Missing It

I missed it only once since I've been out since September. It would have been twice but I was able to string that game (the only time I did cover anything). The one I missed was when a coach at one of the schools I used to cover resigned to take over a program in the same conference. There are four or five papers that covered the school I had so the competitive juices started flowing like they always used to. Other than that, haven't missed it all.

I love having nights and weekends off even though my new job teaching means I have another three hours of work to do after Little Fear goes down for the night. It's great that I can plan my schedule weeks in advance and I'll get a paid month off instead of the four-week furlough they had at my old shop.

Two weeks after I pulled the escape hatch, the SE of the place I left texted wanting to know if I could string a high school football game for half of what I would have made had I still been on staff. We were going out of town, which we wouldn't have been able to do had I still been there, but even if we weren't: "Um, no."

 

I've been wanting to post my my story for awhile hoping it might spark an idea for someone.

Worked in television. LOVED the adrenaline. Nothing like live TV. Nowadays when I'm at a game and find myself in the bowels of a stadium or arena? That's when it engulfs me. The musty feel of the place, the smell of turf, the dim florescent lighting. My feet start to walk quickly like I'm racing to get an interview or running to the truck to edit a story. The tunnel of a football stadium. That's when I miss it.

But hey .... what's this? I've stumbled upon a new, albeit slightly different adrenaline rush.

To briefly recap-- Worked local, national... anchoring, reporting, features, some investigative, lots of game reporting... even the dreaded sideline... (the thing I miss most about sideline is basketball sideline-- listening in during timeouts. Standing right behind the bench, IN the huddle, really, with the coach looking at me, like, what the hell are you doing, before realizing, oh yeah, fucking TV-- then me shooting him a look like-- damn right I'm allowed to be here. Get used to me, fucker. )

As mentioned on the other thread, American League Baseball was pretty much The End. I had my first child and could not continue staying at the ballpark until 1:30 am. Then coming home and trying to nurse all night. Then trying to figure out how to pump enough milk to be away again. I cut my hours back, but it was no use. I started to lose my edge at work, and I quickly found I wasn't doing anything well-- my job or parenting.

Long story short, I ended up negotiating a severance and got out of my contract. I became essentially a full time mother. It was a big change. I had an idea that I wanted to start my own business, because like a lot of you, I was sick and tired of the fucking bullshit. Local news is the WORST. It's the pits, the lowest of low. The mix of piss and scum on the public restroom floor. I don't need to tell you stories or describe it-- y'all know.

So I used the severance to take classes and wanted to go into a different field entirely. I ended up taking a entrepreneurship class. (Mr. Lugs, God bless him, made enough to support the family, so unlike a lot of you, I had that... But also unlike a lot of you I was the mom... had, by this time 2 kids, one of whom had a horrific allergy to cow's milk and soy, so again I was nursing around the clock, trying to keep a huge bruiser of a kid healthy.)

I began to realize how hard it would be to start a business. Where and how would I get financing ? And an even bigger issue was TIME. People who start businesses often work 24/7, wearing every hat imaginable-- then still mostly fail. Time was the reason I had to leave journalism in the first place.

Meanwhile I was trying to lose the baby weight. I decided to knock some shit off the bucket list, while changing diapers and potty training. So I did something I'd been wanting to do since I was 19 years old: I picked up a tennis racquet again, in a serious way.

I started with clinics. Lessons, leagues, match play, singles, doubles.... Hitting against old ladies or young boys-- I took on all comers. When I started captaining teams I found myself going back to Feinstein's A Good Walk Spoiled to remind myself of Tom Watson's leadership in the '93 Ryder Cup... Or cueing up an old interview I did with Joe Torre. I write recaps of my teams' matches that have become famous in these parts. Other captains want to know how I write these stories. This is what I did in a past life, I tell them. (Now I use my recaps as recruiting tools.)

On the court, as I got more serious, I worked relentlessly on stroke technique. I trained. I began to feel pressure in competition. I wanted to win. I wanted to win really badly. I battled injuries. I choked away matches. I rallied from nowhere to win matches. I had to face my critics and rivals when I lost. I felt the excitement and embrace of my team when I won. All the while, on a very small scale, I was getting a taste of the other side.

I became the athlete.

Let me tell ya. Injuries fucking suck. I never realized the mental number they do on you, especially when you're first trying to come back. Having people watch you play in competition is a mind fuck. Having to explain to people why you played so suckily after a loss without sounding like you're making excuses... It's tough. Wow. And magnify that by a billion. It dawned on me: All this freight had been right across from me on the other side of the mic-- carried by the athletes I covered.

So this newfound obsession was great and everything but it's not like I'm gonna play Wimbledon or turn tennis into a profession.

Or am I ?

