SHOOT FOR THE STARS — THE TOM HEARDEN STORY

My fourth novel SHOOT FOR THE STARS — (The Tom Hearden Story) is a work of historical fiction. It is not affiliated with The Chemist crime trilogy. Shoot For the Stars is a story that recounts the early years of the Green Bay Packers, covering the decades from Curly Lambeau’s founding of the team in 1919, to the hiring of Vince Lombardi in 1959. But this story is far from a mere football book. I attempted to bring life to the characters involved, and the result is part historical fact/part love story. The premise is simple: What if the Packers had hired a coach other than Vince Lombardi? How would the course of history have been changed? Not just for the Packers, but for the entire National Football League? It’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. The team was in turmoil after a decade of none-winning seasons. There were many credible names being bandied about after Lisle Blackbourn was fired after his (3 – 9) 1957 season. And one of the names which rose to the forefront of possible new coaches was Blackbourn’s head assistant, a coach named Tom Hearden.

Over the years, my father, Alvin Mancheski, used to tell me the story of how his old high school football coach (Tom Hearden) almost was hired by the Packers to be their new head coach for the 1958 season. Three years ago, I interviewed my dad for the purpose of writing this book. And the story evolved into something much more than a football book: it became, instead, about how one man’s dream can challenge him throughout his lifetime. Tom Hearden’s story is one of successes and failures, one of joy and tears. But throughout the story one thing never changes: Tom’s driving desire to attain the goal he set for himself when he was just a boy: to someday become head coach of his favorite team, the Packers.

As this is my father’s tale, and it’s about a man he knew and respected. I elected to allow him to tell the story in his own words. I also did a brief interview with Al Mancheski about his mentor and friend, Tom Hearden, which I’ve enclosed in this blog. Enjoy. And remember: never lose sight of your dreams.

9 Questions for Dr. Al Mancheski about Tom Hearden

1) How well did you know Tom Hearden?

AM: Quite well. I grew up in Denmark, Wisconsin. We lost our family farm during the Depression and moved to Green Bay when I was ten-years old. I was an only child, and my dad passed away a few years later. So Tom — my high school football coach — became like a second father to me.

2) What was Tom Hearden like as a football coach? His strengths? His weaknesses?

AM: Being a Navy man, he was always well organized. And he had his own experience playing multiple positions at Notre Dame as a two-way player: everything from defensive lineman to blocking and running back. So he understood the game inside and out. He told me once that he learned strategy from Coach Rockne, and the passing game from Curly Lambeau.

3) In Shoot For the Stars: The Tom Hearden Story, Tom gives some very effective pregame and halftime speeches to his teams. Was he really a good motivational speaker?

AM: Tom was very passionate as a speaker. Sometimes to the point where his face and neck would redden as he became more and more stirred up.

4) Do you remember Coach Curly Lambeau and the Packers at the old City Stadium? Back when you were playing for East High in ’39 – 40? 

AM: The Packers practiced on the same field, but at different times. We’d watch them warming up beyond the fence. But it wasn’t that big a deal back then. Most often, both of us used the east side practice field, to help preserve the turf on the real field. But occasionally we practiced inside the stadium. 

5) Do any players or coaches stand out in particular? That you remember from back then?

AM: Two of them that I remember most. For a time as a young boy—maybe 11 or 12—I picked up the nickname “Mike” after Mike Michalske. He and Hank Brouder would sneak a few of my friends and me into the games, rather than us climbing the fence or sneaking through a cut hole on the bottom. During cold games, they’d sneak us into the stadium sometimes tucked beneath their long cold-weather coats.

5) You knew Dominic Olejniczak quite well. Do you recall any specifics about him as a person? Or stories about him relating to the Packers?

AM: Ole was a good friend of mine, and he followed my own East High teams as an alumnus. He was always interested in how we did. And he was also exceptionally kind to my mother (Frances), and helped her get a maintenance job at Washington Junior High.

6) Did Tom Hearden ever mention any stories about Curly Lambeau? Or back at Notre Dame playing for Knute Rockne? Or of Jim Crowley at East High, or with him at Notre Dame?

AM: Not very much. And as high schoolers, we weren’t smart enough to ask him. But everyone knew it back then. Once in a while, when he’d give his fiery speeches, we used to kid among ourselves that he was impersonating “Knute Rockne again.”

