Wife and Kids question for all

I would have gone into news, though it's kind of like regretting your college choice. I'm not sure I'd trade the memories and friendships and experiences for anything. But had I known about the rest of it, I wouldn't have made the same decision.

I did the Christmas Eve bowl thing, last year. No kids at the time yet, but had one on the way. The fact I knew it would never happen again softened the blow.

 

I wouldn't trade the memories or the friendships I've made for anything, even though rarely does a day pass where I don't think about how much better off I'd be if I had majored in something in college that would actually help me over the next 30 years or so that I have to work.

I guess I was "lucky" in that I got forced out while my kids were very young and I didn't miss too much. I'd rather that than have kept my job and have to see the the first major milestones of my kids' lives on video.

 

When I was a kid baseball writer, I saw three types of veteran writers in those press boxes: Guys who were forever single, guys who were divorced or heading that way and guys who had the sort of marriages where being gone 120 nights a year, across several state lines, was a good thing.

That convinced me I didn't want to be a long-time baseball writer.

That, and dealing with the players.

 

When I was covering prep sports in my full-time job, it hit me one night as I was sitting in a gym covering a basketball game that I spent more time with the kids on my beat than I did with my own. Shortly after, I asked for a transfer to the news department. Unknown to me, one of my former fellow sportswriters was miserable in his news spot, so the bosses switched us.

Five years later, I'm still in news and I'm still happy. I got my sports fix working part-time on the weekends at a paper 30 miles away, but that paper closed.

I'm now spending weekends at home, and it's worth it, especially since I'm now a single parent of two teens. And, I talk to the sports guys at my full-time gig a lot anyways since we're friends.

Like what's been said before, you've got to have a very, very understanding wife. Mine wasn't too crazy about my hours, but she knew what she was getting into. More than anything, I think she appreciated me making the extra cash at my part-time gig, but it was hard on our marriage.

 

No I don't leave her at the motel. If it's basketball, she'll either sit in the stands and watch the game or sit with me if there's room. If she sits with me, the SID occasionally gives her a few errands to run, like stats to the radio, me and the bench.

If it's football, similar deal, although given the size of stadiums, unless she knows someone in the crowd, she'll hang with me. She also understands people are there to work and she has always been great about staying out of the way and not bothering anyone. If I know it's a crammed, tiny press box, I won't even ask her to come along. Like next month. Wife is going out of town on business and I have a road game. The two little ones are staying with my parents, but the 11-year-old is coming with me. The press box where we're going is huge so she won't be in anyone's way.

 

I admire the effort, but that's a really tough deal on everybody. That's not a criticism, just an observation.

 

Obviously, you are correct. One hundred percent. However ...

For some of us, it's not so black and white. This is the job that puts food on the table, a roof over our heads, and money in the college savings account. Like most of us in this business, I've spent the last several months thinking about what I would do if this job were no longer an option ... and I couldn't come up with any good answers.

No answer that would immediately allow us to live the life we've been living, at least.

I'm on a beat that requires a shit-ton of travel, and there are certainly days and nights when I want to run screaming from it ... but there isn't really anything to go running screaming to. I'm sort of trapped on a beat that requires me to be out of town about 100 nights a year, but it's a good beat, a solid beat, a beat that's not going anywhere anytime soon. A beat that will at least keep the roof over our heads for the time being.

That said, we've dealt with it OK for two seasons now. It will be interesting to see how we hold up now that my daughter, who just turned 1, is old enough to realize I'm gone.

 

Some great posts in here. Very educational. As far as your wife getting to sit in the press box with you ... I'm not flaming, just don't understand. Is it NAIA or smaller level? I can't imagine that not causing a stink in major college or the pros.

 

Shows what you know. My wife and kids have put me in therapy.

 

You mean on family? Or on the people in the pressbox?

 

Here's another twist on this thing, if it weren't for my wife's best friend, I likely would have never gotten into the business to begin with.
She was working at a small daily and I was out of work. she told me about the opening in news and I convinced the ME that an old radio guy could do newspaper work.
He hired me on the sport to do news, then trained me his way. After I left there and took a better paying job out of the field, my wife's friend and another person bought a small weekly. To make a long story short, she realized she and her friend couldn't write sports, so i got semi drafted, semi volunteered.
I fell in love with doing it and have done it every since. We've been to Atlanta and back to Indiana over the last 10 plus years.
And while the pay isnt that great, she understands as did my daughter, who at the time didn't totally understand but adapted. Now she's an army wife so she understands the strange job syndrome. oh by the way, she must have picked up on some of my writing skills, because she won awards for it in school, then became a published poet in high school. Now the best thing about being a sportswriter may be that i can leave a permanent thing for granddaughter to see what papaw did.
I or my wife may never win any fancy awards, but we have forged through the strange hours, silly travel schedules and the lack of a weekend together for 22 years and I pray for a hundred more from both her and my profession.
Hope this doesnt sound too far off base.

 

Oh and I forgot to mention that, while at my last gig, she was photographer...she didnt' get paid, but it saved me from trying to do it while i was covering prep sports. this time she's not doing it, but still goes with me on long trips to cover prep games. she sits in the stands or beside me and just tries to make the best of it. we'll celebrate our anniversary in a couple of weeks at a prep football game followed by dinner and together time. you can do it if you really try...