On December 2nd 1973, the New York Times Sunday Magazine published what was soon to become it's most popular cover ever. I did the cover and here's the story:
Stan Mack, the art director of the magazine in those days, was trying to decide on an image that would illustrate his main feature on UCLA's famed basketball coach John Wooden. His first idea was to just have a large photo of a basketball with perhaps small photos around it. He wasn't happy with that and he didn't want to just have a photo of Wooden so he poured through the material he had on the coach. He came upon an interesting item. It seems that when a new team member was recruited, that player would find in his mail box the next morning an 8 1/2 X 11 mimeographed sheet which contained a pyramid of carefully and neatly ruled boxes. Within each box was typed little homilies....words to live by....corny little phrases like "When the going gets tough...the tough get going...be at your best when your best is needed. Real love of a hard battle". He was a tough coach that made all the players get military haircuts and abstain from dating and drinking on evenings before games. It had resulted in a strong unbeatable team. Stan felt that this might be the image....John Wooden's "Pyramid of Success".
The problem was that it was pretty bland and dull looking so he decided that an art treatment was needed on it. Stan called me in and asked if I could take the Pyramid and give it one of my linocut colorful loose lettering treatments. I did it and it was published.
The Monday morning following it's appearance, the phones started ringing at the Times. By noon it was apparent that the small bank of telephone operators were not going to be able to handle the volume of calls so more operators were recruited. Some operators had obtained my phone number so they were giving it out to callers.
My phone started ringing...and ringing...and ringing. People wanted copies of the cover. people wanted to know if it was going to be made into a poster. They wanted bigger copies of it. John Wooden's number was also given out by the harried phone operators at the Times. Wooden's phone started ringing.
About a week later the mail started arriving. My own mailbox was full of inquiries every day. When I would go to the city to pick up jobs the Times would give me a large bag full of mail that had come for me c/o the Times. After weeks of the phone calls, my wife started fending them off for me so I could work. I dreaded going to the mail box. I tried to answer each letter. My reply to them was that only the art treatment was mine and that the words that inspired them so belonged to Wooden. If they would contact Wooden at UCLA and get his OK, then we could make some sort of arrangement. No one replied after I told them that. Some people found out that it was a linocut so they wanted to know why I couldn't just run off a print for them. It was hard to explain my complex style of collaging various bits of colored parts together to create the one of a kind finished product.
The Times was sending out some tear sheets of the cover.
As time went on the calls persisted as did the voluminous mail.
I asked the Times to stop giving out my number.
I got letters from Catholic organizations wanting 10,000 copies.
I got letters from mayors' offices.
I got letters from civic organizations wanting thousands of copies.
My son saw my cover on the walls of college dorms that he would visit.
I would see it on secretaries office walls.
Somebody in Long Island ripped off the image and put it on tee shirts.
Some people had received John Wooden's typed mimeographed version when they wrote to him and were now asking me for the one in color.
I got mail from airlines and all sorts of businesses and school systems, police depts. and the like.
Not one inquiry in all the thousands mentioned that they liked my art....they just wanted those "words to live by" and they wanted it in COLOR!
I'm sure Wooden hated how I made his words so crooked and abstract because when I wrote to him and asked if he wanted to do anything about satisfying these thousands of requests that were pouring in to him and me, he didn't even reply.
Years later when I thought that maybe it had finally ended, I would get a call that would start with the familiar..."You did a cover..."
The letters kept coming for years.
One time when I was at the Times, one of the art directors showed me a "secret" room. He took me to a large closet room. He unlocked it and opened the door and there I saw piles and piles of the Dec. 2nd issue waiting to satisfy the request for copies.
IBM used it on an institutional brochure without my permission or renumeration by using it as a reprint of the cover with masthead attached.
Years went by and just when I would start forgetting about it....another letter would arrive saying that their copy was yellowing and do I, by any chance, have a poster of it that they could purchase.
I had created a Frankenstein monster. I was happy with the $750 I had received for the cover and I just wanted to move on.
One organization got through to Wooden.....MacDonalds.
The Fairfield County branch of the company had called me and asked if they could please have the gratis use of the art as a Christmas card just for their employees. I referred them to Wooden secure in the feeling that that would be the last I ever heard from them....when lo and behold....they produced a letter from the venerable coach giving his permission.
A large black Cadillac pulled into my humble driveway and picked up my art. A week or so later the Cadillac returned with my art....AND.... a free coupon from MacDonalds in thanks for my generosity. The coupon entitled me to one large hamburger and two small cokes redeemable at any MacDonalds restaurant.
I didn't redeem the coupon.
