William Nack is the subject of Chapter 2 of the Still No Cheering in the Press Box series by the Shirley Povich Center for Sports Journalism at Maryland.

Alex Silverman and Drew Rauso did a long interview with Nack, a terrific writer who reflected back on his career at Newsday and Sports Illustrated. Proud to say that Nack is a fellow Daily Illini alum at the University of Illinois. He is working on a book another DI alum, his good friend Roger Ebert.

The interview is well worth your time. However, what struck me was this terrific passage at the end when Nack talks about cheering in the press box.

Frankly, I have to confess that in 1973, when Secretariat started pulling away from the field in the Belmont around the far turn, I cheered in the press box. It would be impossible not to cheer in the press box. There are some instances where the feat is so grand, the spectacle so memorable, that it is impossible not to root for an outcome. Granted, I was going to write a book about this horse, I had something going more than just a newspaper story the next day. I had invested days and days of time into this horse, and so I was rooting.

I say to the ghost of Jerome Holtzman, I’m sorry. There is still rooting in the press box occasionally. As a matter of fact, Dave Kindred, a former columnist for the Washington Post, was standing next to Joe Falls, a columnist out of Detroit, and as Secretariat was racing down the stretch, because people had been talking how great a horse Citation was, Red Smith always said you’ll never see another Citation. He was like a god to some people. As Secretariat was pulling away and the clock was going crazy, and he’d already broken the Derby record, and the Preakness record was about to break the Belmont record, it was obvious, Joe Falls said, “Citation my ass!” What a great line in the press box! That wasn’t exactly cheering, but it was a form of acknowledging a feat of strength, which is what cheering is really.