Published: May 15, 2008 12:30 pm            

Sports editor celebrates 30th anniversary

This date, May 15, has no special meaning to anyone other than a codger like me.

It’s not like the signing of the Magna Carta (1215) or Columbus discovering the New World (1492) and even Joe DiMaggio’s hitting streak (56 in ‘41). It’s just my own, special anniversary.

Yes, three decades or 30 years to most regular people, I started in this crazy business. On May 15, 1978, I became a newspaperman. Little did I know the job would last this long.

But the boss of the Jacksonville Daily Progress at the time, Mr. Barnes H. Broiles, did tell me he’d been in the business for over half a century and hoped that “You too, have a long and happy association with the profession” as he autographed his book and handed it to me.

Working at a newspaper, in one form or another, has been my “calling” to put it in spiritual terms. I knew from the age of 16 or 17 I wanted to be a writer. So with my overwhelming love for sports, I evolved into a sports writer.

I can’t look back at my start in this business 30 years ago without examining all the changes. I started at the paper as a single, 156-pound “cub reporter” or flunky. Soon I was out chasing down wrecks, covering meetings and into the flow of my chosen profession. Sometimes it is good to be full of energy and really not know any better. I would have tackled a fire hydrant for a story in those days.

I remember times back when newspapers were owned by individuals and writing was done a typewriter actually using paper. The newspaper was a quarter, gas was 65 cents a gallon and Gerald Ford was in the White House. I could see my feet, without a mirror.

Through my stops in this business at Frankston, Rusk, Athens and Bullard, the Daily Progress has always been my home base. A touchstone or sorts, where it all began and I learned the ropes. My first “real” job after leaving college.

I can remember as a kid racing to the road to get the paper after school, then reading the sports page of the Progress and intently scanning batting averages of my heroes of the time — Willie Mays, Carl Yastrzemski and others.

From that seed grew my love for sports. Later it blossomed into being a sports writer. Thank goodness the paper was here for me to contribute my own spin on the world of sports.

I’ve been lucky enough to have covered state championships in football and basketball and even gone to national tournaments.

If I start naming names of people who I learned from and were my key influences, Just about everyone I have worked with has help mold me into the person and writer/reporter I am today.

It’s funny, as a much younger reporter, I once ran up and down the Tomato Bowl steps, two at a time. Now I look across the street from my office and the old native rock stadium looks like a far haul for an aging writer like me.

But I am sure I will make it somehow with help from my friends. I am ready for another 30 years or so.

I see nothing but bright skies and a positive future for sports in the whole county as I write about yet another generation of kids.



Don Wallace is the sports editor of the Jacksonville Daily Progress.

        

• Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.