Remembering lessons learned from David Poole
The other night, David Poole sent me an e-mail with the subject line, “You’re nuts.”
It seemed, as usual, that we disagreed, this time about the finish of the Talladega race. I thought it was awesome; he thought it was reprehensible.
We exchanged a couple notes about it, but I let it go. I figured we’d continue the debate at the track, which seemed like a weekly occurrence – one that I often looked forward to.
He loved to argue; so do I. That made for dozens of debates over the last couple years, some more intense than others. No matter if I lost or not – and no matter if he yelled at me or not, which he was known to do once or twice – I secretly enjoyed all of them.
Many of our discussions came in airports. By circumstances I am forever grateful for, Poole and I often took the same flights back and forth to races. He booked afternoon flights because of his early-morning radio show; I booked them because I wanted to sleep longer.
Over time, I came to both expect and cherish our airport encounters. I’d show up to the seating area at the gate and see Poole sitting there – he was hard to miss – with a book or a puzzle in hand. He really wasn’t as gruff as he seemed; I preferred to think of him as a big man with a big heart who happened to have some pretty strong opinions about things.
I’d silently walk up and plop down in a seat next to him, and he’d look up and say, “Hello, Jeff,” and put aside whatever he was doing.
“What can we argue about today?” I’d ask with a grin.
Much to the dismay of the people around us, it was then usually time for another animated discussion.
In our first few debates, I was somewhat intimidated. I’m non-confrontational by nature, and Poole was confrontation personified. He was not only large in size, but in stature, and as a young reporter I didn’t feel like I should contradict one of the most respected people in the media center.
So at first, I timidly disagreed with some of his rants. But that was a mistake, because Poole would eat you up if you weren’t sure about your points. He’d poke enough holes in your arguments through question after question that you’d wonder why you ever felt that way in the first place.
This helped me learn two things: First, I’d better have enough evidence to back up my position if I was going to argue it; and second, that sometimes, it’s OK to take the time to formulate an opinion before you take a stand.
It was because of the latter that Poole was able to teach me one of my now-favorite lessons.
We were sitting in the Chicago airport in July 2007, waiting for a flight back to Charlotte. At the time, the rumor mill had Joe Gibbs Racing considering a switch to Toyota.
I told Poole that I could not believe JGR would make such a move, because it made no sense. Even if Toyota gave JGR more money than Chevrolet, Toyota was performing so poorly in its first season that no organization in its right mind would leave Chevy for Toyota. Every bit of logic showed that would be a dumb move, I said.
Poole, as he so often did during these discussions, said, “Stop right there.”
He held out his hand and cupped it, as if holding a ball.
“When every bit of logic says one thing and you can’t see the other side,” he said, turning his hand around as if rotating the ball, “that’s exactly when you should try to look at the situation another way.”
I’ve never forgotten that and never will. Whenever there’s a time when something seems so completely obvious – in both the NASCAR world and my personal life – I always stop and try to see it from the other side.
Poole is gone now, lost Tuesday to a heart attack at age 50. It saddens me that our last debate went unfinished, that I won’t have time to learn more from someone I truly respected and admired, that I won’t be able to shake the hand again of someone I came to consider a friend.
Nevertheless, the next time I walk into the media center or the airport and realize Poole won’t be there waiting for our next discussion, I’ll try my best to take the sadness in the palm of my hand and turn it around to see the other side.
