News

Published September 21, 2021

‘We lost Coach tonight’: Remembering Paul Kreke

September 21, 1996. Twenty-five years. It simultaneously feels like yesterday and a lifetime ago. I was lounging around the house on a Saturday night, having relinquished my job as sports editor of The Quincy Herald-Whig three weeks earlier to assume a new role as the newspaper’s news editor. It was a promotion that meant having nights and weekends off for the first time in nearly 20 years, counting my time as a sportswriter for the Columbia Missourian at Mizzou. So I was hanging out with my kids instead of sitting in a stadium press box somewhere preparing to write about…

Published August 23, 2021

Do we believe in the common good?

The debate over children wearing masks in schools continues to fester here and across the country. There are citizens protesting governors who are mandating masks to help ensure in-class learning continues and there are governors threatening to penalize schools districts that choose to require them. Frankly, some of the antics are disturbing, especially with vaccination rates lagging and COVID-19 cases surging once again. Silas House, a writer based in Kentucky, wrote a poignant essay for The Atlantic about the issue, observing that some Americans – a minority, thankfully, despite their noise – think only of themselves and no longer believe…

Published July 26, 2021

College football’s game of musical chairs

With apologies to Bob Dylan, the times, they are a-changin’. Especially in college football. And not for the better. The seismic news last week was the announcement that Oklahoma and Texas plan to bolt the Big 12 to join the Southeastern Conference, a move that would create a 16-team super-conference. The SEC already is the best and most powerful football conference in the country, having won 11 of the last 15 national championships, so the rich would get richer. It also would likely mean the end of the Big 12, leaving its eight remaining members scrambling to find new homes.…

Published July 11, 2021

Baseball losing its entertainment value

With Major League Baseball entering its all-star break, and the Cardinals and Cubs both shuffling along below the .500 mark, the Washington Post’s George Will has an interesting take on the state of the game. Clearly, as Will concludes, changes must be made for the game to recapture the interest of America’s sports fans. Writes Will: EVEN if you belong in the basket of deplorables — Americans uninterested in baseball — you should be intrigued by the sport’s current problems. At the all-star break, Major League Baseball’s 2021 season is demonstrating, redundantly, that the quality of the game as entertainment…

Published June 25, 2021

Schuckman one of the best

The hiring process in any business is a lot like standing in a batter’s box: Sometimes you swing and miss, sometimes you manage a double and sometimes you hit it out of the park. Matt Schuckman was a home run twice during my tenure at The Quincy Herald-Whig – first as a part-time sports clerk several weeks shy of his 16th birthday 32 years ago and then as a full-time sportswriter 10 years later. Matt grew from the gullible high school senior who John Potts and I convinced it was imperative that he bring his date to the newsroom on…

Published May 23, 2021

This just in: Overwork can be deadly

A report from NPR last week caught my eye. The World Health Organization reported that working long hours poses an occupational health risk that kills hundreds of thousands of people each year. No kidding. A study published last week showed that people working 55 or more hours each week face an estimated 35% higher risk of a stroke and a 17% higher risk of dying from heart disease, compared to people following the widely accepted standard of working 35 to 40 hours in a week. The global study found that in 2016, 488 million people were exposed to the risks…

Published May 18, 2021

A legendary sports columnist retires

Sports columnist Thomas Boswell will be retiring at the end of June after 52 years with the Washington Post. Boswell, 73, is known primarily for his coverage of baseball. He appeared several times in the Ken Burns series Baseball, sharing commentary into the history of America’s pastime. He has authored seven books, including “Why Life Imitates the World Series” and “Why Time Begins on Opening Day.” Both of those books are in my personal library. Wrote Boswell in a farewell column of his decision to finally unplug the laptop: I’ve spent my life having a long, rich conversation with friends…

Published April 20, 2021

Sports heroes hold a special place

We’ll get this out of the way early. I’m sharing an insightful story by Joe Posnanski of The Athletic from 14 months ago on my boyhood idol, Bob Gibson, who last fall lost his battle with pancreatic cancer at age 84. For those who don’t think he was one of the greatest pitchers in Major League history, you can stop reading now. I had the opportunity to interview and have dinner with Gibson as a young sportswriter, which ranks among my top personal and professional memories. He pitched the first game I saw in person as a young boy in…

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