The most common question I think I
’ve been asked through the years, both by friends, family
members and fans alike, is why do I choose to remain at “community”
newspapers the size of the South Valley Newspaper chain such as the
Morgan Hill Times, the Gilroy Dispatch and the Hollister Free Lance
rather than pursue the big-time
limelight of ESPN and the major metro newspapers. The answer is
simple.
The most common question I think I’ve been asked through the years, both by friends, family members and fans alike, is why do I choose to remain at “community” newspapers the size of the South Valley Newspaper chain such as the Morgan Hill Times, the Gilroy Dispatch and the Hollister Free Lance rather than pursue the big-time limelight of ESPN and the major metro newspapers.
The answer is simple.
Frankly, it’s a blast to cover high school kids and while I’ve spent many a day covering things on the national sports scene, I can honestly say that I’ve never written a national sports story with the same passion that I’ve written a high school feature article.
Plus at our level, the truth is that we have the best of all worlds.
I get to cover a high school game one day and if I so choose I can travel just over an hour up the road and cover the Niners, Raiders, Giants or A’s. We have the opportunity to be at a water polo match on Wednesday and cover Tiger Woods at Pebble Beach on Thursday.
The variety and lack of being pigeon-holed, however, is but a small factor in the reason I choose to remain at community newspapers.
Honestly, to me there is absolutely nothing that compares to watching a group of kids, still playing the game for the fun of it, winning a state championship or even making a playoff run. In this world of spoiled athletes, some of which unfortunately have seeped into the high school level but for the most part exist on the professional scene, it’s refreshing to go to a game and run down the sideline with a high school player en route to a game-winning touchdown, grab his helmet and congratulate him with a pat on the back.
I remember one game last year, while still in Danville, Virginia, that the Danville team had pulled off the most remarkable comeback. They were down 13 points with 2:34 minutes left in the game and didn’t have the ball. The quarterback/safety, who is now playing safety at Virginia Tech refused to be denied. He took the team and threw them on his back. First he stripped a running back of the ball, then threw a 70-yard touchdown pass and recovered the onside kick. With six seconds left, barely able to walk from mere exhaustion and a serious injury to his knee, he hobbled to the offensive line, took the snap at the 4-yard line, was hit at the 2-yard line and blasted the defensive lineman so hard the he broke the kid’s nose as they both completely collapsed in the end zone.
The last thing I can remember about that moment is landing in the arms of a 6-foot-5 local radio sideline reporter. We both celebrated the comeback as if it were our own kids that had won the game.
Because truth is, it was.
That’s the beauty of local sports. You can’t help but have a vested interest.
In the three weeks that I’ve already been here I’ve quickly grown attached to some of the local programs and it has been extremely encouraging to me to see that our local sport’s reporters Josh Staloch and Ana Patejdl, share that same passion.
Josh wrote a column this past week on what an eye-opener it has been for him to see the “work” that some call “fun”, namely, cross country. And Ana knows so many of the athletes on a first name basis that I think the teams think that the articles are being written by their big sister.
It’s not to say that we aren’t to remain objective in our writing, but there exists a lot more leeway when covering the local scene.
You will never see me hold a high school athlete who makes an error to the same standard, or even close for that matter, as a professional getting paid to do the same job. We have a job to do and that is to provide an accurate portrayal of a given contest, but we do so with a vested interest and a passion that only comes from writing a local sports story.
I’m not going to say that sitting on the floor in San Antonio and watching my beloved UConn Huskies clinch the 2004 National Championship wasn’t a blast. Of course it was.
And there may be no moment in my journalism career that matches the goose-bump feeling of being on the hallowed field of Yankee Stadium for the one year anniversary commemoration of Sept. 11.
Standing in Dale Earnhardt’s pit as he won his first-ever and only Daytona 500 was more a matter of luck than brilliance. You see for this Yankee, covering his first NASCAR race ever, Earnhardt was the only one I knew at the time. So being there was just logical. I captured an award-winning shot and did an on-air ESPN interview. Imagine if I really knew what in the world I was doing.
And there were certainly some emotions flowing when I did a behind-the-scenes profile of Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his work with the Make-A-Wish foundation. The story focused on one 5-year old boy named Clay that had already had five heart transplants in his young life. At the end of what was at least an hour-long visit Junior turned to Clay and asked Clay for a favor. The wide-eyed youngster googling at his idol could barely speak.
“Clay, can I have your autograph,” Earnhardt Jr. pleaded. “Only if you put the picture I gave you on your dashboard during the race,” Clay responded.
Suffice to say, there wasn’t a dry eye amongst those of us that witnessed that scene.
But at the local level it just seems that those moments are endless and the kids locally appreciate the coverage so much more.
This past Thursday I spent nearly an hour talking with Gilroy field goal kicker, Neil Martin, after what was easily the longest week of his life. It was one of the most enlightening, enjoyable and revealing interviews I’ve had the chance to do in a long time.
And you wonder why I love this neighborhood of “community” journalism?
It’s because when it comes right down to it, it can’t be matched for the excitement it brings, the passion it inspires and the lives it affects.
It’s not only the best of both worlds, it’s in a world of its own.
