“When one door closes, another door opens.”
That was what my mother told me after I sent her a panicky text message back on April 25, hours after getting laid off by the Tulsa World from my position as a staff sportswriter.
That was a rough day and at that point, her comment was barely helpful – intellectually, I knew that she was probably right, but it was hard to shake the catastrophic vision I had in my head, imagining me and my family homeless on the street corner in a few months. What would I do?
I commiserated with a couple of my now-former colleagues at the World who were also laid off (it was a company-wide action that cut that newsroom significantly), but that was little consolation, really. In fact, it almost made it worse, knowing there were other writers out there who were also now looking for jobs. In this line of work, I have seen too many good journalists end up unemployed for reasons that had nothing to do with their performance or character, and some of them have moved on to other industries.
I wondered if I would end up writing technical manuals or medical procedures or something like that. What were the odds I could find another job as a sportswriter, particularly one who primarily focuses on local high school athletes?
Well, maybe I should play the lottery because my mother, as she usually turns out to be, was right. As annoying as that can be sometimes, on this occasion, I was grateful.
Just days after my tenure ended at the Tulsa World, where I had contributed as both a freelancer and a staff writer since moving to Oklahoma from Dallas in August 2013, I received a text from one of my former colleagues to contact the Sapulpa Herald, who were “looking for some sports help.” I thought that meant they possibly wanted a freelancer to contribute occasionally, but that wasn’t the case. On May 1, I met with publisher Darren Sumner and editor-in-chief Micah Choquette, not even fully realizing that it was an interview for a full-time position (and barely believing it once I figured it out midway through the meeting) and they offered me the job.
As fate would have it, I was actually offered another job by another company later that day and spent about 36 hours agonizing over which one to go with, but in the end, the Sapulpa Herald just felt like the best fit. So the day before my birthday (which is May 4, and as a huge Star Wars fan, it’s awesome to have ‘May the Fourth Be With You’ as my big day), I accepted my new position.
I got my start in this business covering big time major league sports in Dallas – I wrote for the NHL Dallas Stars’ website and the Dallas Cowboys Star Magazine while there, as well as covering Major League Soccer’s FC Dallas and Major League Baseball’s Texas Rangers for the Associated Press, among other plum assignments, from 2002-13 – but there’s something about covering high school athletics that is really special.
For the World, I primarily focused on high school wrestling, soccer and swimming over the last several years (with an interlude of TU football and basketball from August to December of last year), as well as some high school football and basketball games, some of which included Sapulpa. I am excited that I get to continue doing that, while adding all the other sports to the list, as well as the student athletes at Kiefer, Kellyville and Mounds.
Coming in just after the end of the school sports season is kind of odd timing, but I plan on recapping what some local spring teams accomplished over the past couple of months, while establishing relationships with the various high school coaches now, so that when everything starts up again in the fall, I can hit the ground running. And in the meantime, over the summer, there will be plenty of other unique athletic endeavors to report on.
I should have known my mother was right, and I’m thankful to have another door to walk through.
