Ring of Fire

Chapter 1

On a brisk October afternoon, Wally Gibbs, the journalism school's first distinguished Clifford P. Stohlman Professor of Advertising, and Dean Cap Hodges sat in the bleachers in Carolina University's Sunny Dew Athletic Park watching a field hockey scrimmage.

The crowd was sparse, but field hockey had never been a big draw at CU. It had gasped along in recent years, subsisting on the table scraps of the athletic fund and stoic alumni support. A powerhouse team from Australia passing through America during their spring break had put the word out, welcoming any and all challenges. The CU coach was all too eager.

When the Lady Yamsters in Pinehaven, North Carolina, accepted her invitation, the Australian coach couldn't help but wonder what their mascot looked like. A yellow hamster? In fact, "Yamster" was the school's attempt to anthropomorphize North Carolina's state vegetable, the sweet potato. By the time CU had gotten around to selecting a mascot early in the twentieth century, the other state schools had taken all the good ones, from the state insect (honey bee) to the state mammal (gray squirrel). What remained were the state fruit and vegetable, and the Fighting Sweet Potatoes were clearly more intimidating than the Fighting Scuppernong Grapes.

The Australian coach was disappointed to hear the mascot was currently on the road. With no mascot to fire up the home crowd, the Aussies were trouncing the hapless Lady Yamsters. Hindered by their requisite uniforms and splintered sticks, the CU players inadvertently kept hooking each other's orange skirts and raising them above their waists. It was not so much a sporting event as an underwear fashion show. The CU coach was flipping frantically through the conference rulebook, trying to find something that would either disqualify the foreigners or force them to swap their spandex for skirts.

Wally Gibbs leaned toward Dean Hodges. "This is the most ass I've ever seen without paying a cover charge," he said out of the side of his mouth. The dean did not react. "Seriously, Hodges, is every game like this? Who needs cheerleaders when the players are serving it up on the field?"

Wally settled back and pawed through one of his suitcases for a cigarette. The luggage accompanied him nearly everywhere. A mismatched set, one vintage cracked leather and the other fluorescent green vinyl, the pair served as his briefcase, his wallet, his file cabinet and his pockets. They contained every receipt, every phone number he jotted down and every idea fragment he ever had, along with his his BlackBerry, micro-cassette recorder, matchbooks, loose change and several legal pads. He felt they lent an air of eccentricity to his character, a trait people would surely associate with a genius. Had he used grocery bags or a shopping cart, the effect would have been decidedly different.

Watching this protracted search, Dean Hodges asked, "Professor Gibbs, you do know why you're here, don't you?"

Wally perched a cigarette on his lower lip, lit it and dragged so hard his cheeks became pits. "Remind me," he said over the tops of his horn rims. If he had learned nothing else in the corporate world, it was that the less he said up front, the less he would have to backpedal on later.

The dean smiled broadly behind his aviators. "School spirit, of course." His smile quickly faded. "Athletics exert an enormous influence over this school. Years after they graduate, our alumni don't subscribe to the school newspaper. They don't flip through their old textbooks. But they do follow their teams with a passion. And guess what? That brings in money. Like that monstrosity right there."

Dean Hodges flicked a contemptuous hand at the scoreboard, emblazoned with a colossal Sunny Dew logo that dwarfed the words "Carolina University" beneath it. This was the result of last summer's controversial decision by the Athletic Department to boost revenue by selling the naming rights to its campus venues.

First up on the block was Watkins Field, the aging outdoor stadium used by the school's soccer, lacrosse and field hockey teams. If the experiment failed, at least it wouldn't have tarnished the school's twin cash cows of basketball and football.

Ultimately, the rights went to the citrus soft drink Sunny Dew, bottled in North Carolina. The company had no known scandals, no tainting episodes, the name was cheerful and the colors of its packaging were complementary to the school's own. Not coincidentally, Sunny Dew could also be sold at all events in 32-ounce plastic cups bearing its logo-at an eighty percent markup.