7) Did Tom Hearden ever mention being close to getting the Packers’ head coaching job for the 1958 season? Was it close, or really only a long shot?

AM: I talked to Tom quite frequently in those days. Every two or three weeks or so. I examined his eyes (I’d become an optometrist by then) a few times over the years, and had him come up to Sturgeon Bay to speak to my football team. (Sturgeon Bay High School). Tom told me that he’d been hired by the Packers. That they had a verbal agreement. This was right before he suffered his stroke.

8) What made Tom Hearden so exceptional as a football coach? 

AM: He was a winner, and could out-think most other coaches. He seemed to run circles around them intellectually. And he was great in the locker room. I remember hearing stories about him as a Packers’ assistant coach: all the Packers’ players loved him. So I think he’d have done quite well as a head coach. 

9) Is there anything else you’d like to add about playing for Coach Hearden? 

AM: As I said earlier, Tom was like a father to me. He helped me out by suggesting I go to Wisconsin to play college football, instead of my initial desire to go to Notre Dame. And back then, the war was screwing everything up for everybody. But Tom was a great guy to have as a friend and advisor for all the years that I knew him.

Shoot For the Stars — The Tom Hearden Story is available now through Amazon Press.

PART 2 – 2ND INTERVIEW WITH DERRICK HOFFMAN — MY CRIMES MAGAZINE — EDITOR

Book: Mask of Bone

DH: All right, Janson, we’re back for Part Two.
JM: Nice to be back, Derrick.
DH: So now that Mask of Bone is on the shelves, how does it feel to be the author of a crime trilogy? Not just one book, but three?
JM: Relieved. Writing the third book was very stressful. I had to tie in everything from the second book into a nice tight bundle, round it back to the original book, and have it all make sense. But I’m happy with the ending. I think it came out all right.
DH: That it did. Very tense scenes with both the chase through the Belgian countryside, and then with Cale returning back to Green Bay . . . everything seemed to come full circle for him, didn’t it?
JM: That’s what you hope for. Beginning, middle, end . . . that sort of thing. Just like real life. But it was a very exhaustive trip for Cale, as well as for the writer. (laughs) So now we’ll hope Cale can get back to normal. Although as readers will know, he still has a few irons in the fire to deal with.
DH: I won’t give anything away, but you’re talking about with Maggie, right?
JM: She will be the primary source of his “issues” in the fourth installment. I think as a couple they will grow stronger together from this whole experience.
DH: So there’s the news, right? That there will be a fourth book coming out? Anytime soon?
JM: Well, it’ll be awhile, I’m afraid. I’m formulating the plot now. I had to take some time off from the three-part story and do something completely different.
DH: That brings me to your upcoming book. I’ve read some of the chatter. This is a departure from Detective Cale Van Waring and the crew, right?
JM: Yes. The new book should be out in February, the end of. Hopefully. I mentioned it before, it’s called Shoot For the Stars.
DH: That’s the one that won the award, right? In Writer’s Digest? I saw it listed.
JM: Yes. Last December’s issue—the one with George Martin on the cover. Author of The Game of Thrones. I felt honored to be in his presence, even though we weren’t in reality. But yeah, Shoot For the Stars finished seventh nationally in the screenplay category. It’s a work of historical fiction set mostly in Green Bay.
DH: Historical fiction. Interesting. That’s where you take real people from the past, right, and fictionalize their lives into a story?
JM: Essentially, yes. I took a number of old football players, Curly Lambeau, Jim Crowley, Tom Hearden, Johnny Blood McNally . . . and also Dominic Olejniczak—he played a very big role—and put them into a story where we can follow their lives from the early years going forward. The foundation of the Green Bay Packers, on into the Depression and then the War Years.
DH: Excellent. So it’s not going to be a run of the mill football story?
JM: No. As you know from my first three books, all of my stories are character driven. But this story, Shoot For the Stars, is pretty much my dad’s story from when he was growing up.
DH: Yes. You told me. And your father—Al Mancheski—is still alive and kicking, correct?
JM: He’ll be 93 in February. When the book comes out. And as a birthday present, I listed him as a co-author of the story. I think that’s better than simply dedicating the book to him.
DH: Very cool. I’m sure he’s getting a kick out the whole process.
JM: Yes, he’s griping about everything, but when you’re over 90 I think you’ve got license to be a little cantankerous now and then. The latest thing now is getting his photo taken for the book cover.
DH: (Laughs) OK, Janson, anything else you’d like to add before we sign off here?
JM: Just to thank all the people who’ve read the first three books. And have given me support to keep on going. I used to read that it took writers three to five books being published, before a writer began to achieve any success.
DH: Kind of like singers, I guess. It takes about three or four hit albums before people begin to take them seriously.
JM: In my own case, it’ll probably take about ten. But time will tell, I guess.
DH: Excellent. What that means is with four books published, you’ll still have six more to go before you’re not too famous to do these interviews with me.
JM: (Laughs) I’ll never be that famous, Derrick. You know that.
DH: Awwww.

