For the ex-journalists here...

What I tell my new co-workers when they remark on how cool it must've been is this:

"It was the best job in the world...10% of the time."

The other 90% ain't worth it, at least for me.

 

For us in New England Thanksgiving was one of the greatest sports days of the year. Many New England states have had rivalry games on that date that got back 100 or more years. We went when we were in high school, we'd cover and most guys went after they gout out of the business.

Breakfast, sometimes with the officials, 10 a.m. or 10:30 a.m. kickoff. Miss all the food prep. Eat, check statewide scores to see who made the playoffs, then write and watch the NFL.

Good days.

Often, Friday off and sometimes through the weekend.

 

That sums it up pretty well.

 

1. What do you miss most about sports journalism?
2. What do you miss least?
3. What do you do now?
4. Are you happier with your new career?

1. The creativity of it. I love the creative process of writing, and sports was a great avenue for exercising that creativity.

2. Hours and pay of course. But also my former sports editor, who might be the most miserable, horrible, unethical person I've ever had the displeasure of dealing with. He was just a bad boss, a bad journalist and a bad person, and he stressed me and impacted my life far more than I should have allowed.

Also, the feeling that what I did simply didn't matter. I was a HS sports reporter/page designer, and I always had this nagging feeling that my work was of no significance. I mean, great - grandma's going to clip this for the ol' scrapbook. But what else? I felt like I was sacrificing my time and energy and working insane hours for low pay for something that was completely irrelevant to the world at large. Reporters who do investigative work, who cover the government and crime and what have you - they can make a difference. Reporting that Smallville defeated Tinyburg 21-14 - who cares?

3. Corporate communications for a very large company.

4. Much, much happier. I work regular hours (freeing up my nights and weekends), I like and respect my manager and coworkers, I get paid significantly more than I ever would have made in journalism, and yet the job still takes advantage of my writing skills, which I enjoy.

 

I look at my time in journalism a lot like I look at the first girl I loved - those were tremendous times, wouldn't trade 'em for anything, and I still love both journalism and that girl on some level, but I've moved on and discovered that a different job (and a different girl) can make me even happier. I love going out to free lance a few times a year. Love it. But I wouldn't go back full time even if you offered me more money than I make in my new job - I've moved on to a new thing that fulfills me in a different way.

 

1. The newsroom atmosphere and the people I worked with. Then again, that atmosphere had a bit of a graveyard quality to it by the end of my full-time newspaper career.
2. Hours, pay and the feeling of the axe looming over me. And the feeling that I was missing my son as he grew up (which I guess falls under "hours.")
3. Communications for a nonprofit (website news, social media, e-newsletters, video and lots of editing)
4. Mostly, yes. I don't think I'll be at my job forever, and I don't enjoy it like I did newspapers, but seeing my wife and kids a lot more makes up for it and then some. And I still string for the local paper, so I can get an occasional fix.

ETA: I was lucky enough to be able to leave the business on my own terms.

 

1. What do you miss most about sports journalism?

The big events. I loved the rush of covering a big event, nailing the story and seeing everyone reading it. And that could range everywhere from an NFL playoff game to a sectional championship basketball game. That, and being around sports all the time.

2. What do you miss least?

The 24/7 round-the-clock being chained to the job. You never knew when a story was going to break, when a stringer was going to flake out on you. My last year in the biz, I worked something like 31 consecutive days in the fall without a day off (I was a salaried SE of a 2-person staff, and my stringer budget had been slashed), often working split shifts -- desk in the morning, coverage in the evening. It about killed me.

3. What do you do now?

High school teacher. I still freelance a wee bit and do a ton of broadcasting, most of which is for a hobby company I operate on the side. I coached basketball for a few years, coached tennis for a couple.

4. Are you happier with your new career?

Yes and no. I love the 9-to-5 nature of the job, the extended vacations, the interaction with students. I also teach journalism and essentially publish the school newspaper and yearbook. I love being a part of the community, too. That part is wonderful. The part I hate is the lack of control -- I can get a completely different teaching schedule each year. This year, I'm teaching 5 different classes, which is a really bad schedule for someone in a school with more than 1,000 students. We also have a new state accountability system that is really nothing more than a thinly-veiled attempt at getting rid of experienced teachers and driving down our salaries (while tripling our work). The state also has suggested to schools that they get rid of elective classes, which means my journalism program could be in jeopardy the next time funding cuts come.

I've kind of realized my true calling was broadcasting/SID-type work. I'm searching high and low for that type of job, but it's difficult to do so without uprooting your family and/or taking an enormous pay cut, neither of which I can really do right now, as I'm the primary breadwinner in our home -- my wife works part-time.

