For much of my sports journalism career, being part of a good showing in the annual Associated Press Sports Editors competition was a big deal. Even now, in an era of shriveled and under-staffed newspapers, most sports editors want to see their sections make a mark. The APSE contest is the industry Oscars, after all. […]

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First printed in the San Bernardino Sun, November 3, 2002. Twice in my life I have gone to a hospital emergency room as a patient. On both occasions it was after suffering a head injury on a kickoff at a high-school football game. And you thought freeway driving was dangerous. From where we sit, it’s […]

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It seems a bit ludicrous now, given the carnage in print journalism, how important “beating” the local opposition was for us. When I wrote a long blog entry, in 2008, I declared an end to what was nearly a 100 Years War between two suburban newspapers in the Inland Empire of Southern California. I worked […]

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The last time I spoke with Brian Goff, I was a little annoyed with him, or so I thought. Really, I was annoyed with myself. See, Brian Goff did not annoy people. He was polite to the nth degree and seemed to have no enthusiasm for drama in the workplace. Or raised voices, for that […]

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Where to begin? Don Markham. Rebel, loner, iconoclast. Admired, loved, loathed. One of the great football minds to stride across the sport’s stage in the history of Inland Empire prep football, as well as one of the most polarizing personalities. Markham died at age 78 yesterday, and anyone who saw his teams play will remember […]

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This blog commenced on March 10, 2008. Ten years ago today. It was four days after I had been fired by the Los Angeles News Group, and I wanted to let co-workers and other journalists know what had happened, with as many specifics as I could recall pertaining to the (then mostly novel) concept of […]

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This dawned on me the other day. Even before we made the drive up (and back) through California’s Central Valley. I have spent nearly the whole of my life breathing bad air. Polluted air. Sometimes thick enough to taste. Sometimes particulates so tiny they never come back out a person’s lungs. Didn’t plan it that […]

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Here are the kickoffs for the NFL’s conference championship games tomorrow. That is, if you live under the umbrella of Pacific Standard Time. New England at Jacksonville, 12:05 p.m. Philadelphia at Minnesota, 3:40 p.m. Convenient, as a viewer, no? Well, yes, and you should know it is not like that everywhere. If you have lived […]

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The Boeing 747 was the first jumbo jet, and it forever changed the experience of flying. For the better. No one under the age of 50 can have a personal recollection of this, given that the first commercial flight of a 747 was made on January 22, 1970 — from New York to London. It […]

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Rich Dauer has made plenty of news during his lifetime in baseball. He was part of NCAA national championship teams at USC in the 1970s and the second baseman for the 1983 World Series-champion Baltimore Orioles. On a local-local, hometown level the Colton native was the oh-so-cool young (35) field manager of the attendance-record-smashing 1987 […]

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