There are maybe prouder moments in my career (see my Jim Scott article, for instance), but certainly none bigger, louder and aside from a flukey story I wrote on Hurricane Harvey when all reporters (even sports lol) were called on to do immediately local storm coverage, this was BY FAR my most read, shared and - for a lot of people who knew and followed me - most loved story I ever got to write.
It was pretty incredible. This was specifically when I was at Houston Community Newspapers when they were competing*
* competing. HA! Chron bought them less than a year after this article was published, and brought all of us from the whole small, familial-feeling company into one big cavernous dungeon-room in their huge ugly castle on loop-610 (technically the post's old building, but we love The Houston Post; they lost a print-media arms race because they aimed higher and tried harder and compensated people better, and weren't garbage, Hearst, shill pricks, not that anyone is) and cut a third of our heads off right there in front of everyone ... I made the cut (the guy i'd shared the beat with for 4 years wasn't so fortunate), but didn't last much longer than two years after that, if that. I can't rightly recall.
Anyway, this is one of the high points of my sportswriting career by any metric, and certainly in my own estimation.
I was a UH alum, who had covered all the teams INTIMATELY as part of a 2-4 writer (including editor) sportswriting staff a lot of semesters and rarely more than 2 during a summer semester/session (I would know; I spent most of my summers in or around campus at a time when that was not widely considered a sensible or enjoyable thing to do). After I graduated (from the Honors College; I'm allowed to brag about it), I eventually got hired on as a local sports reporter for a string of free-and-in-your-yard-whether-you-want-them-or-not-baby newspapers (NOTHING but love for HCN, but we were, like, not a major newspaper or news outlet, we were doing I'd argue incredible things with very limited resources mostly out of a profound love for writing, for journalism, for the communities we served and lived in, and over time, very much for one another, as well) which didn't officially HAVE a UH beat.
It's fun to tell you guys this - it was like a cheat code. I LOVE my alma mater. And I'm SUCH a fucking hipster, because my parents are alumni, I spent a shameful semester as essentially an on-campus tee-shirt longhorn at UT the same semester as Kevin Durant (and believe you me, we went to class precisely the same amount, and it's not a hard amount to calculate), before moving back to UH, and feeling kind of like a misfit toy, and finding a place at UH, both in the Honors College and in the newsroom of The Daily Cougar. I loved being in it. It felt like such a thrill to be working on a real, goddamn paper in a room with other people working on the same paper that EVERYONE ... could, theoretically, see tomorrow, but only if we get this all done and done right. Growing up with my parents, my home never felt homey. Or like a home. Being homeschooled, blurgh. I was grateful to get to go to public school for high school, but never really found my people or my place, failed out of UT depressed, but then the then-assistant-dean of The Honors College took me in, and - I don't think they can take my degree away - fudged a bit of paperwork to ease my way in (either because I seemed like I might be a good addition and was worth it, or because he took to me and was doing me a solid; and maybe it was just that easy, which is its own issue), and all of a sudden, I had people, I had common goals, community, a place of succor and camaraderie.
And UH is such an underdog, as far as I know, always has been. As I continue to update my archives here, you'll see, I used a lot of ink and column inches (it was all about print in the early days; I'm proud to say that I made the editorial board for one solitary semester, as a position I petitioned to create, Blog Editor, bc no one had thought to or that online was, like... important, or the thing, because we were all actually auditioning for jobs with print media companies and outlets, and they were actually all about if you can believe that, in spite of how fucking stupid it sounds and was, so we took a lot of our cues from the industry - natch.
But I made it a personal mission of mine to study the history (especially sports/athletics, but not just) of the University of Houston. Often referred to, even in my era, as Cougar High because it was seen as a lesser collegiate option, night school for working blue-collar folks with mortgages and aspirations and that the parking lots were larger by sq acreage than the instructional, administrative and maintenance acreage combined for a reason, because no one lived there and it wasn't a real college.
Well, I lived there. And it was a real college. I got a real degree, and I was left with a profound, very-real sense of gratitude and loyalty.
I totally get and never make fun of intense loyalty to colleges... well, that people attended. Or have family that attended. It totally can be weird (*cough cough* Notre Dame and Texas *cough cough*), but in instances where it isn't weird on its face, I have a lot of grace for people who love and give to their universities, even the ones who do it wayyyyy too much.
Because I'm one of those. I don't have my parents' financial resources (their names are or were on the Fertitta Center Student Section, which used to always bug me so much since like... I covered the team for my job, even though granted, I convinced HCN to LET me cover UH because it served my needs.
