Wells Twombly

Wells Twombly was born in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, on October 24, 1935. He began writing in 1956 while at the University of Connecticut, where he earned a bachelor of arts in English and History. While in school he also met his future wife Margaret Zera and started writing for The Willimantic Daily Chronicle, a local paper that poached him after seeing how his work had bolstered sales of the college paper. He served as sports editor at The Willimantic until 1958.[4]

Twombly's sports-writing led him to roles in California, Texas, and Michigan. Over the course of his career, Twombly's articles spanned across football, golf, baseball, boxing, and bear-wrestling.

Twombly argued that he and his fellow writers were at "war with the television” and the “KISS (Keep it Simple Stupid)”, generation. He insisted that, unlike television, words could “take [the audience] places where even the damned camera [couldn’t] go”.[5]

Rather than engaging in hero worship of athletes or extolling the virtues of the home team, the college-educated Twombly raised questions about the role of athletics in American society. While some readers found his consciously literary prose enigmatic and confusing, Twombly defended his style, asserting: "I try to be as literate as I can be. Anybody who writes down to a reader in this age of higher education is living in the past."[6]

In his writing, Twombly was known best for his prosaic writing and irreverent attitude towards the traditional sporting establishment. During one particular interview with Reggie Jackson, when given a series of non-answers, Twombly cut the interview short saying “I’m as good a writer as you are a home-run hitter. If you want me to write about you, you’ll have to call me.”[7]

During the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, Twombly broke a major story exposing Russian cheating at the games. He discovered that the Russian pentathlete, Boris Onischenko, had rigged his fencing equipment to allow him to falsely trigger a touch without making any contact on his opponent. Twombly’s discovery of the story was largely credited to a hangover. While the rest of the press staff covering the games attended the early morning cycling events, Twombly slept in; he claimed to have only been stirred out of bed by a “ruckus nearby” that turned out to be caused by Onischenko’s accusers.[8]