2020 taught us to persevere, adapt and move forward
Over the course of 2020 so many this year would encounter both a great amount of loss, as well as a great amount of learning and growth.
As 2020 began I was excited to be working full time for a newsroom less than six months after graduation from Chico State’s journalism program. I began helping design the newspaper in addition to my duties at the sports desk in August 2019, eager for the change, but admittedly nervous.
Little did I know the change that was coming several months later in 2020 was going to be drastically different.
It would be much more than covering wrestling for my first time at the Corning Invitational in mid January when I saw Durham’s Jacob Christensen win his finals match at 223 pounds for the second straight year, this time in just 45 seconds. It wasn’t just my first wrestling tournament to write about, but I was tasked with taking photos at the event as well, another rarity.
These new experiences were just a start, as I learned, and they were where I grew.
As COVID-19 restrictions began to pour down across the nations, schedules for sporting events at the high school and collegiate level began disappearing.
But before then, as February began, baseball and softball seasons began
as well. One story in particular was special, one I wouldn’t find out how much until 10 months later, on Dec. 12.
On Feb. 1, at the Butte College softball team’s first home game, I spoke with Andy Wahl, the Chico High Softball coach who lost his battle with adrenal cancel on Dec. 12. Our conversation can best be summed up by a quote his assistant with the softball team and teacher at Chico Junior High Kevin Wisdom told fellow Chico E-R reporter Sharon Martin for Wahl’s obituary.
“He used to say the best medicine he could have was just being out on the softball field,” Wisdom said to Martin. “Right after he had his surgeries, he’d be out there. He just wanted to be out there.”
On March 12, the NCAA canceled the remaining winter and spring sched
ules, with Butte College’s CCCAA and the high school athlete’s Northern Section following shortly thereafter.
As schedules began disappearing, so did jobs of sports writers’ positions across the nation — including at this paper.
I finished my shift at the sports desk on the final day of March and headed to the park with my roommates when I got the call.
I had just finished up two stories updating locals on how former Chico State basketball and baseball players were doing during the start of the pandemic. I learned that Tuesday that the Enterprise-Record was going to have to move some positions around and I found myself furloughed and without work for the first time since I turned 18 years old. It was not just me, it was other coworkers and friends as well, some
who are still not back from furlough to this day.
In the time off I often felt bitter, not towards anyone but seemingly towards sports as a whole. I tried to get away from my passion that was seemingly taken away. But it was obvious sports as a whole was not gone, I just wasn’t seeing it. I saw local athletes seemingly weekly at taco trucks, jogging in upper Bidwell Park or walking around town, but I was telling myself it was all gone.
I needed to see sports and athletes from a different perspective.
In September I found out that the Enterprise-Record’s weekend reporter was leaving for graduate school and that a position would once again open up for me to be back full time designing and reporting on the weekends. It would be primarily news, but regardless, I was ready
to be back to work and with the community. Again a new experience, having not covered general news since my days writing in college, but I was excited to be back.
My first day returning was Aug. 1, and my Saturday editor was a familiar face, Martin, who was one of the other sports reporters who had now transitioned into the education reporter for the time being. She tagged along on my first assignment where I interviewed local illustrator Steve Ferchaud about his new children’s book benefiting Paradise youth. I did interviews, Sharon took photos of Ferchaud as we talked before he left us both with caricatures of us he drew in a mere five minutes.
On Wednesday, Sept. 9 I got a text from Martin while in the Bay Area saying: “There’s no way you can get to Chico? This is Camp Fire like.” For several weeks my design
ing shifts were covered by other part-timers, as I was pulled to the newsroom for extra fire coverage help with a limited staff.
I was back, and it felt right. In the first month back, I would go on to write 18 news stories, 50 by the end of November. In the first three months before being furloughed, I had written 15 sports bylines in addition to my desk work. I was excited to be in my new position and growing.
2020 brought more unexpected times than one could have imagined. Loss, growth, learning and adaptation is what has become the new normal.
2020 has become, for most of you I believe, something unexpected.
If it has taught us all anything, it is to persevere and adapt and always keep moving forward.