By Clint Wilhelm
It's Monday, February 18, barely one month into the 2002 spring semester at West Virginia University. Room 302, Dr. George Esper's office, sits directly in front of the stairwell on the third floor in Martin Hall, the oldest building on the WVU campus and the home of the Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism.
I arrived at 11:30 a.m., 45 minutes late for the interview that I set up with Dr. Esper. He didn't seem to mind. He sat at his computer table engrossed in reading and returning e-mail messages. "I'll do these, and then I'll show you what I'm doing," he said, never removing his eyes from the screen.
Most people, including many students, refer to Dr. Esper as George. His humble nature allows for that. George's office had before him belonged to his longtime friend, Chris Martin, who became dean of the School of Journalism in April 2000 after teaching there for nearly 10 years. Two framed pictures, remnants from Chris's days there, are all that decorate the office walls.
The agenda for the next few hours centered on preparing for the evening's public radio panel for George's spring semester class, "The Role of the Journalist in War." His class would offer several different panels and speakers to the local and University communities throughout the semester. That night's panel was titled, "The Sound of Terror: Public Radio and the September 11 Attacks," and it featured David Sweeney, deputy senior national editor for National Public Radio in Washington and Jeff Young, adjunct professor in the School of Journalism and North Central News Bureau chief for West Virginia Public Radio. George orchestrated a whole series of activities this day that made pulling off the event seem easy.
George
offered me his welcoming glance and kind-hearted grin—slightly
toothless, a little bit crooked, and enhanced by the warmth in
his face and eyes, and then he again focused on his computer
screen, occasionally whispering to himself as he typed.
After some time, George stood up from his computer table and walked with his distinguishable gait—left foot limp, right foot pull, left foot limp, right foot pull—around to his executive desk where he could use the telephone. A combination of arthroscopic surgery on his knee and poor circulation due to several years of living with diabetes and hypertension have left George's joints and limbs feeling stiff and numb, especially after sitting for a long time.
George picked up the telephone and called Kim Phuc at her home in Toronto, Canada. He looked at me as he pressed the phone against his right ear and listened for the answering machine.
"Kim is in Paris right now, but I want to leave her a message to call me as soon as she returns," George said.
Kim is sometimes referred to as 'the napalm girl.' As a young girl in Vietnam she had the clothes burned off of her body in a napalm attack. As she ran down the road with her brother and many other terrified people, AP photographer Nick Ut took what became one of the most famous photos of the Vietnam War. Kim, Nick, and Eddie Adams, also an AP photographer during the Vietnam War, would visit the school on April 23 as part of another panel for George's class.
"This is George Esper again. . .sorry to trouble you." George said into the phone. "Can you call me when you get back? We are trying to finalize your trip here to West Virginia. We can fly you here from Denver. I know it's a long trip, but we love you here so much and we'd love to have you here."
George covered the war in Vietnam for 10 years. He nearly won a Pulitzer Prize for his front page New York Times story on the fall of Saigon. He spent a lifetime as a journalist working for the AP and covering some of the most important news assignments around the world, although admittedly none would ever compare to Vietnam.
"We had a sense of doing something very important in Vietnam," he said.
If he could create that journalistic world again, he probably would. But instead of chasing down the top news stories of the day, George now teaches, encourages, and mentors student journalists, giving them some of the same support that he enjoyed as a student at WVU.
One of George's first mentors, Eddie Barrett, the WVU sports information director who George worked for during his first three years in college, said that in 14 years he had a dozen protégés and George was ultimately one of the most successful.
"My most successful protégés were the ones with drive and ego," said Eddie. "You may not think that George has ego. He does, but he spends his ego through other people. The best description I can give of George," Eddie continued, "is that he thinks everyone else is a celebrity."
When
Chris Martin became dean of the School of Journalism in the fall
of 1999, she had a mandate to fill the Shott Chair of Journalism,
which had been fully endowed but vacant for some years. She wanted
to fill it with someone who could bring immediate prestige to
the position.
