Baton Rouge

So you mean to say that Shief is no longer on the Southern beat or did I misread? The SWAC has lost a great one if that's the case.

Congrats to Scott, who worked for the Advocate back in the day as I recall. I'm sure he'll continue the fine work that Rab, Will and Carl did for many years.

 

One of which would not have existed if management in Baton Rouge weren't a confederacy of dunces.

 

Confederacy of dunces... nice...

 

Shef moves over to cover LSU, leaving the Southern gig open. Going to be weird not seeing Shef covering the SWAC, because as far as I'm concerned, he IS the SWAC. He's a one-man sports information department for the conference.

Anyway, congrats to both Perryn and Hotard. Worked with Hotard a few years back on the prep beat and he's a good guy, fantastic writer. I'm sure he's happy to come back home, even if it means leaving the beach.

 

Forgot to mention: Perryn's an up-and-comer. He'll do well over there. He has a voice, a style. He has an understanding on how to pursue a story and how to manage the day-to-day of a beat. At the same time, he has a desire to write great pieces. He has enough respect for the day-to-day to balance the need to have time for that enterprise piece.

Well-rounded and ready to go.

And he vouches for Hotard. Good enough for me.

 

Don't know if he was at the Advocate, but pretty sure he was in Alexandria.

 

They had it coming, doncha think?

 

Much too kind...

 

Gary Laney, who covered the McNeese State beat for the American Press in Lake Charles (La.) from 1998 until leaving to become sports editor of the Beaumont Enterprise in August, is the final hire in Baton Rouge. He starts Dec. 8.

As noted on another thread, the Enterprise layoffs included its entire press crew. Outsourcing printing of the paper to the Houston Chronicle put Gary in an untenable position in terms of deadlines and keeping the section viable, and he decided to apply for the job in Baton Rouge. He's happy to be moving back to Louisiana.

He'll cover the LSU men's basketball beat vacated by Randy Rosetta, who's a football/baseball guy now on the sometimes-hard-to-figure-out LSU beat at the paper.

Thus endeth another non-search search by the sports editor, who in spite of himself gets a good hire in Gary. When there were three openings in sports in September, someone I know contacted HR there and was told there were no openings in sports. That finally became true after the hirings of Hotard, Keys and, now, Laney.

 

Gary took my place in Lake Charles after I left in December 1997 for a job in Shreveport. I've known him since he started hanging around the press box at American Legion games I staffed in the mid 1980s, when he was in high school. He did things with the McNeese State beat I never did or thought of, and he built a strong and loyal readership for the paper's most important beat. He also became one of the most knowledgeable I-AA writers in the country. I've watched Gary grow up in the business, and I can't think of anyone I'd be more proud of taking my place at a paper than Gary -- and twice to boot. He'll do well.

Congratulations, Gary. Lunch is on you when you get here, I assume.

;D

 

solid stuff, right there.

 

I hear this guy is a job vulture. He's like the middle reliever who comes in the eighth inning of a 1-1 game and gets the cheap win after the starter did all the hard work.

That's just the campfire talk...
;-)...

At least he doesn't say "middle reliefer." The first job on that first beat you shared with him was making sure the word "reliefer" never made the paper...