Now what?
When they tarp the field one last time and the boys and girls in whatever color your favorite high school team saunter off the field (pitch, diamond, floor, whatever), us sports writer (columnist, blogger, whichever) types feel a little empty inside.
You know, kind of like you do when your son or daughter asks you to wash the jersey for the last time. (“Wash it yourself,“ you say, instilling a life lesson they’ll no doubt take with them to college along with the wizard like scent magic that is Febreze being sprayed on the arm-pit area of pick-your-favorite wrinkled T-shirt.)
It’s the question of “Now What?“ During the school year we are given a cornucopia, a horn-o-plenty if you will, of sports to cover. The fall gives us football, volleyball and cross country. The winter heralds in the hoops, wrestling, indoor track. The spring season plops everything else down on the two- or three-person staff masses as we scramble to cover what we can, when we can. Sighing, because we know full well you can only make most of the people happy part of the time.
Truth be told, our job (or mine at least) is a fun job. And in many heated conversations with coaches, I always remind them how fun it is because I can’t help but think that if a coach is so fired up to rant and rave about coverage, they might have forgotten how much fun their job is too. And if you’re not having fun at what you do for a living, then shouldn’t we all rethink a lot of things?
Back in December, I wrote a column that Managing Editor Lee Wolverton put on our “Perspectives” page—the News Virginian’s version of the editorial page that, despite being the grayest one of the bunch, always gets the best name—after countless Buffalo Gap football parents cornered the sports staff and I to thank us. I simply replied, “You should be thanking the players.“ It’s not a line, it’s not some nicer version of “Booyah” done because I think all sports writers should have catchphrase. Nah, it’s the truth.
I’ve e-mailed it to several people this sports season and, when a coach called me up last week to thank us for all our coverage, I told them the same thing. Sure, I would have liked to taken that Waynesboro baseball cap Webber Payne tried to put in my bag at practice last Thursday, but I couldn’t. If I don’t want to see a headline that says, “Hat connects Sacco, Critzer,“ then the simple thing to do is just not take the hat. Even when the coach told me the players wanted us to have it, I did not relent. I have to relay on my memory, not tokens of thanks, when it comes to the good teams of the past.
This school year gave fans all kinds of memories. Pickle Nuckols’ triumphant return to the Buffalo Gap football field and his Bison’s undefeated season and Group A, Division 1 title. The Waynesboro girls basketball team, long the doormat for the old-Valley District, breaking out in the Southern Valley’s inaugural season and going all the way to the Group AA (not quiet Division 3 yet) championship game. The Giants were led by a superb coach who ruffled plenty of feathers whilst doing so. (Now go back to your Chamber of Commerce meeting and leave sports writing to us big boys, champ.) And had, arguably, the best girls basketball player to ever walk the halls of the high school. (Remember? The girl who tried to score every time she touched it which is why she’s not paying for college? You remember, right? Now go back to selling ads, we’ll handle the sports writing, but thanks for playing for a night.)
In spring, we got the Waynesboro baseball team making it back to the Group AA Final Four, only to have their dreams of finishing the deal once again fall short on the greatest baseball field in the state of Virginia. (Hands. Down.) You remember the Little Giants, a team that somehow managed to head to the Region III title game and the Final Four despite some folks’ insistence that the Southern Valley was weak.
Of course there were the sad stories. Ed Driskill stepping down after a long track and field coaching career. The loss of Marian “Granny” Quesenbery (Waynesboro athletic events will never be the same). The loss of Waynesboro JV girls coach Glenn Anderson. The death of assistant girls soccer coach Mike Dattilio at Riverheads and the inspired run made by the Gladiators that came up just short, with Mike’s widow, Marsha, watching the whole time from the hill they call “stands” at the Pride’s new soccer field.
Don’t place importance on coverage. Don’t thank us because we blasted it across our sports front. (like a good local paper should). You wanna thank someone? Then the next time you see one of these high school kids that a lot of you revile so much, take a moment that thank them.
They did all the work. We just love telling their stories.
Now what? Indeed.