"The first person that I thought of was George," she explained. "So I called him and the AP gave him a leave of absence to teach in the spring semester of 2000. He, of course, was phenomenal. George comes in and he's got all the enthusiasm of a newly minted assistant professor. Although we knew from the beginning that they wanted someone on a more permanent basis, I didn't want to lose George. That's when I approached the Nutting Foundation about this endowed visiting professorship. They said great, try to get him for three years, which is the maximum time allowed."
"I agonized and agonized over the decision," George said. "I didn't get back to Chris until August and the semester was starting in just a few weeks. I knew once they filled the three-year spot that it might not be available later."
Finally, George decided that after 42 years it was time to retire from the AP.
Chris Martin knew what to expect from the former AP Saigon Bureau Chief before he even accepted the position. The two met twenty years ago when she worked as a reporter for the Herald-Standard in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, the same newspaper where George started as a sportswriter while a senior at WVU. After the war, when George was in town visiting friends and family, he'd visit the Herald-Standard to talk shop and hang out with the staff.
Chris recalled George's 'heart and soul' story from those days in the early '80s when he visited them. When he had a member of the staff alone, he'd say, "'Well, you know, Chris. . .' or 'You know, Paul, . . . you're the 'heart and soul' of this newspaper. . .'" At some point the reporters compared notes and realized that according to George, they were all the 'heart and soul' of the Herald- Standard.
"We tease him about it now," Chris said. "The truth is that he meant it to everyone. And when he told you that, you were the 'heart and soul' of the Herald-Standard."
George has worked hard for everything he's ever earned in his life. Born on September 16, 1932, the ninth child of 10 for Mike and Marsha Esper, who emigrated from Lebanon to Uniontown, Pennsylvania, in 1915, George started life with work to do. Poverty, a strong immigrant-family work ethic, teenage fear and anger about not pursuing his own dreams, and an incredible desire "to be somebody" all pulled at George through his youth and early adolescence.
George helped support the Esper's two family businesses located next door to their home: a beer garden called Ann's Cafe, named after George's oldest sister who also managed it, which was separated by a wall in the building from Esper's Groceries. He swept sidewalks and floors, washed windows, and carried empty beer and liquor bottles into the basement.
George started waiting on customers in both businesses when he was in junior high. He opened Ann's Café every morning before walking to Ben Franklin Junior High School. Then he'd come home from school at 4:00 p.m. and work until midnight, getting so tired and bored and cold in the wintertime that he rested his head on the radiator for heat. What frustrated him most was that he wanted to play high school sports but his obligation to the family businesses interfered.
George argued with his father. They argued a lot about working late in the store and the beer garden.
"I hate this place," George would say. "I never get to do anything."
"Well," his father would say in broken English, "that's the place that feeds you and gives you clothes. Stop complaining."
That
period of George's life made him promise that someday he would
make something of himself and accomplish his goals. At the time,
even though he weighed less than 150 pounds, he aspired to be
an All-American college football player who would run out onto
the football field with everyone cheering for him. "Then
you're somebody," George remembered saying to himself, "you're
not some guy, some Lebanese guy, sitting in a grocery store with
his head on a radiator."
In the graduating class of 1950 at Uniontown Senior High School, George Esper sat on the brink of realizing his dreams. No longer would he have to help operate the family businesses. He could finally pursue his dreams.
That fall, George began classes at WVU. He chose physical education as his major because it fit his dream to become a college football All-American.
On the first day of tryouts for the freshmen team, George jumped into the scrimmage game between the freshmen and the varsity. He was small, awkward running with the football, had no experience in junior high or high school football, and he wasn't afraid of anything.
"When I'd turn my back, there would be George with the ball again. I was just afraid that he wouldn't get up," said Gene Corum, WVU freshman football coach in 1950, as he remembered one of his first encounters with George Esper.
"After that scrimmage game I had to pull George aside and ask him to give up football. I told him that I appreciated his effort and interest. He immediately broke into tears. He had everything but physical ability for football. 'George,' I said, 'I'd like you to be our team manager.' His morale came back full force after a short five-minute disappointment. And that was it, he spent the next four years as manager."