Three years ago I stumbled upon a tennis "startup" ...of sorts. A new organization for adult amateur tennis players serious about training. The approach resembled something you might see in the amateur marathon or triathlon worlds. I took the founder to lunch. We hit it off. How could I help ?

Turned out he needed tons of help with film and video. I was interested in learning budgets, revenues, taxes and other aspects of entrepreneurship. He was delighted to mentor me. Fast forward 3 years. I've worked my ass off. My journalism skills are back in use as I produce and edit TED-style videos on highly technical aspects of tennis. And I've become involved in keeping this thing afloat.

But even more than the esoteric skills, the nuanced, "relationship" skills I learned in journalism ... Everything from... Putting interview subjects at ease, digesting others' ideas quickly, listening to rants .... It's all coming in handy.

There's not a lot of money in startups, but there's a ton of work to be done. And if something catches on financially... You've contributed in a big way. It's thrilling. It's a reason to jump out of bed in the morning.

I've got my adrenaline rush back.

 

Congratulations. Your story is inspiring and very interesting. Life is meant to be lived and you are succeeding.

 

The ONLY thing I miss about leaving sports more than a decade ago (for TV news) is this. Loved covering NFL and college football with my fellow TV sports cynics, swapping the inside jokes and dishing the gossip on stations and personalities. It's a very incestuous business and I really enjoyed that. We'd all BS for a couple of hours before the game and usually during the first half until it was time to buckle down at halftime.

 

Last worked in the biz in 2007, when I was 24. I miss being young, doing it for the beer money, driving around past midnight, and giving no f***s. But I definitely couldn't do it now. I'm in awe of those that do it into their 40s and beyond.

 

As another one in TV, your post touches my heart. Well done. Thank you for writing.

 

I think anybody who leaves the biz misses it. But do they regret it?

 

In my case, the longer I'm away, the more I realize that even if I had a chance to go back, the business I returned to would not be the same as the one I left, and the change would be much the worse for me. So no regrets.

 

Probably depends in large part on whether the leaving was voluntary. If you leave on your own terms, there's a decent chance it's because you already had something lined up (or have a plan like law school, etc.). Those who were forced out but happened to land in a better place are not as plentiful, I would guess.

 

I don't miss the awful hours, working on weekends and pulling desk shifts into the wee hours of the morning. I don't miss making poverty wages while working insane hours. I don't miss soulless bosses who were miserable and wanted to make you as miserable as they were. I don't miss the layoffs and the fear of layoffs. I don't miss living in little hellholes in BFE while pursuing my dream, which quickly turned into a nightmare. I don't miss live tweeting anything. I don't miss the idiot callers who begged for scores or who called to whine that their little precious child wasn't on the all-county team.

I was in the business for 13 years and the toll it took on my mental well-being and my health was enormous. I'd rather get keel-hauled than cover preps again.

When I hear people talk about how I was "paid to watch games for a living," I just want to slug them.

It's not all negative. I do miss the camaraderie. I miss designing a great page. I miss the few times when people picked up the phone or emailed me to let me know that a story or a column touched their lives in some way. I miss talking with the coaches, many of whom were decent people who worked the same awful hours I did. I miss the "juice" of cranking out a game story in an impossibly small amount of time, paginating and editing the section on a football Friday night. The level of satisfaction you feel on a Friday night when the press rolls or when the football section comes off the press or when you walk away from the race track after six days of awesome coverage with nothing left in the tank is something I sometimes miss.

In the end, it's like this car I had in college, this little green Honda Civic hatchback. It was marvelous to drive and got amazing gas mileage. Sometimes I reminisce about how much I miss its rev-happy motor, snick-snick manual shifter and go-cart steering. Then I remember I'm old and would be beaten to a pulp by its dump truck-like ride. And I realize my comfortable mid-sized car with its cushier ride and automatic is exactly where I need to be at this point in my life. Same with sports writing. It was great when I was young and too stupid to realize how poor and overworked I was. Now that I'm older, it would be a non-starter.

 

I started stringing preps in 1996 when I was still at the University of Arkansas and started on the desk at The Morning News of Northwest Arkansas in August, 1998. I moved to the Southwest Times Record in December, 1999, and then the Clarion Ledger in August, 2003. I came to The Free Lance-Star of Fredericksburg, Va., in January, 2005, to work at the paper in my hometown.

In 2014 I returned to school to get a Bachelor's in Computer Science and will graduate this upcoming December.

Today is my last day here at the paper - just finish up our top track and field times for the week ... now just need to pack up my desk and do a few more chores. I start next week working as a Software Engineer for a defense contractor here in Northern Virginia.

Sunday was my last desk shift, and I had a little bit over nostalgia over never doing another baseball page or agate page ... Otherwise, I'm really, really looking forward to things outside of newspapers.

 

Congratulations, Justin.