GEORGE PLIMPTON:
The great impostor

Boxer, quarterback, pitcher, basketball player. The list of titles goes on and on, but most notably George Plimpton is a writer. It was in that capacity that he spoke Wednesday, Oct. 3, to a crowd of 500 in the ODU field house. The author-editor told of an off beat literary career that has taken him to such unlikely places as a boxing ring with Archie Moore, a pitcher's mound across from Willie Mays, and a football field alongside the Detroit Lions. Not content to just research his subjects, Plimpton also experiences them-alongside all the scrapes and bruises that they usually entail. "The worst thing is to make a mistake in music," Plimpton said of his brief stint as a symphony percussionist under Leonard Bernstein. "You can wreck a whole symphony. I managed to do that." His appearance, sponsored by APB, was in conjunction with the ODU Literary Festival.