thank you.
To all the athletes, coaches, athletics directors and school principals who have allowed us to tell their stories over the past 48 years and the most recent 35 years in Southwest Florida, including the past 25 years for the Herald Tribune; Thanks to everyone else.
You could stop there, but that wouldn't tell the whole story.
I am retiring from the Herald Tribune. My last day was Friday.
It's been an amazing journey, but we couldn't have completed it without you.
I have always said that we need our athletes, coaches, athletics directors and principals as much as they need us. thank you.
If there are a few things I've striven for over the years, it's to be respectful of everyone's time, fair, honest, and trustworthy. I know it probably doesn't seem like it, but I tried.
As new schools spring up everywhere and new sports are contested, the newspaper industry and newspaper industry has also changed, primarily incorporating social media within and on various platforms.
It's a lot different than it was in 1977 when I got into this business.
Not being good enough (in my opinion) to play the sport at the high school level, I started keeping score for the baseball team at St. Anthony's in Trenton, New Jersey, where I was attending school.
After graduating from St. Anthony's College, the Trenton Times, one of Trenton's two daily newspapers, hired me to do a weekly sports insert called “Sports Scene.” This section worked under Wilson Barto and Gordon Parker and focused on regional youth sports. It was a great experience for people who want to get involved in sports.
I quit after almost a year. I willingly quit my paying job to play in slow-pitch softball leagues and tournaments for a summer because I didn't think I would take any more summers off.
Believe it or not, Trenton had a team in the American Professional Slowpitch Softball League called the Trenton Statesmen.
One day in the summer of 1978, the Statesman fired his manager. That night I was playing in a recreational softball league.
When I got to the plate, umpire Billy Drake asked me if I had heard the Statesmen news, and I said yes. He asked me if I knew who the new manager was, and he said he didn't because the team hadn't named a replacement yet. He said, “I’m the new manager.” I said we would talk after the game.
I took some notes. Still in my softball uniform, I drove to the offices of the Trentonian, another daily newspaper in Trenton. I went to the sports department and asked if they knew about the Statesman news. Incredibly, they looked at me and said: “Oh, I know the manager was fired.” When I asked him if he knew who the new manager was, he said, “No, we don't have a name yet.”
I told them I knew who the new manager was and had just talked to him. They asked me to sit down at a desk and type out an article, which outnumbered the mass shooting article on the back page of the newspaper.
A few weeks later, Trentonian sports editor Joe Logue called me and offered me a job on his staff.
For 10 years, it has been my dream to cover not only local high schools but also professional sports.
Most high school football fields at the time didn't have lights, so a typical weekend consisted of Friday afternoon, Saturday morning, and Saturday afternoon watching high school football games.
Almost 10 years later, the following question arose in my mind: “Am I good enough to do this elsewhere?”
I found an opening for a sports editor at the Charlotte Sun-Herald in Port Charlotte, where the Texas Rangers were holding spring training. I'm not going to lie, Port He had to look at a map to see exactly where Charlotte was. And the idea of covering spring training was even more appealing.
I applied, but I didn't hear anything back. So I took a vacation to Southwest Florida, broke into the Sun Herald's offices, met Jim Gwilis, and told him how to change the athletic department.
A month later he offered me the position. I started on January 26, 1989.
It was hard to say goodbye to family and friends, but the three snows we received after giving two weeks' notice were a sign that sunny days were to come.
In the early 1990s, Collier County was interested in bringing the Baltimore Orioles to Naples for spring training. Then Tom Rife, sports editor for the Naples Daily News, hired me to cover spring training and prep sports.
Neapolitan organizations believed that the funds for the stadium construction were collected illegally and took the matter to court. A Lakeland judge agreed with the group, and the money will go toward beach restoration. A few months later, Hurricane Andrew literally washed away funds earmarked for a new spring training facility and redirected them to replenishment on the Gulf Coast.
After a year and a half of preparing for the story in Naples, Gouberis rehired me as a sportswriter at the San Herald. Three months later, I returned to my old job as a sports editor.
At the Associated Press Sports Editors (APSE) convention in Scottsdale, Arizona in 1999, I saw a man walking in front of me wearing a T-shirt with Lemon Bay written on the back.
I said out loud, “Lemon Bay?!?”
The T-shirt was worn by Herald Tribune sports editor Scott Peterson. I asked him if he would consider hiring someone from the Charlotte Sun-Herald. He said it depends on who it is.
A few months later, a vacancy opened up in the Charlotte Herald Tribune, a former Sarasota Herald Tribune bureau when the paper had a bureau. Scott hired me, someone from the Charlotte Sun-Herald on August 23, 1999.
In all the years I've been in this business, it's never felt like work. I always told people that I work by watching other people play.
And documenting that event and those involved was truly a blessing and a dream come true for those who could never compete on their own level.
Thank you to Wilson and Gordon, Joe and Jim (twice), and Tom and Scott for giving me a chance. I certainly tried not to disappoint you all.
Whatever I was covering at the time, I considered it the most important event of the day and treated it that way, at least in my mind. (Scott and I sometimes had heated arguments about story placement.)
No matter what season it was, it was my favorite season.
All the sports I covered were my favorite sports.
What I enjoyed watching was the evolution of women's sports over the years, with athletes from other sports such as soccer competing in track and field, linemen throwing, and skilled athletes running and sprinting. It looked like he was doing something.
Some performances were incredible.
Thank you for taking me there.
It's been a tough ride.
Keep up the great things. I will continue to monitor it. Don't be surprised if my byline appears once or twice. There are some things that cannot be extracted from the blood.
thanks again.