INTERVIEW: TRAIL OF EVIL

SIX QUESTIONS WITH DERRICK HOFFMAN — My Crimes Magazine — Editor

Book: Trail of Evil 

DH: Janson, after breaking onto the crime fiction scene with your first novel The Chemist, what challenges did you face as a writer with your follow up book?

JM: Hi Derrick. Yes. Good question. And it’s one every writer faces. The Chemist was very well received and the reviews were fabulous. When it won first place in the Sharp Writ international fiction contest, that was very exciting. So the challenge of a second book—or follow up—was to decide if I was going to go a different route completely with Detective Cale Van Waring, or somehow continue the story line from the first book.

DH: And you decided to feature Cale again, right?

JM: Yes. The Chemist had left open a perfect story line to pursue a second book: that of the still missing pair of kidnapped victims. This plot hole was never resolved, and I had done so purposely. So I decided that being the dogged detective Cale is, it would make perfect sense for him to pursue any leads he had to see if he could locate them.

DH: Thus the Trail of Evil. Right?

JM: Right. Only we immediately ran into a huge logistics problem. The method devised by the human traffickers was to transport their victims out of the country. So both Green Bay girls were long gone. And there’s no way the Green Bay PD can afford to send one of it’s detectives off on a search and rescue adventure of this magnitude. The budget wouldn’t allow it.

DH: But a suspended detective? That’s another matter?

JM: It was a convenient way to get Cale off on the pursuit trail. Albeit on his own dime. But the problem is he’s only suspended for one week. So the timeline is tight, and flying to Europe, locating the missing girls, dealing with some very evil bad guys, it all creates a huge amount of stress on Cale Van Waring—especially with the clock ticking down.

DH: Not to mention his situation in dealing with Maggie. I’d think being pregnant with—potentially—someone else’s baby, would add just a pinch of additional stress to anyone?

JM: Yes. And while Cale’s away on the case, no less. He gets blindsided by this. On top of everything else, it adds an even greater degree of pressure on a personal level.

DH: All right. One more question. In The Chemist, Cale had to face down Tobias Crenshaw, who is a pretty nasty serial abductor. How do the bad guy human traffickers in Trail of Evil measure up? On the bad guy scale, I mean?

JM: We certainly like our bad guys, don‘t we? (laughs) Well, we’ve got a sociopath in Kinsella, a thuggish brute whom Cale is tracking. Then we’ve got a sadistic pervert in Prince Mir Al-Sadar—he’s the guy who likes to collect females as trophies for his private harem. Then finally Tazeki Mabutu, a powerful witch doctor—one who doesn’t seem to care much for Cale at all. I think that combined they provide a pretty formidable trio. 

DH: Not to mention that they’re all cannibals, right?

JM: Yes. Just a minor point to their winning personalities. They do have slightly exotic tastes in nutrition, so it seems.

DH: And on that note, we’re out of time Janson. Just in time for lunch, I might add.

JM: And after that last note, Derrick, all things considered, I’d consider you order a nice chef’s salad.

THE TOPPER

We were sitting around our family gathering over this past holiday season, and the discussion turned to revealing some of the famous people my family members have met in person during their lives. This all was prompted by my gazing at photos of my brother-in-law, Nubs DeCleene, who passed on a few years back. Nubs had been president of the Village of Ashwaubenon at the time of his illness, and a few of the photos showed him greeting President George W. Bush at the Green Bay airport, when the president arrived for a visit. So I asked my nephew Chase (26) who the most famous person he met to-date was? He informed us how he’d almost met President Bush that day with his dad, but didn’t make it. We told him “almost” didn’t count, and he had nothing after that.

