Just kidding about the headline. I did, however, speak to Mr. Petrino's Sports Literature class at Onalaska High School this morning, which seems like a class I would have loved back in my day. The students read sports books and, as far as I can tell, talk about them. (I was invited, by the way; I don't just show up at high schools, stumble into a classroom and start going on about the day-to-day of my job. Not yet, anyway.)

I'm not a fantastic speaker, by any stretch of the imagination (that's really more my younger brother's deal), but I had a good time once I got used to being the talker instead of the listener.

Here's the high points of what I imparted on the impressionable young minds of Onalaska, in vaguely chronological order: 

1. Friday Night Lights was a movie before it was a (great) TV show, and it was a (great) book before it was a movie.

2. The Chronicle's sports staff really doesn't dislike any particular team, town, player or sport. That being said, my least favorite sport to write about is track and field — ONLY because it's not a sport that doesn't lend itself to particularly moving descriptions, in my opinion. If it comes down to covering a baseball game or a track meet, I'd take the baseball game. My favorite sport to cover, conversely, is basketball. Always has been, always will be — although my favorite press box is at Bearcat Stadium, where Ivor Hoglund brings homemade pie and dishes out slices with ice cream at halftime of the football games.

3. I have never, not once, made a typo. I don't think anyone believed me.

4. I can technically go to any Seahawks or Mariners game for free if I plan ahead, though at this point I think Seahawks tickets come free in boxes of breakfast cereal. 

5. I often sleep late morning or noon.

As you can see, my presentation to the fine young minds of Loggerville wasn't the most structured event they've ever seen, but I don't think I scared them out of ever reading again, either.

And, again, Sports Literature sounds like a great class. I've heard W.F. West offers a similar course, taught by Tom Zuber, and it's too bad more schools had the resources to offer it.

It also got me thinking, as I was "preparing" last night (ahem, Googling "sports literature" and watching Friday Night Lights reruns), about a few of my favorite pieces of sports literature.

- Ball Four, by Jim Bouton: Groundbreaking, and hilarious at points, Bouton's tell-all of a season with the one-time Seattle Pilots rips the Yankees and opened the doors of Major League Baseball for all to see.

- Friday Night Lights, Buzz Bissinger: The release of this book, which chronicles the trials and tribulations of the 1988 Permian Panthers, coincided with the school being investigated on some type of state-athletic violations. It shows the warped sense of priorities in a small football-crazed town.

- Wilt, Wilt Chamberlain: The Big Dipper wrote two autobiographies, but I like his first a bit better. It chronicles his time with the Harlem Globetrotters as well as his first 9 or 10 years in the NBA, and puts his spin on things like not being named league MVP the year he AVERAGED a league-record 50.4 point a game, and claiming he could have been a professional race car driver, chef or NFL quarterback if he'd felt like it.

- The Natural, Bernard Malamud: Before Robert Redford, there was the real Natural. Malamud's Roy Hobbs fights with his coaches and management, wrecks cars, eats piles of food and, in general, is a jerk. The book itself isn't great, but it's funny in comparison with the movie, and it's got anything but a happy ending.

That's just a few off the top of my head. Viva Sports Lit!