All fun things have to come to an end, even for me
As a rule, I don’t like or even approve of goodbye columns. They’re often selfserving, self-indulgent and unnecessary, but that’s always when it involves someone else other than me.
This will be my last column for the Rome News-Tribune in a series that began somewhere around seven years ago, and the deal was to write once per week about sports. Over time the frequency increased to twice weekly and has remained so up until today.
My first journalistic experience began with the Winston-Salem Journal-Sentinel, moved on to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution back when newspapers were still kicking butt and taking names and finally right here to Rome. My first day with the AJC was the day that the recently arrived Atlanta Hawks, straight from St. Louis, picked Pete Maravich in the draft. Over my time, I’ve covered all of the bowl games, as many Final Fours as I could persuade the newspaper to send me and a little sprinkling of golf, baseball, pro football, and a whole lot of tennis. I was there for Hank Aaron’s record-setting home run.
I enjoyed most of the assignments and even became good friends with some of the athletes and coaches — Arthur Ashe, Billie Jean King, Rod Laver, Stan Smith, Chris Evert, Pepper Rodgers, Vince Dooley and especially Bobby Cremins, who is still the best of the lot. Of course, I got a chance to work with Jim Minter, who is the finest newspaperman I’ve even known, and the great Furman Bisher, who was just plain great. I also have to mention Lewis Grizzard, who was a dear friend and a great enigma.
That’s about all I have to say and I honestly apologize if this has seemed selfish, but I hated just not to appear next week and you wonder why. Newspapers have changed drastically over my career and not for the better. Everyone is struggling with finances as the internet has quickly eroded what was once a wonderful profession.
My wife and I and Fletcher (the great standard poodle) have just moved from Armuchee to downtown Rome, and I’ll be seeing you in the restaurants, sidewalks and, yes, bars. It’s been fun.