Hard to believe it’s been a year. Between the COVID-19 pandemic and the sale of the Mount Vernon News, my time here in Knox County has seemed like so much longer than a year.
Let me first explain that I rarely put pen to a story with the word “I.” I’m not a columnist. I’m a sports editor. So if this seems disjointed and if my words struggle or wander or stall, this ain’t my gig. I’m a scribe. You say it, I write it.
I came to the News after spending five years as a stringer with most of my work appearing in the Delaware Gazette. I spent a cup of coffee with ThisWeek Sports in the fall of 2019 and found out about my departure from there just minutes before Fred Main sent me an email asking if I was interested in working for the News. Funny how things work out.
In my year, I got the privilege of covering some of the best athletes, coaches and administrators that a first-time sports editor could ask for.
This fall, I got to see a state champion in Thomas Caputo, my first Devil-Dog game and the beautiful new Energy Fieldhouse at Mount Vernon.
I got to see the Highland wrestling team dethrone league power Northmor in the Knox Morrow Athletic Conference tournament last winter.
I also saw the Cardington girls basketball team win their first district championship, knocking off a stout Worthington Christian team in Division III.
I sat in our main newsroom with Fred, going over our picks for the News’ boys and girls basketball All-Star Showcase. The 35-plus-year showcase meant something to the community, Fred explained. I thought it was just something to do during the lull between the winter and spring sports seasons.
Fred was right.
I sat in that same newsroom trying to figure out how we were going to produce local content in the midst of a pandemic shutdown. I feared that if I didn’t come up with something, Kay Culbertson, Main and others would see no need for a sports editor with no sports.
We wrote about the senior athletes who lost their seasons because of the pandemic. We wrote “previews,” which are mostly “what could have been” exercises in a normal year but became even more amplified during a non-season. I almost cried on several occasions during the interview and writing phases.
I wasn’t the only one to pound the pavement looking for content. Fred, Nick Sabo, Larry Di Giovanni, Eli Chung, Jaime Holland and others were worried about the same thing in their respective posts and beats. Were we perfect? By any measure, no. But they and so many others who lost their jobs during the transition deserved a better fate, a much better fate.
I saw my colleagues walk out the door. Fred had been with the News for decades, making it extremely awkward to be one of the last scribes here from the old regime. It’s a little like being invited to summer camp and then being told to run the camp.
No, the News isn’t the same.
As an outsider in the first place, I can tell you that there were aspects of the old News that needed updating.
I can tell you that it’s still not perfect, and it never will be. That’s the brilliance of a newspaper. It’s history’s first draft. That’s why there are column inches devoted to corrections.
But I — as I did when I arrived here one year ago — will always strive to get it right the first time.