Ah yes! Sorry, back to my point, UH stories were such incredible gold to and for me, because I had 5 distinct newspapers and local coverage areas (Spring, Klein, Cypress, Tomball and Magnolia, plus all the private schools in those districts, plus some HISD because that was somehow no one's beat, and we all hated it and pitched in, usually when it served us because one of our teams was playing them), and you COULD NOT put a Spring story in the Cy Creek Mirror or a Magnolia story in the Champions-Klein Mirror. BELIEVE ME. My editor in chief and beat partner (who had preceded me to the beat by 3-4 years; I took over the beat from the local-legendary Adam Coleman, who had graduated to the Chronicle, hence the job opening for little, old me coming from the Denton Record-Chronicle) both let me try it. I came in with the attitude of, "Well, shit, this is an easy fix! Haven't you guys ever thought of?" and they sort of let me hang myself to teach me a (hilarious and deeply-appreciated) lesson. And boy, did it.
BUT, you could kind of cheat by using the private schools, since they drew from all those districts. You could take a private school story and stick it in 3, 4 - if it's a rough week - maybe all 5 of your papers, and no one can really complain about it. Unless it happens 'too much,' and you'll hear about it. You'll always hear about it. For about a year, I thought that always hearing about it was the bane of my creative existence. But it wasn't. I figured out for the rest of the time there and since that always hearing about it was what made that job great. And it paid nothing. I was so envious of the well-to-do public school coaches and teachers and la-di-da administrators that I was rubbing shoulders with. That was real, adult money to me (back then and now, lol). A teacher's salary. You could almost have paid Brock, my beat partner, and me both what we were making with the average starting salary for a CFISD teacher. HCN certainly tried, though it was charming to sacrifice for them, and when Chron ordered me to sacrifice for them (and be grateful about it), I told them to fuck themselves. And we didn't do much business with one another after that.
But I also discovered that UH was a similar cheat code. The teams I had already covered for years (years; I spent 7.5 years getting a Bachelor's Creative Writing degree; we're basically an especially-intolerable strain of English Lit majors), at the school I felt had taken a chance on me, and whom I would promote and endorse and beg people to pay attention to for free (I definitely did, a lot, before I was paid to, or between times when I was paid to). And NOBODY COVERED THEM.
The beat was WIDE open. I cannot even begin to count for you how many times it was me, Joseph Duarte either standing or two chairs away, facing a UH coach for a 'press conference.' I shouldn't use air quotes, because we were press, and the coaches were there doing their jobs also, and all of us took it seriously, but you can imagine how intimate and familiar that kind of thing would feel, at a place that was already my first-ever Home. It was special. Special, special, special.
And not only could I put a UH story in my 5 different papers, ANYONE at HCN could. So any of the (I believe) 16 other sports editors could fill a lack or column inches with any UH stories I filed. We were technically editors, responsible not just for writing, but planning coverage and which games to be at to maximize which communities got served, always striving to give equal weight to every worthy, equally-deserving program (unless De'Aaron Fox was playing, and then I just took the bitching and moaning about 'parents are calling me in tears because their child...' shut up. It's De'Aaron Fox, you'd do the exact same in my place) Brock and I would employ stringers - guys who loved #txhsfb so much they wanted to be around it or break into the sportswriting game any way they could, and they all stood ready and eager at a moment's notice, and often you'd even hear from them like 'hey, can I write...' and they got $25 a story, on the barrelhead, between 800-1,200 words and you didn't have to tell them how to write them, because they lived the stuff and desperately wanted to be where I was, which was looking enviously at the teachers in these moderately-wealthy ISDs and their luxurious, lightly-used Subarus and lavish lifestyles, going out to eat nearly whenever they felt it.
So these other 16 or 18 guys (all the other ones were men; prob still true at most local levels - it's a tough game for women to break into, even women who were girls that played and have backgrounds that shame the men who are hired instead of them) suddenly got the benefit of these 1-3 weekly UH stories that I was writing, and I couldn't even have imagined how widely they'd be used. When my editor mentioned that that might happen, be aware, and it would be under another masthead/editor, but still my byline don't be concerned, he sort of implied, "It honestly probably won't happen that much. Nobody cares about UH. NOBODY." And he was right. He wasn't mean about it, and he knew I was a Coog. He was letting me down lightly. Sorry, bud, but nobody cares about your Coogs but you.
Didn't matter! Those stories were SO useful in a pinch (especially when I consistently filed them, one for sure every week, often two or three, in addition to the I-can't-even-begin-to-count-how-many I had to write to fill up my what-i-was-actually-hired-to-do papers and make certain they felt adequately represented/covered (not once ever did anyone from any district once feel that that district was getting adequate, or frankly fair, coverage, but their jobs were to advocate, and I don't begrudge them their mild, wholesome bitterness; don't now and didn't then), that it was not long before they were WIDELY adopted, on the regular.
