 Great Failures of the Extremely Successful Steve Young, editor (scroll down for Young's BIO); excerpted essay by Chris Crutcher Copyright © Fall 2002 All rights reserved. Adult Published Read an Excerpt Crutcher a failure? Maybe once upon a time, according to journalist and screenwriter Steve Young's new book, "Great Failures of the Extremely Successful," (Tallfellow, Fall 2002), featuring inspirational chapters from Jane Goodall, John Wooden, Erin Brockovich, Steve Allen, Billy Idol, Garry Marshall and others, including Chris Crutcher. Excerpt "When you are a trial and error species, you shouldn’t go knocking the errors. "I was a dismal student. I became the first educational ecologist because I recycled every bit of my brother’s homework. I went through his closet and found it all. I had to go through his book reports and such, misspell some words and come to some bad conclusions. "I had a very short attention span, but when I was up against it, I would do what was necessary to get my 'C.' I read a sum total of one book the entire time I was in high school. I was assigned 'To Kill A Mockingbird' and since it was new at the time, my brother had yet to write a book report on it. I had to actually read it. The next book they wanted me to read was 'The Scarlet Letter.' I still remember that test. The only things I got right was the color and the letter. "Even though I didn’t read or work hard, I guess I already had the writer in me. I had two teachers who thought I was funny, but they also thought I was out of control. As punishment, they would assign me 500 word essays. You couldn’t get me to spend more than fifteen minutes writing an essay for a grade, but I would stay up all night to come up with something to make these guys laugh, for no grade at all. "I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to go to college but my dad would ask, 'Which service station do you want to pump gas at?'The only 'A' I received was in child/adolescent psychology. Though my academic prowess wasn’t working at the highest level, my imagination was. I could take a look at headings in books and be obscure enough in my test answers to get a 'C.' I graduated college summa cum lucky and received a sociology and psychology degree which qualified me to pour concrete bridge beams in Dallas, Texas for $2.13 an hour. So I went back to school to get teaching credentials and became a social studies teacher. When I started teaching I thought one day someone was going to figure out that I had no idea what I was talking about. I was pulling it out of the book as we went. I owe a class action apology to anybody who took social studies from me. "I didn’t like what I was teaching but I did like the kids. I was the magnet for the kids who weren’t making it; the ones who hated school. I related well with kids. After about a year and half of teaching in public schools, I realized that if I had to do this all my life it would drive me crazy. I was in the wrong place. I had five years of college behind me but I didn’t want to get a master’s degree and be a psychologist. I didn’t want to put on a tie, I didn’t want to go to an office, I didn’t want to do construction." About Steve Young Young is a multi-talented, award-winning writer who refuses let himself be limited by any medium or arena. Whether writing and producing television programming on such shows as ABC’s "Boy Meets World", CBS’s "Cybill," HBO Family’s "Crashbox", or Disney’s "The Smart Guy", for which he was recently acknowledged for his "creation of entertainment that also enriches life," with the Prism Award and a Humanitas nomination, or authoring the inspiring "Great Failures Of The Extremely Successful" (Tallfellow Press, Fall 2002) where he was able to get the greats of many different fields to share their remarkable stories of adversity, Steve always seems to create something unique and important. Of "Great Failures...", Jack Canfield, co-creator of "Chicken Soup For The Soul" said, "When you finish reading this amazing book, you will never let failure or fear of failure stand in your way again." Steve has more than shown his grasp of creating stories and characters that both entertain and enlighten (without it being jammed down our children’s throats) in his children’s picture book series, "What If There Were No...?" (Smallfellow, 2003), and "The 130 Tales of Winchell Mink" (Harper Collins 2003/4). This former stand-up comedian’s social and political satire has been recognized as some of the funniest, yet still poignant, with his stories regularly gracing the Oped pages of major newspapers across the country. As contributing editor at the Writer Guild Of America’s Written By magazine, Steve’s reputation has given him serious entrance to the best writers and producers in the industry while also allowing him one more outlet to lampoon the entertainment business he so cares about. With boundless energy and enthusiasm, we can expect to see the name of Steve Young appearing on an ever-growing amount of books lining the shelves of countless bookstores.* *And if anyone catches Steve putting his name on these books would you please report it to your local authorities. He must be stopped! Hungry for more? Explore Steve Young's website at www.greatfailure.com. |
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