On and off for the last two and a half years, I’ve been a sports writer for the East Tennessean. I’ve been with this publication in some capacity that entire time, and in a matter of days, when I receive my B.A. in Mass Communi-cations from this institution, that will end.
Of course, I could conceivably endure a major case of brain-freeze throughout finals week and wind up having to come back for another semester, but my money’s (literally) on that not happening.
To make this piece of any interest whatsoever to people who aren’t directly associated with me, I’d like to share some of the highs and lows from my time spent covering ETSU athletics.
The first major event I covered was Buc football’s 61-0 slaughter of West Virginia Tech. While it may have been a laugher for the players involved, I can assure you that 61-0 games do not make it easy to come up with compelling copy, especially when you’ve never done anything like this before.
I continued to cover sports throughout that academic year, while branching out into other realms of journalism, and discovered, thankfully, that the career path I had chosen included a fair amount of more compelling and rewarding assignments than 61-0 monstrosities.
Though I venture to say that my byline has appeared on every page of the East Tennessean at one time or another, the fun stuff for me has always been in the back pages. That’s why I’ve returned to sports this semester, and that’s why I say that the most enjoyable experience I’ve had in my years here was covering the 2001 ETSU volleyball team.
Though you can’t say any of the stories I wrote about them were amongst my most widely read, the experience I had on this beat is one I hope to duplicate.
I’m by no means an authority on volleyball; I’ve never watched a televised match all the way through. Yet this was the first sports beat with which I was able to stay with for any substantial length of time, and all the elements of the type of reporting I dream of doing were there.
An overachieving team with a bright future, a storied history, and a new and accommodating coach, with a gutsy and talented conference player of the year in the classic mold of the program’s legends, does not come around often.
In this year’s volleyball team, coach Deane Webb and senior setter Carey Cavanaugh, I had the anathema of a 61-0 game. This was a bunch of athletes and coaches with class about whom my only regret is that I didn’t get to cover them more often.
So, if the economy ever relents, I hope to someday soon enjoy comparable highs as a sports reporter at a daily newspaper. I’m not picky, either.
The relevance of the last graf to the local reader is that, much to your elation, I imagine, you may never again have to see my name, or, even better for you, my face in print again.
So, above all, I want to thank you, the readers, for looking in, from time to time, at my sports journalism education-by-fire. Speaking of incineration, I’d also like to thank those of you using these pages for kindling for at least pausing to read my ramblings, if only momentarily, before, as it were, firing the newspaper staff.
Lastly, I’d like to thank those who have given me repeated opportunities here at the East Tennessean.
There have been so many opportunities and doors opened to me, in fact, that I can’t name all of you. Yet I love you all just the same.

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