 

Not being chained to the job is huge. When I'm done with my 8-hour day I don't think about work until I start working the next day. It's so liberating.

 

1. What do you miss most about sports journalism?

The camaraderie of the newsroom. It was great being around a group of people who were very smart, very opinionated and generally dealing with the same sort of insanity that you were. As much as working the desk during HS basketball season felt miserable, I haven't had a job yet where I was so constantly entertained by my co-workers or felt a bond that was nearly like that.

2. What do you miss least?

Having my girlfriend wake me out of my semi-slumber at 8 a.m. as she went to work, followed by me dragging in at midnight as she was going to bed and have that be our daily contact on an weekday. Or not being able to go out on the weekend because I had a Saturday night HS football game that I was volunteered to cover. At the end of the day, I looked around the newsroom and saw how many people were divorced or never married and thought long and hard about what I would be willing to sacrifice to keep doing a job I loved (and in a lot of ways still miss).

3. What do you do now?

I work in Marketing Communications for an industrial company, doing newsletters, press releases, website content, etc. I did straight tech PR for a number of years after I left; I was good at it but ultimately grew to hate the pressure to get placements and the feeling that my career hinged on being able to convince reporters to "play the game" and give my clients favorable coverage. I burned out, pure and simple. I've found Marketing Communications to be a lot more low-key and it lets me focus on writing, which is what I still love to do.

4. Are you happier with your new career?

I've been married to the girlfriend for almost 10 years now and we have two amazing kids, so I don't regret the decision to leave journalism at the time. What I regret is that we weren't mature enough to try to find a way to make it work despite the hardship she had to deal as being the significant other of a lower-level sports reporter in a major market trying to break through. (She also didn't drive at the time, which in LA in the late 1990s meant she basically didn't go out if I wasn't there.) I've been able to keep my finger in the business with freelance gigs and online writing, which has helped a lot since I can control my schedule and look for/accept work on my terms.

 

Laid off by GateHouse in January 2009. (Wow, has it really been 3 1/2 years?) I had what I honestly believe was the best job in the company: Chicago sports columnist. I had a lot of freedom, was doing OK financially and had a pretty large, loyal following. I also had a great run in the first part of my career with AP. I always considered myself to be extraordinarily lucky. Whether that affects my viewpoints here I'm not sure ...

1. What do you miss most about sports journalism?
2. What do you miss least?
3. What do you do now?
4. Are you happier with your new career?

1. Absolutely, the silliness of the press box. I loved making fun of my fellow scribes and even being made fun of. We had a bunch of truly interesting characters during my 16 years in Chicago: Mariotti, Telander, Lincicome, Gleason, Verdi, Morrissey, Bayless, Haugh, Terry Armour, Paul Sullivan, Sam Smith, Rick Gano, Phil Arvia, Imrem, Rosner, Cowley, Lacy Banks, and on and on and on. Some I liked a lot, some not so much (and one I despised ... guess who). Many days it was more interesting following the soap operas involving the scribes than it was following the (usually) lousy teams we covered.

I miss the actual writing. I miss an ordinary game turning into something special (case in point: no-hitters). I miss being able to call out the liars, crooks and jerks in the sports world. And yes, I admit it: Every once in awhile, I miss the ego boost that came with having a job that pretty much everybody thought was cool.

I miss the good folks at Copley and am still sad when I think about what happened to a great family-run newspaper company after they sold to the GateHouse clowns.

After leaving AP in 1998, I missed being part of huge coverage teams at huge events, especially the Olympics. Those were amazing gatherings of dedicated people working their butts off. At the end of pretty much every night, we'd be exhausted but proud of what we did.

The sound in a crowded press box or press room on deadline after a big event: almost total silence except for the tap-tap-tapping of 100 or more keyboards. (And the occasional anguished bellow when a computer ate a story or an editor was unreasonable.)

Oh, and the paycheck. Miss that, too.

2. Dealing with GateHouse management. I knew I was living on borrowed time because I would be deemed a luxury they would decide not to afford. That feeling truly sucked.

Being embarrassed as some (not all, but some) of my peers felt the need to pretend to laugh at the lame attempts at humor by the likes of Lovie Smith or Tom Kelly or Brian Urlacher or Jerry Krause. Nothing worse than kissing up to people who pretty much hate us.

Internet reader comments, especially Cubbie fans who were sure I loved the White Sox and White Sox fans who were sure I loved the Cubs.

While lots of people thought my job was cool, lots also thought I didn't really work for a living. I don't miss having to justify my work ethic.