George decided on the spot that he would become the best college football team manager ever.
"I've never admired a person more than I've admired George Esper," Gene Corum said. "Everything I know he ever did, he did well. As the team manager, George made my job easier. He was dependable with the equipment. He knew what we needed each day and made sure it was there. He tutored the players—completely on his own time and initiative—to help some of them get through school. George never missed practice. He would stand close enough to the huddle that he could hear the play called and then watch it play out."
Soon after that, George met Eddie Barrett. Eddie asked George to write for him because George knew the players and the plays. Now, at the beginning of his freshman year, George found a new dream—he would become an outstanding sports writer like Red Smith who he had always read in the newspapers while he was growing up.
George and Eddie worked closely together, often ending up at Tony's Restaurant on Beechurst Avenue until 2:00 a.m. eating toast and drinking coffee. Eddie and Tony came up with the idea to name George the All-American college football team manager. Eddie even wrote a press release to that effect. George's mother had that article from the Uniontown Morning Herald lying by her bedside when she died in George's sophomore year.
A picture of George hung in the hallway near the coaches' offices of the old stadium for the next 16 years until a new coaching staff came in and put their own pictures up on the walls. Under George's image it said, "All-American Football Manager."
George worked so hard that he spent many nights sleeping on the couch in the coach's office. George adopted Eddie Barrett's drive for perfectionism.
"I didn't let a news release get out of there if there was a comma out of place," Eddie said. "What also made George a perfectionist was his drive to succeed. He was just persistent. He was dogged to get a story."
In his senior year, George landed a job as a sportswriter with the Morning Herald in Uniontown. He worked until 2:00 a.m. and would sometimes find himself so tired that he'd miss his early morning classes at school. Then he'd leave school in the afternoon and get to work around 2:00 p.m., where his sister waited with a brown bag dinner for him. George graduated with a B.S. in physical education in 1953.
George's plan for long-term success started small but got bigger in increments. One year after he started with the Morning Herald, George joined the Pittsburgh Press. The Morning Herald in Uniontown had a circulation of about 20,000; the Pittsburgh Press had a circulation of about 200,000.
He stripped the AP and UPI wires. He called the police stations and took notes on what was happening and then he'd pass everything on to the reporters to write their stories in the morning. George was proud to be working at such a large newspaper at such a young age.
In 1958 George joined the AP Pittsburgh Bureau as a copy boy. The AP was a logical next step up the ladder for George. Now instead of reaching only 200,000 readers in the Pittsburgh market, he could potentially reach millions.
Within two years, George transferred to the AP Philadelphia Bureau where he really thought he'd made it big-time when he covered the NFL Championship Game between Minnesota and Green Bay in 1960.
George worked the night shift in Philadelphia for nearly six years. He earned a reputation as a tough, enterprising night editor who did good work.
One night as George stood watch over his shift, a young reporter decided that he didn't need to follow up on a news lead. George asked him again and after the reporter refused again, George couldn't take the disrespect any longer —so he slugged him. They each received a letter of reprimand marking the incident in their personnel files.
When the AP New York bureau chief needed a night editor, he turned to this young editor in Philadelphia who did what was necessary to keep his staff in line. In 1965, George made the move to New York City.
By early in summer of 1965, the AP began staffing its Saigon Bureau in anticipation of covering America's involvement in the escalating war in Vietnam. As they ran out of foreign correspondents to spread around the world, the AP searched for a tough reporter to send to Saigon. Barely in New York for four months at the time, George got the call.
Row after row of rice patties was all George could see from the window of the plane as it came down to land in Saigon. He was scared and wondered what he'd gotten himself into. His brothers and sisters in Uniontown thought he was crazy going all the way to the other side of the world to cover a war in a country that nobody at home knew anything about.
