Well, like the late, great Yogi Berra once said, “It is deja vu all over again.”
Here I am back in a newsroom. Things have definitely changed in the last 15 years since I have been in a newsroom, so it is a brand new learning experience.
I am look forward to the challenge because this is what I have always wanted to do since I was a kid. Even though I dreamed of playing more than covering sports, like most wannabe athletes, my skills and self-awareness dictated I would be taking another path into the sports world.
After graduating from high school I knew I wanted to cover sports but with a terrible rebellious streak, concerts and partying became my top priorities and not the college classroom.
But reality and lack of funds quickly set in and I began taking steps to do what I dreamed of as a child and that was to write about sports.
My first step was attending Richland Community College in Dallas. A couple of years at the college and I garnered my first paying job as a reporter, working for the community college newspaper as its sports editor.
Two years later and I was the sports editor of the University Star at Southwest Texas State (now known as Texas State) and making a hefty $500 a month.
A year into my stint I received a call from the weekly paper in San Marcos to cover sports for them for a grand total of $50 a week. But for the experience I took the pay cut. It paid off when the daily paper the San Marcos Daily Record hired me as its sports editor six months later even though I was still a junior in college.
Working full-time at the Record set back my graduation date a couple of semesters because working a full-time job and trying to carry a full load of classes really does not mix.
It didn’t matter to me because I was doing what I always wanted to do. I was covering sports and they were paying me to do so. Fast forward to 1990 and my graduation from college. One thing that I loved more than covering sports was the Cincinnati Reds.
Let me rewind a little. My father, a doctor in the U.S. Army, got stationed in Fort Sam Houston. The past four years of our lives were spent in Belgium. The one thing we did not have was a television so you can imagine a 7-year-old’s joy when we finally got to see sports in living color.
Remember, this was in August of 1972 and the Big Red Machine was kicking it into high gear and I was completely sold on them. I knew nothing of rooting for your home state team. That lesson was learned a couple of months later when the Dallas Cowboys took the field.
Back to 1990. I graduated and I told my then future wife that I wanted to move to Ohio to cover the Reds. Sure my dreams of covering them on a daily basis were curtailed when I realized that I wanted a life outside of baseball but I still wanted to be as close to my beloved Reds as possible.
When I found out the Wapakoneta Daily News, a newspaper owned by the same company as the Daily Record, was looking for a sports editor I jumped at the chance. My wife took the leap of faith with me and after the Reds won the World Series in 1990 I knew it had to be destiny.
But more importantly than seeing the Reds, what I learned in my two years as the sports editor at the Daily News was the passion people in Ohio had for their sports. I had always lived in big cities so I never knew the excitement and loyalty generated by the small towns in Northwest Ohio until I found myself immersed in covering them. I was hooked.
Even when I left my sports editor’s job to take on the editor’s job in St. Marys and a reporter’s job in Kenton I continued to cover football on Friday nights. Even when I left the journalism world to become news operations director at Ohio Northern University, I still covered sport. I even took up shooting photography for the university, primarily focusing on sports.
So when ONU wanted to make a change (guess I know how every coach has felt who has heard those words), I found myself at a crossroads. But I was pointed in the right direction when Tom Usher suggested I contact the Lima News about possible work.
Before I continue I want to give a shout-out to Mr. Usher who officially retired May 1. He will (and I am hoping) continue to write for The Lima News on a part-time basis because I will need his help in this transition. Not only is Tom a great reporter but he is an even better person and a friend. He probably understands the sports world in the Lima area as good as anyone I know.
I will need his guidance as I return to the newsroom to try and uphold the proud tradition The Lima News has done in covering sports. I am also lucky to have Jim Naveau and a cast of other part-time help and Mike Purdy to assist me in my new endeavor.
Sports and covering sports have changed dramatically in the three decades I have covered sports, and I face a lot of challenges but I have a good start with a hard-working staff.
To paraphrase Berra, “I’m a lucky guy and I’m happy to be with The Lima News. And I want to thank everyone for making this night necessary.”
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