Near the end, the deadlines got brutal. It's not easy writing an insightful column from a playoff game that ends 20 minutes after deadline.

3. For lack of better term, I guess I am semi-retired and being supported by my Sugar Mama wife. I work part-time at a country club, ref basketball and lacrosse and do some coaching. I still do some freelance writing, mostly financial and news pieces.

4. I am content, I have absolutely no regrets and I still consider myself to be a lucky guy. But I no longer have a career to be happy or unhappy about.

 

For me, as I started to look at beginning a family, I couldn't figure out a way to do that properly while still working at a newspaper. If I stayed, my future wife would have to work just to keep us afloat because of my salary (or lack thereof), and we'd still have to be frugal if we wanted to raise children. I wouldn't have time to be around at night, with all the games to cover, and I'd be working weekends and traveling -- basically, I'd rarely be around. At a certain point, I realized that to stay in newspapers because I enjoyed it even though it would hurt any family I wanted to have seemed awfully selfish.

 

1. What do you miss most about sports journalism?

Actual journalism and storytelling. That means digging into a long-form narrative piece, which both of my main employers thankfully gave me more room to do than most newspapers nowadays. Or digging into a continuing news story and following the threads day after day. Going to the courthouse for documents. Calling sources. Following the money. Adding up disparate facts and figures until a coherent whole emerged. But, really, for me, narrative. Getting 100 inches to travel to northern Michigan and write about Ryan Shay, who died during the Olympic marathon trial, or 80 to write about a former high school football star's battle against heroin addiction. I miss beginnings, middles, and endings, and trying to arrange them for their greatest impact. And I miss the emails that would flood in after I nailed it.

Oh, and I'd be remiss to not mention that I also miss my friends and the newsroom and press box atmosphere. I keep in touch with many of them, some on nearly a daily basis.

2. What do you miss least?

Games and press conferences - and particularly press conferences. Don't get me wrong. There are tremendous pros to being on a major beat, whether it was covering the White Sox at home, which was kind of a training ground at The Times of Northwest Indiana between prep seasons, or Notre Dame football full-time, which I did at the South Bend Tribune and its sister publication, Irish Sports Report. It was fun, in some ways, to be that wired into the minutia of a program or organization. On the other hand, my patience was severely tried by how choreographed it could be. Someone in a post above mentioned feeling insignificant covering one of probably 5,000 high school football games going on in a given night in America. And I had plenty of moments like that, too, sitting in 35-degree weather covering an early-season prep softball game or track meet in the rain. But listening to Charlie Weis ramble on about the next opponent's special teams coach could be so much worse. Same with being one of 30 people in a room pretending to care one iota about what was going to come out of Jimmy Clausen's mouth. Obviously, a lot of the most important work doesn't occur in those settings. But you still have to be there. Some people love it. I'll put it this way: Some people also love remodeling their own kitchen. In both cases, I can understand why, but it's just not for me.

My child was not born yet while I still worked mostly late nights, and college football could be a pretty manageable schedule, so the scheduling issues never affected me as much as a lot of people here. I do look back wistfully on my 20s sometimes and wonder if I missed out on a lot of Friday and Saturday nights that I'll never get back. Then again, I also spent a lot of Friday nights in places like Boston and Chapel Hill and San Francisco, so I would say it evened out.

3. What do you do now?

I just finished law school in June after 3 1/2 years and two schools. I'm taking the bar exam next week. For the first time in my life, I think I'd rather be going to a press conference.

I also get to do a little bit of freelancing. For example, I've written several non-sports stories for my university alumni magazine. I've written about nuclear technology development, Mesopotamian archaeology, economics. You name it. And that's a lot of fun.

4. Are you happier with your new career?

Not necessarily happier, per se, but it was time to try something else, and I am happier having made the leap than I would have been had I not. There are some similarities, particularly regarding researching different threads and molding them into a consistent, coherent whole. In journalism, that means a narrative feature or a news story that makes sense of things for a general readership. In law, that means putting together a winning argument, and usually dozens of different winning arguments within a single litigation. I was fortunate enough this school year to be essentially the main person, other than my supervising professor, in a lawsuit against the state of Illinois from start to the (for us) disappointing finish. It wasn't completely unlike covering a major news story all the way through, although there is a different kind of pressure - not worse, not better, just different - when you are an interested party to the matter than when you are simply an outsider shining a light in a corner. My real job starts in September.

Oh, and whether I'm happier or not, I'm definitely healthier. We'll see how that goes when the real world starts back up in a few weeks.