, I have since graduated from Harvard Business School, as has my wife, and our oldest son, the one who called us about Russert, graduated from Columbia. So I know the truth of Moynihan’s statement from both sides of it.

The Ivy League is a great thing and its graduates have done many great things. But there is also greatness of a different sort in the backyard barbecues of places like Buffalo and Haddon Township, NJ.

Born to do it
I have written 30 some books (70 if you count editions). The one I sell the most of is called Succeeding. It’s main message is that you need to figure out who you are and match that up to a career. It is hard to think of a better example of a guy who did that than Tim Russert.

My main reason for giving my readers that advice was to lead them to happiness. But I added that if you do something you love and were born to do, as a bonus, you are likely to be more successful because you love it. One of the subheads in my “Career Choice” chapter is “Ya gotta love it.” Others are “What you did for love,” a reference to the song from Chorus Line and “Working 20 hours a day and loving it,” a T-shirt slogan from the Apple Computer Mac team. Once again, it is hard to think of a better example of someone who proves that than Tim Russert.

Conversely, I added that if you do not get yourself into a career that you were born to do and love, you will likely be competing with someone who did and he or she will kick your butt. Once again, it is hard to think of better evidence to prove that than Tim Russert.

‘Every, every minute’
Because of Russert’s relative youth—age 58—we assumed we would have him for decades to come. He was a bit overweight. I don’t know if that reduced his life span, but let’s be careful out there. Take care of yourself.

We took Tim for granted. He was a national treasure whom we failed to treasure enough when we had him. It was characteristic that he, on the other hand, seemed to treasure every minute of life.

I am reminded of the key scene in Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town. The main character, Emily, dies young. In heaven, she learns that she can return and observe a day of her life, although it is not recommended. She insists. She is advised to pick an insignificant day, which she does. Here is what Wikipedia says about that scene.

Emily decides to revisit her twelfth birthday. She is initially overwhelmed with joy but quickly succumbs to tears when she realizes how much she took for granted when she was alive and how quickly life speeds by. She says "We don't even have time to look at one another." After one last look at Grover's Corners and being alive, Emily tells the Stage Manager she is ready to go back to the graveyard. She asks, "Doesn't anyone ever realize life while they live it? Every, every minute?"

Happy Fathers Day,
John T. Reed
6/15/08