On Journalism, and the Layoff

There are a few threads that run through our lives that, if you think about it, you realize how thin those threads are. My marriage is a well-covered example of that. But the second-most important aspect of my life goes back to a pretty random moment.

Writing has never come easily to me. I'm not a wordsmith in the 75-words-per-sentence sense. I can't weave a complicated series of thoughts into one line. Keep it simple. State your facts. Move on to the next item. I'm not a Hemmingway fan so don't even start talking about newspapermen and their writing habits.

Until the middle of high school, I was pretty convinced I was going to be a chemical engineer. That's from an era when I thought it was mostly mixing stuff in beakers and causing fires. There's still an element of that, but chemical engineering is mostly math 'n' stuff. I'm good at math, but not that good. I realized that about the time I was dragging down the class average in pre-calculous.

I was taking a journalism class and was floating along nicely. Actually, it wasn't nicely. I did a typical high school thing. I had a newspaper story due on Monday for class. So I made up a bunch of quotes, threw together an article and handed it in. Our teacher wasn't exactly thrilled with the effort.

Nonetheless, Nick Raleigh approached me between periods sometime in the spring of 1994. He wanted me to be the sports editor for the school paper, The Pony Express. I kid you not. That was and remains the name of the paper at Stillwater High. He wanted somebody who understood sports, he said. And he wanted somebody that liked sports, unlike all the rest of the people in our journalism class.

All I knew about the school paper was you got a "PART" pass, which allowed you to drive off the school campus. I was in.

Turns out, working for a high school paper was a lot like working at every other paper I've ever been at. We made fun of everything. The paper ran a monthly classified ad in which I sought dates with our fabulous cheerleaders (one started "Hay, cheerleaders ..."). Emerson Ward and I spent the night in the classroom, sleeping on the couches, on a school night. The principal yelled at our teacher because we could have been gay lovers. True story. That actually happened.

It wasn't exactly like every other paper I've ever worked at. But I've spent the night at two of my other newspapers (Once on the floor under my desk during the 2008 Beijing Olympics. I was the sports editor. Things *really* don't change that much). The camaraderie was always there. Newspaper people are a different breed. We don't want to make anything nor do we want to sell anything. We just want to tell stories.

That won't end Saturday night. That's when the newspaper I currently work for will stop paying me to design and copy edit the sports section. Financially, this sucks. Emotionally, I'm detached.

I had my dream job in Salt Lake. Then my boss had me work 60 or 70 hours a week without ever giving me a significant pay raise, even when I went from being a copy editor to an assistant sports editor.

I don't need to go work at the Boston Globe to validate myself or my career. I could have gone there or any number of good metro-area newspapers. I have no doubt of that. I spent 10 years of my life trying to prove something to myself, to the papers that never even responded with a courtesy email to my job applications, to the Minneapolis/St. Paul newspapers that didn't have any work for me.

All those nights I was busy proving it, it felt like life was going on without me. Friends would want to meet up or have me over for dinner. Sorry, I have to work. I'd be covering the Super Bowl and my wife would be at home on the couch with our dog, watching with friends.

Every sports journalist I've ever met eventually takes their career for granted. The bitch and moan about the pressbox food. They complain when their NBA seats get moved from courtside to a few rows back from courtside, in a corner of the arena. Games always start too late. Players aren't reverential enough to them. Secretly, they were stealing seat cushions, pens or other giveaways to keep as mementos.

You're lucky if you're age 17 and know exactly what you want to do with your life. You're even luckier if you actually do what you set out to do. I've done it, and it's part of my frustration as I try to move forward.

Nobody has to say "sorry" about me losing my job. It's fine. I'll figure something out. Nick Raleigh, I await your suggestions.