This is my first fall away from professional sports journalism since 1975. And even in 1975, I was covering sports at Long Beach State.
That is, I was doing sports for 33 consecutive fall seasons.
And the really weird thing is … I don’t much miss it.
It helps to be halfway around the world. Of course. When you don’t get a single reminder of, say, football (American football that is) at any point in your day … it’s easier not to miss it.
It helps that I pretty much had given up on the NFL more than a decade ago. The Rams and Raiders left town, and my interest in The League pretty much went with them.
It helps that espn.com does a fairly comprehensive job of covering major-college football.
It helps that when you are removed from a community, your sense of connection to high school sports wanes fairly quickly and profoundly.
Still, what I miss most, about sports, this fall is college football and high school football. My old favorites.
It is Friday night, Week 10 of the prep football season, is I have my schedule correct, and this would have been a busy night in the sports department. And tomorrow I would have hoped to see USC play at Stanford.
I miss the enthusiasm, the variety and the nearly innocent passion of the high school game.
I miss the color, the energy and the every-game-matters urgency of the college game.
I miss prep football coaches, many of whom don’t even work any more. (Tom Hoak, Don Markham, Chuck Pettersen, Jim Taylor.)Â And I miss Pete Carroll and USC’s guys, and even Rick Neuheisel. But I also miss the little colleges, the University of Redlands and Mike Maynard.
The loss would be more keen except for this: In Hong Kong, you aren’t going to overhear much about Redlands East Valley or Fohi football, nor U of Redlands and San Bernardino Valley College — nor even USC. Even major college football is nearly invisible on Hong Kong cable TV’s dozen all-rpost stations, so parochial (to America)Â is the college game considered.
Out of sight, out of mind? It is more true than I thought. But not so overwhelming that I’m not sitting here, at 9:40 p.m. Friday in Hong Kong, and thinking how I would have been watching a Week 10 prep game finish up, right about now. And thinking about a trip to a college stadium in the morning.
7 responses so far ↓
1 Brian Robin // Nov 14, 2008 at 10:08 AM
It really is amazing how quickly you wean yourself away from prep football Fridays once you’re removed from them.
This year was the fifth consecutive year I didn’t cover a prep football game for someone somewhere. Even after leaving the business, I found myself stringing the odd game for someone.
But get away from it after being able to count the fall Friday nights you’ve had off in 17 years on one hand and you realize even though it was a blast, you get accustomed to having Friday nights off rather quickly.
2 Dennis Pope // Nov 14, 2008 at 12:16 PM
After covering Yucaipa’s win at Rialto Carter last week, I’ll be in Riverside tonight watching an Inland Valley League showdown between 6-3 Riverside La SIerra and 6-3 Moreno Valley. Both teams are playoff-eligible but this game will determine which squad gets a home game in the 1st round.
3 Chuck Hickey // Nov 14, 2008 at 5:20 PM
It’s been eight years (gulp) since I’ve been removed from the I.E. prep football scene, though those Friday nights on the desk at 399 North D Street remain vivid. Yet, I still try to keep up with it, who’s doing what, etc. I’ll be back there at Thanksgiving, which is sort of becoming a tradition since I left, and another tradition is going to a Kaiser (read: Dick Bruich) quarterfinal game. It’ll likely happen again in a couple of weeks. And it will be strange knowing of the many games I’ve been to with him roaming the sidelines, it’ll be the last one, for me anyway.
4 Nick Leyva // Nov 14, 2008 at 8:39 PM
This is the 15th prep football season I’ve been away from it and now I don’t even work Thursdays or Fridays, so I don’t really miss it anymore. I do miss the camaraderie we shared each of those Friday nights. The final race to deadline and then stop! It’s amazing to me when I remember how much room we devoted to Friday morning preview capsules (game breakdown with coaches quotes). Now you’re lucky if you have room to write one line on each game. Chuck, how about those “Happy Chicken” runs before Fohi games?
5 Michael Munoz // Nov 15, 2008 at 12:03 PM
I’m going to have to check the archives here at school to read some of your stuff. It be interesting to see Paul O back in 1975 and how sports were then on campus….sucks theres no football team at Long Beach nowdays…
6 Fohian // Nov 15, 2008 at 5:49 PM
You guys did a great job covering prep football back in the day. You contributed greatly to the growth of prep sports particularly in San Bernardino County. Those capsules are greatly missed and a good reason why I rarely buy the Sun anymore.
I wish the PE picked up the slack. They seem to be all flash and very little writing. Their “HS Gametime” section is a perfect example. Lots of graphics, very little info.
7 Chuck Hickey // Nov 16, 2008 at 9:21 AM
The Happy Chicken was great. So is Fontana’s Greatest Landmark. Sadly, the Happy Chicken has had its last cluck. It shut down a month or two ago.
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