Louis Roney: Two true tales

• Winning is everything?: After a long singing career in Europe and America, I taught singing in a university for some 24 years. I taught whatever voices walked through the door and tried to make something listenable out of them.

In sports, coaches try their best to attract incoming players who can win games and make the coach look good. There is a well-known saying, “You can’t teach a pig to sing.” Well, some kids in sports are like pigs trying to learn how to sing. Nothing good is going to come of it, no matter how much the most fervent coach may try.

In high school, our football coach was a nut about winning. “You guys must think of only one thing while you are playing and that is winning! Remember how it feels to win! Don’t even imagine anything else – understand?” He hardly ever spoke a full sentence to us players without saying “winning” once or twice. I don’t think he received much money from the school for coaching us, but he earned every cent with the threatening urgency he mustered up for us boys “to defeat” somebody or other. He did not seem to think that we boys got anything much out of playing the game and cooperating in a common cause.

“There is no second prize in life. If it would help you guys to win the game tomorrow I would cut off this arm,” and then the coach would pull up his sleeve. I didn’t believe him, of course, but his words were dynamic theater.

On the field, our passers were practicing long throws to pass-catchers, while I practiced snapping the ball to Ralph, who did our punting. A punt required a very long center snap, and I had worked on it until I was never off more than a couple of inches.

The opposing team arrived from a nearby city and we gave them the field for their warm up. We stood along the sidelines, trying to identify the guys we would be playing against and hoping they weren’t giants of some sort!

Our classmate Albert had been a studious, thoughtful and quiet boy who didn’t go out for football, but was liked by all us who knew him.

Albert was a hunter and enjoyed hunting quail in the many orange groves along the roads between Winter Park and Oviedo.

I don’t remember what the score was at the games half when a car drove out onto the field. A guy jumped out and shouted, “Albert killed himself! ... Pulled a loaded shotgun out of the back seat of his car and it went off.” Someone managed to utter loudly that there should be silence in Albert’s memory, and we all shut up without twitching a muscle. We stood around in a kind of trance, looking at the ground and not thinking much about football. After a few minutes, the game went on. Of course, we players had to finish the game. I believe we fulfilled our coach’s wish by coming out on top – I don’t know. I can’t remember much about who won that game, but I do remember well that it was the day when we lost our good friend, Albert.

• The truth about Hope: One summer evening in Fairfield, Conn., I was standing and talking to Bob Hope. Later, Bob and I were to perform in an outdoor program. Bob was going to make people laugh and I was going to sing with the Connecticut Symphony. I asked Bob, “Are you ever concerned that the public is not going to laugh at you?” “No,” he said, “people who come to see me are conditioned to laugh at anything I say. I could say ‘The sun is down’ and the crowd would hee-haw—and don’t forget my ski-jump nose and that surprised look that I put on my face when things begin to stall.”

I asked, “What do you and your pal Bing Crosby talk about when you are together?” “First,” he said, “let me tell you, Crosby and I are not pals. We have never liked each other all that much. We steer clear of each other when we can. People wouldn’t believe that if I swore to it, but kiddo, go ask Crosby and see if what I say is not the truth.” Hope turned and walked away as the smile disappeared from my face.

Well, you learn something new everyday!