Next we asked my father, Al Mancheski (currently age 92). My dad is a former Wisconsin HS football Coach of the Year (1965). He showed us the photo of him receiving his award from the former Ohio State head coach and football legend, Woody Hayes.

Next came my turn. Having worked with the Packers for over a decade, I had met a lot of high-profile football players and coaches, (including Reggie White, Mike Holmgren, et al.) Thus my answer was easy: Brett Favre. I imagined Brett trumped my dad’s Woody Hayes encounter, so I felt pretty confident about winning.

Finally came my mother, Dawn (currently age 87). In her meek voice, she recalled a story from her younger years. It was 1943, and she had just graduated high school. The national World War II war effort was in full swing, and Dawn had traveled to Washington D.C. to do her part. There she’d been hired by the FBI, and had the occasion, as a newly hired member, to meet the Bureau’s head: non other than J. Edgar Hoover, himself.

The contest win of course went to my mother. Mr. Hoover, I’m sure you know, is the founder of the FBI and considered one of the most influential United States icons of the 20th century. Pretty hard to top that one, Mom.

OF NOTE: I do plan to have Dawn reveal details of her encounter with Mr. Hoover as an adjunct in my upcoming novel SHOOT FOR THE STARS. I can’t wait to hear her actual version of meeting such an amazing and influential man.

Until next time…

UPDATE

UPDATE: The third part of THE CHEMIST trilogy is nearly complete. I spent the weekend going over the initial edit of the manuscript entitled: MASK OF BONE. It is coming out quiet well, and my editor seems to enjoy it greatly. Not an editor’s primary job, by the way. Still, I find that encouraging because she has read neither the initial “Chemist” book, nor the follow up TRAIL OF EVIL. And that was my goal: not only to make the 3rd book a conclusion of the story loop, tying everything back to the Chemist back story, but to also make “Mask” strong enough to stand on its own as a complete work of fiction.

Fortunately, it appears as if we’ve accomplished both tasks.

What this means, moving forward, is that with three Cale Van Waring, Green Bay detective stories in the books (as it were), I’ll be able to complete the novel SHOOT FOR THE STARS in the upcoming few months. Then we can go back for the next installment of another Green Bay homicide story.

I’m also pleased to report that the screenplay for “Shoot For the Stars” finished 7th in the latest international Writer’s Digest Fiction Contest (December 2012 issue). It doesn’t mean much, and no one’s clamoring to bring the story to the big screen, but winning awards is always nice because a complete stranger (i.e. judges) who read a lot of fiction, is/are telling you that your story is well-written and enjoyable. So I’m hoping the novel version of “Stars” comes out just as entertaining.

Leaving you with: Who’s the most famous person you’ve ever met in person? I’ll come back Wednesday (2 days from now) to tell you my own answer.

Until…

THE PAIN OF WRITING A TRILOGY

Alright, here’s the weird thing. I was finished with my second novel at this time a year ago. Because my first publisher closed their doors, I was searching for another publisher. An enterprising young editor suggested, Hey! Your book’s pretty lengthy. Why don’t you cut it in half?… Alright. It seemed like a good idea at the time. So I tried it. Oh my God! The problem was I simply couldn’t just stop the action and write “To be continued,” like some tv soap. I had to rewrite things like character arcs, plot development, and lay down character back story in the final book… all in order for the 3rd book to make sense as a stand alone title.


Anyway, it’s now completed. I’m sending it in to my editor/publisher today. It’s called “Mask of Bones” and it should complete the 3 part “Chemist” trilogy. They will still have to design a new cover, etc… but it should be hopefully out in 6 weeks or so.


To anyone ever planning on splitting a story in half? Two words: good luck!

TRAIL OF EVIL — BOOK 2 — THE CHEMIST SERIES

Trail of Evil is now available on Amazon and other outlets. While this is a stand-alone work of suspense fiction, it is the second story of The Chemist trilogy. The story follows Green Bay detective Cale Van Waring as he travels to Europe in search of a pair of missing victims from the Chemist case.