Anything by Dostoevsky. I tried!

What is this guilt of which you prate, Earthling?

To Kill a Mockingbird – I was meant to read it for an exam and I didn’t and I cheated. I was allowed to use a laptop to type my answers because I couldn’t see my writing, so I hid an electronic copy of the book on the laptop.

Ulysses – I’ve tried many times and never got through it.

It was a very simple thing. It was a church camp, I think. I was there about two or three days, very young, and I just remember some counselor telling us that reputation is what people think you are, and your character is what you are. So if you have a bad reputation, you might as well have a bad character, and it pays to have a good reputation and a good character.

Not really on a major basis. We lost the court case when the Raiders moved, so now you have more or less free agency on the part of franchises. They move from city to city. I thought that was a loss. But I tend to discount extreme praise or extreme criticism. You just have to do what you think is right.

Oh, over the years, there are so many. One would be the man — I wanted to take his job away some day — Paul Zimmerman, sports editor of the L.A. Times. Jim Murray is writing for the Times now. Red Smith. I had the honor of meeting Grantland Rice way back when I was at the University of San Francisco. When we played New York in football back in 1951. Just a lot of good sports writers became friends of mine. And I respect them a great deal.

Yes, it’s very important. Whether you’re conducting a league meeting, you want to study up on all the issues and the potential pluses and minuses, and be prepared for anything that might come up. Your dealings with Congress, congressional hearings and so forth, litigation, press conferences. My staff would brief me, of course, prior to the big press conference I have every year at the Super Bowl. And the preparation is always a big factor.

I think to a certain respect, yes. But also, you try to follow the best guidelines you have, the constitutional by-laws. You have to interpret them from time to time, but in the final analysis, in some instances, it would be a gut reaction. But a gut based on preparation and study. Not just a fly-by-night gut reaction.

It’s difficult. You really have to do it as best you can. Because your family is important too. You can’t be so totally absorbed that you are not involved in their activities as well. So, I tried to divorce the two as best I could.