I don't know if my name will ever be on any buildings around campus or student sections of arenas. Not my personal, individual name, I mean, lol. My last name is, obviously, but it's nothing to do with me.
Except that my parents, in a rare moment of us getting along and them being cool, offered to pay my way to the Chick Fil A Peach Bowl. They were certainly going (they were well into the booster subculture by then, and I think Dad thought himself a real player in that scene until Tillman Fertitta started swinging his big money dick around, lol; I've never met Fertitta, but he seems unpleasant, and not worth any amount of money, much less the finite amount he actually brings to the table), and I think the fact that being University of Houston Cougars (Dad an undergrad accounting major; Mom a JD from the then-Bates College of Law; my Honors degree, I reckon, puts me squarely in between them if it's a competition, though if it was a timed competition, no dice lol - I had several fellow '05 TWHS classmates become full-bird medical doctors before I got my Bachelor's) together was, like, the only thing we had together. And so, uncharacteristically, they were generous and welcoming and encouraging of/to me, and when HCN said "sorry, bud, we would actually love to send you, and there's... some interest citywide... not much, but some, but that's not remotely remotely in the budget. You can file a story from here if you want, of course, but... never gonna happen," I was able to say, "What if it were free to you? And what if I worked out a deal with The Chronicle, who nfn is buying us right now so who cares?" And the EiC of my little local office (which I was almost never literally in; when Roy hired me, he said, "if you're doing your job, I should hardly ever see you. It isn't because I don't like you or because you're not fun to have in the office. It's because your job is entirely out there, and to cover this area properly, you need to be hitting schools in the day to talk to off-period teachers/coaches about athletes for Features, going to practices in the afternoon, two different ones in different districts every weekday if you can manage it, and then 2-4 nights a week you'll have games. When would you come into the office?"
So my EiC (Roy Kent, btw, a role model and hero of mine, no longer with any of the outlets I've discussed, and left/was forced out before I quit in a typically-dramatic, look-at-me, unafraid-to-swear-at-you-fucking-pricks fashion. Roy left quietly and sadly, saying goodbye to most of those who weren't especially close to him personally or geographically in a heartbreakingly sweet and uplifting, gracious email/memo. I almost had rather he did it my way, and I'm certain he'd rather I had done it his way)... anyway, my EIC was like, "That's tremendous news! Tell us what you need, and we're thrilled to get this coverage, which is - again - only moderately desired by the readers, and arguably desired most by your fellow sports editors."
Fun story - I filed my first stories (a general preview and some kind of mini-feature or profile with an inset stats table to fill it out) in the day leading up to the game, and when I filed them, I was so jazzed and there was so much to see and do in Atlanta (plus dinner with the folks which was, shockingly, very pleasant and lovely), and I didn't pay attention to when it went live on their end, especially since time zones (I'm not remotely kidding) flummox me. Sort of hit submit twice, closed my laptop, and went out into the world.
On Gameday, in the rush to file my story (always longer, more florid and Creative Writing major-y than my contemporaries' if I may say so; I was a bit precious, and you'd be right to roll your eyes, but I wrote well, and I routinely heard how much it mattered to the families of athletes I profiled or schools I helped to promote through my coverage, which I only in retrospect realized was the greatest professional gift a writer could ever get from an audience), PANIC ensued when it simply wouldn't file. We were already later to press than Chron and, like, half of the people who were there (I wrote fast this time, but I don't think I shortchanged the moment or myself; you be the judge), and it was an UPROAR with people being called at home (tech support was part-time, I think? home-based? I can't specifically recall), and we figured out after about 18-20 minutes that it was because the time zones weren't configured properly in our content management system, and in fact, had to be set up to do that properly because no one had ever filed an HCN story from another time zone before that. I don't think it happened after, either.
So this game was special to me, and this story was special to me. A lot of times, as a sportswriter, you're told - and I specifically was told - be a professional, and that means, you're not a fan. You don't love the school. You cover it. This is a job. Grow up.
Well, I don't think I did. Not in that sense. I think (and, again, you be the judge) it's clear, even in this professional story I filed for a widely-circulated, if not widely-respected media outlet, that I love the University of Houston, and its athletic programs and student-athletes and coaches. It still is in many ways my first Home, and since at the rate I'm going, I'll never be able to give back the way they'd really prefer I do, I can give back by covering, writing and publicly, visibly pulling for them. UH and I are invested in one another. I never could and never would disguise that, not very much anyway.
So, without further ado: what I consider to be either the high-point or one of the highest points of my sportswriting career (to date).
- Kay & the cats