"This is what we're dealing with, Professor," the dean continued wearily. "Since the budget cutbacks, the school has found creative ways to supplement. Apparently, at any price." He straightened himself up with a new resolve. "So, why you're here, why I force myself and our staff to regularly attend these kinds of events is to show the journalism school's support for our teams. When the corporate contracts dry up, when the naming rights to every last tree on the quad have been sold, I want the administration to show us a little mercy when they pull out the axe."

The dean's fiery performance entranced Wally. Hodges was an imposing figure: a tall, broad-shouldered African-American in his late 50s with a gray-tinged flattop and a severe mustache that turned down at right angles on either side of his mouth. His square-jawed expression was usually stern, though Wally had heard he had a wicked sarcastic streak. He also heard he had briefly played pro football before his tour in Vietnam had left him with an artificial knee and the nickname "Cap."

Personally, Wally thought the corporate-sponsored scoreboard was an inspired if misguided attempt to hit the students where they lived. It advertised a harmless product to a captive audience. When there was one, that is; based on the turnout for today's scrimmage, Sunny Dew's investment-per-student was egregiously steep. And when the stadium emptied out and the scoreboard was turned off, zero ROI. He felt there must be a more efficient way to reach these consumers of tomorrow, the materialistic little go-getters who would soon be lining up in droves to trade their meager paychecks for fruit-flavored vodka and hybrid cars. In fact, he was sure of it.

"I'm here for more than that, Dean." Wally said. He gestured broadly with his cigarette butt, then flicked it under the bleachers. "I can help get rid of all this baloney."

Dean Hodges smiled. "Does this have something to do with your research? I would love to hear how that's coming along. The rest of the board would, too. Next week, isn't it?" He reached over and clapped Wally on the shoulder. "The way things are going, our campus is going to look like the Vegas strip. I would love to find a way to stop it before a beer logo ends up on every diploma."

Wally had nearly forgotten about his supposed ongoing research project, as he had yet to actually put any thought into it. Once again, Wally had bettered his position by keeping his mouth shut.

As part of his endowment, he was contractually bound-in addition to his teaching duties--to deliver "efforts whose aim is to measurably improve the mass communications process." For its part, the Stohlman Foundation provided a comfortable salary, housing, an assistant and research funding to be used at the holder's discretion. The last item made Wally positively giddy: an open checkbook! The tenure review committeeevaluated his progress twice yearly, with their first meeting just a week away. Wally was fairly sure he could dodge it, yet at some point he knew he needed to deliver at least a topic. And here Hodges had gone and handed him one.

Granted, he would need to work backwards from the dean's ambitious goal and come up with a way to realize it, even theoretically. That was the beauty of the wording in his contract: his "efforts" could be just that, with no practical application. Ah, academia!

"Exciting things, Dean Hodges, exciting things are on the horizon." He stood up and twitched his leg as his bladder began to assert itself.

The dean rose up to meet him, standing a full head taller. "I'm skeptical, Gibbs, but hell, that's my nature. As much as I doubt it can be done, I'd be delighted if you're the man who can do it."

Just then, an errant ball hurtled directly towards Wally's skull, the result of a miscalculated shot by a CU midfielder. Hodges' right arm rocketed out in front of Gibbs and swallowed the ball in his massive grip. Wally heard the slap of ball against palm before he was even aware of the situation. Cap tossed it back onto the field.

Wally was genuinely grateful. "Whoa-nice one. How'd you see that, anyway? I completely missed it."

Cap shrugged. "Protecting my assets. I'm watching you, Professor." Wally gave him a sidelong glance as the dean corrected, "Out for you-watching out for you. You're on my team, right? We're all in this together."

Whatever, Wally thought. "Sure. And thanks again." He started down the steps, then turned back. "I owe you one. Can I buy you a Sunny Dew?"