AP reporter Hugh Mulligan arrived in Saigon on a different airplane, but on the same day as George. George knew of Hugh, but the two had never met. They roomed together in Saigon for a time and have remained close friends ever since.
"When we first arrived in Saigon, George was unused to being out of his element," Hugh said. "He struggled for about the first six months but then became the best reporter in Vietnam."
The AP built the Saigon staff up to six full-time reporters. George stayed for a little more than a year and then he returned to the AP New York Bureau in September 1966 to write weather round-ups and people in the news.
George missed Vietnam. He missed the culture, the people, the danger, and the action. He worked 16 to 18 hours a day and enjoyed the camaraderie with the field reporters in the press corps. They respected one another and shared an overwhelming feeling that their efforts in gathering stories about the people involved in and affected by the war were quite worthwhile.
Not long after returning to New York, George asked to go back to Vietnam. His wish was granted and in April 1967 George returned to Saigon where he spent the next eight years covering the Vietnam War. In his last two years there, he served as bureau chief of the AP Saigon Bureau.
Vietnam was George's utopia. He loved it there because he could be as independent and ambitious as he liked, no questions asked, and the payoff was big—page one every day.
After the war, George struggled readjusting to work in the United States. "Covering a war is a lot easier than other reporting," George said. "It's right in front of you."
When he returned to the U.S., George was assigned to the AP Columbus, Ohio, Bureau as an enterprising editor. At first he didn't want to go.
"I know now that they sent me there to decompress. I wanted to go to Washington. I had just covered the fall of a nation. Instead, I covered the soap box derby. Columbus turned out to be a really good year for me," George said.
For a while, George struggled with his writing. He believed he had to prove himself again as a journalist, but within six years he was named AP special correspondent, one of the highest honors in the organization, in recognition of his service and stature with the AP. Special correspondents travel at the spur of the moment on assignment to cover the most important news stories happening in the world.
In addition, the AP gave George the opportunity to write a book, The Eyewitness History of the Vietnam War, about the human side of the war.
"I think you do have to prove yourself over and over and over," George said.
"George is an incredible worrier," said Hugh. "He's insecure and he doesn't trust in his marvelous abilities."
On May 14, 2000, George received an honorary doctorate degree from WVU. He was overwhelmed when he heard the news of his nomination for the degree. He'd always believed that a doctorate was reserved for more important people like heads of state or famous entertainers. When Chris told George she nominated him, George didn't think he had a chance. "Chris, are you sure you want to do this?" he asked her.
Chris wasn't the only one who supported George for an honorary doctorate. Letters of recommendation came to the school from David Halberstam, Peter Arnett, and General William Westmoreland, among many notable figures who wrote letters for George.
"I felt very humble, especially at age 67, waiting on stage during graduation to receive this award," George said. "He loves WVU," Chris said. "Most of the time colleges give honorary doctorates to famous people who don't even pick them up. George is a working-class kid who made something of himself. The University was for him the difference between a working class life and a world class life."
On Tuesday evening, March 12, 2002, a week and a half before WVU's spring break, students sat at the computer terminals in room 3 in the basement of Martin Hall, a long, narrow classroom designed for teaching news writing classes. Every student in George Esper's feature writing class listened as he spoke.
"Interview people in depth. Get people to reveal something about themselves," George said. "Don't worry about offending people. If you ask a question in a respectful way, no one will mind you asking a question. I've many times asked people, 'Did you ever contemplate suicide?' and they answer me."
George stood in front of the room speaking in his conversational manner and respectful tone sharing his years of experience with the young journalism students. After more discussion, students worked on their stories. That gave George an opportunity to walk around the room and coach individual students. When an issue or another thought came to mind, he'd interrupt the group.
"One more thing about interviewing," George spoke up, gaining the students' attention. "I once turned in a story that was terrible. My editor knew it and I knew it. He said, 'You left the tape recorder run.' My story was block after block of quotes."
The class returned to their stories and George helped the student at hand.
"I like to talk about my failures,"
George said later. "I don't want anyone to think I'm above
failing or I'm any kind of superstar." 