Savage Words: LYNKS, you say? I’ve seen worse, my mistake included

I love being able to watch the Lynx play sports when they’re not at home.

Because of YouTube, it’s made this sportswriter’s job a lot easier when Brandon Valley hits the road. Especially with multiple games during the week, tuning into the YouTube channel from various schools to watch the Lynx truly helps with seeing runs, trends, big plays and more.

It’s hard to imagine how we did it before, not being able to watch road games from our laptop.

Last week was no different as Brandon Valley went to Huron for a girls and boys double-header in basketball. It was the regular season finale, and playoff positioning was certainly in the balance. I wanted to take those games in, and I did.

It didn’t take me long to see a glaring mistake when I logged onto Huron’s Live YouTube channel. The cover of the screen, which appeared before the live shot came into focus, said HURON TIGERS vs. BRANDON VALLEY LYNK.

The LYNK stuck out to me, but I rubbed my eyes and thought perhaps I just saw it incorrectly.

But as the girls’ game began, it was no mistake. The score on the bottom of the screen read LYNKS 0 - TIGERS 0.

Lynks. That was new. Perhaps there was a new breed of cat in the wild. I wasn’t sure.

But clearly, as it is with most high school live channels, it was a mistake made by one of the students that helps to produce the broadcast. I actually honestly love that. That would have been a great opportunity in high school for me as well, and I’ll always encourage more students to get involved with such a broadcast … no matter if it’s with the Lynks or Tygers. 

I can’t – and won’t – ever blame a high school kid for making a mistake like that. It’s cool that they’re getting experience. Typos like that happen all … the … time, and by professionals for sure.

It happened to me. It’s actually happened to me more than once. But the one that sticks out, and to this day makes me cringe when I think of it, is when I wrote a story more than 30 years ago about Indianapolis 500 veteran Bobby Grim. 

Grim drove in nine Indy 500s, and during his rise to the sport’s top level, he also raced in this area at Rapid Speedway in Rock Rapids, Iowa in a sprint car.

I always thought that was cool. In the story I wrote in the early 1990s about Grim, I talked about how he went from racing at Rock Rapids, all the way to Indianapolis where he raced under the famous 500 “suites” in Turn No. 2.

I spelled it “sweets.” 

Ugh. Even writing that now makes me squirm, but I did it. I own it, but I still can’t believe I did it.

Another beauty I witnessed came a few years later when I served as the Director of Public Relations for the Sioux Falls Skyforce. The Skyforce – along with every other team in the CBA – had a monthly newsletter that went out to season ticket holders.

This was long before the Internet and social media. The only real way to communicate with your fanbase was through snazzy-looking newsletters that got put in the mail.

My counterpart at the Rockford Lightning had a regrettable headline in his monthly newsletter. The Lightning’s Dance Team was known as the Silver Streaks.

He had a headline one month that dropped the “R”. 

The headline read: “SIX NEW MEMBERS NAMED TO THE SILVER STEAKS.”

Silver Steaks, not Streaks. 

Regrettable.

But me, my Rockford counterpart, or the student in Huron can all take comfort knowing there have bigger typos in history, some even coming from the biggest stage of them all.

In a 1631 printing of the Bible, the word “not” was omitted accidentally in the commandment “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” It became known as the Sinner’s Bible. 

In a 1795 edition of the King James Bible, “Let the children first be filled” is replaced with a far more frightening, “Let the children first be killed.”

Ouch. It’s just one letter, but jeez.

In a 1716 edition of the King James Bible, “Sin no more” is replaced with “Sin on more.” 8,000 copies were printed before anyone noticed the typo.

So, I’ll give myself some grace on the “sweet” comment. And the student in Huron, “Lynks” isn’t so bad either. After all, the good book made some glaring errors over the years.

We’re in good company.