Former BJ columnist has a 6th book published, “Football, Fast Friends, and Small Towns.”
One of Steve’s other five books is “The Holden Arboretum,” which I
visit every year when the rhododendrons, the state flower of West Virginia, are
in bloom in the spring.
Steve
also wrote “Stan Hywet Hall & Gardens” (University of Akron Press) and
co-authored with former BJ columnist David Giffels “Wheels of Fortune: The
Story of Rubber in Akron” (University of Akron Press) and with former Akron U. and
Notre Dame football coach Jerry Faust “The Golden Dream” (Sagamore).
Steve’s
other book is “Don Plusquellic,” about the irascible and
always-in-the-spotlight former Akron mayor.
He
also had a hand in two BJ Pulitizers, for James Goldsmith’s greenmailing of
Goodyear that cost the company millions and cost many workers their jobs, and
for A Question of Color, about race relations in Northeast Ohio.
Steve got his college degree from California State University at
Chico.
This is the email I got from Steve about his latest published work:
“John.
“Hope you can use
what you think is useful and add to it as you will.
“I consider your
website an important conduit for ABJ information.
“Steve”
Here is the
information that Steve emailed me:
In an effort to
prove that while he may be gone and forgotten but is not yet qualified for the
Wall of the Dead, former Beacon Journal columnist Steve Love has written a
sixth book. (One of the previous five was written with the more famous David
Giffels and another was written for the even more famous Gerry
Faust; the writing rasps like Gerry.)
Steve’s new book is
“sort of” a memoir. Sort of, because he set out to write a collection of linked
essays about quarterbacks whose play and lives he admired but ended up writing
not only about football but also friendship, small towns, like the one in which
he (mostly) grew up, a journey in journalism and the really good and bad things
in life. It got so bad at one point he thought he had been consigned to the Death
Beat.
His previous five
books were published by the University of Akron Press, with the exception
of The Golden Dream, which Sagamore Publishing put out before
turning into Sports Publishing and then . . . it has had a few other
incarnations but lives on. That might be a good definition of Steve’s career if
you believe the late Dale Allen. He hired Steve to write a metro notes column,
lived to regret it and gave Stuart Warner the job.
In his spirit of
good humor—or maybe laughing from the grave—Dale presented Steve with the
portion of his unpublished memoir and it is now published in Steve’s Football,
Fast Friends, and Small Towns: A Memoir Straight from a Broken Oklahoma Heart.
Dale’s contribution—lamentation—explains how he came to bring Steve to Akron.
Steve explains the
hostility, not entirely unwarranted, with which he was welcomed.
It is all good fun,
even if it hurt at the time, Steve said. Since the book did not fit the
University of Akron Press, though there is a concluding chapter devoted to
Steve’s Akron adventure, and the University of Oklahoma Press declined the
pleasure of publishing the book, Steve did it himself with the help of 1106
Design, a Phoenix company. They provided editing, proofreading, cover design
(ain’t it beautiful?), interior design, and a lot of hand-holding for which
Steve says he is grateful. Hardly anyone wants to hold his hand since he got
old and forgotten and deep into cranky land.
In the publishing
process—Steve’s publishing company is called Hawk Bookworks because Hawkins was
his mother’s maiden name, his nickname growing up, and made for a damned fine
logo—he also launched a website that includes a mostly football blog. It can be
found at stevelovewriter.com and Steve welcomes visitors who play nice. (Seriously,
how does a person write about this kind of thing without poking fun?)
Since the BJ Alums
site is where Steve goes to learn important things, like who died, he thought
he should submit this to John Olesky, to whom all of us should be grateful for
taking the torch from the late founder Harry Liggett, who hated me before
reconsidering. Thankfully, any number of Steve’s former colleagues—not all, of
course—eventually came to accept him if not actually like him, and that is what
he will always remember.
(The book is
available from your favorite bookstore, Amazon.com, my website or other online
book sites. ISBNs: Trade Paperback $16.99—978-1-7351227-0-0; Hardcover
$29.99—978-1-7351222-2; eBook $7.99—978-1-7351227-1-7)
If you want to contact Steve, you can go to steve@stevelovewriter.com His Hawk
Bookworks, so named in honor of his mother, is:
Hawk Bookworks
P.O. Box 400
Uniontown, OH 44685
A Uniontown mailing address, as the late State Editor Pat Englehart
often told his editors and reports, means someone who lives in Stark, Summit or
Portage counties. So look it up! (That’s Pat’s voice in my head.)
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