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Wrestling with a writing career.

Article Excerpt
Byline: Mark Baker The Register-Guard

It began almost 20 years ago with a "Talk of the Town" piece in The New Yorker - the first of several Thomas Hackett wrote while a messenger straight out of college at the famed magazine. And it has included lengthy contributions to such prestigious periodicals as "Rolling Stone" and "The New York Times Magazine."

Along the way, there were stops at two formidable newspapers - three-year stints each at the News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C, and at The New York Daily News - during the Eugene native's writing career.

And now, the 1982 graduate of South Eugene High School who lives in New York City has achieved his goal of writing a book.

"Slaphappy: Pride, Prejudice, and Professional Wrestling," is a serious reportage - as well as a cultural and sociological study - of America's fascination with a sport that many find imbecilic and absurd.

The 42-year-old has indeed come a long way since he was kicked off the staff of The Axe, South Eugene's student newspaper, for what he says was insubordination involving an editorial he had written.

"I was denouncing cheerleaders," says Hackett (who was South's student body president as a junior) speaking by phone from his Upper West Side Manhattan apartment.

When a supervisor asked him to tone down the piece because it was a tad too obnoxious, Hackett says he ripped the editorial right off the makeup board - this, in the era before computerized makeup - and walked...