It's In Our DNA

[OscarMadison]

How many of us came to covering sports because it was at least some part of the family business?

 

[John]

I grew up with a jock dad who played a bunch of sports growing up, remains an avid tennis player in his 80s, and spent about 20 years teaching tennis lessons after work. My brothers and I played everything, but tennis was our main sport — I still play 4-5 times a week. At tournaments, when I wasn't playing, I would follow all of the action happening on the other courts. Everyone would come up to me asking how so-and-so did. It's no surprise that I wound up writing about sports for a living.

 

[Here me roar]

Not at all

 

[OscarMadison]

Sometimes people wonder how in the world I reconcile my other interests with sports. It runs in the family.

Today is my father's birthday. He would have been 87. As a teenager, he played in the concert band during basketball season. Because he was unable to walk, he called varsity football games in lieu of participating in marching band and got a press letter jacket, which he gave to me before he died. After he graduated from high school, he made folding money calling football games in rural East Tennessee.

One of my favorite sports memories about my dad was watching Bobby Orr's flying goal in 1970. We saw it on a little black and white portable set in the kitchen. Poor Mom got a scare at our screaming and cheering. Football was just a filler for the grit and excitement of hockey as far as I was concerned.

On my mother's side, we have a relative in the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame. He was one of Grantland's Boys and went on to be an editor of the sports pages of The Tennessean before finishing out his career as media coordinator for Churchill Downs. One of the old guys at Bridgestone saw my laptop wallpaper of Grantland Rice sitting on a bench with Phil Russell at Centennial Park. The conversation turned to my mother's cousin, Ray. Old Guy told me he was terrified of him at first, but listened and learned, which is why he was still writing about sports.

 

[BrownScribe]

Not at. My parents were not into sports at all. The extent of my Dad's sportsballing was to nag me about how Jordan and the Bulls were so much better than my beloved Drexler and the Blazers (Sadly, he wasn't wrong), just to get under my skin.

I got into sports and then into sports writing because of my best friend and his Dad. His Dad had been a sports writer for the hometown paper for short while and smartly got out of the business before he had a family.

 

[MileHigh]

Sports was big in our family. My dad played basically Division II basketball. My brother one year younger than me was a very good athlete (played D-II hoops). I was ... horrible at sports. But I loved it. And it was my way of staying in it, kind of in a way to please my dad and his love of sports.

 

[TrooperBari]

Mom had no interest in sports. Dad was a casual athlete and coached 8-man football to top up his meager teaching salary. One aunt (his sister) has some track records for their school that still stand to this day, but beyond that we're a family of nerds for the most part. Like MileHigh, I was awful at sports but still had fun. Beyond playing vintage baseball at the local living history museum, this is how I stayed connected to them.

 

[MisterCreosote]

My family was not a sports family, for the most part. I’m easily the best athlete of all of us, and that’s not really saying a whole lot.

I started covering sports to avoid real responsibility and spend more time outdoors.

 

[Driftwood]

My family was big into motorsports and local high school sports because it was a community thing.
Neither of my parents played sports in school. My dad was too busy showing cows across the country (seriously), and my mom didn't have too many girls sports to even try. They went to the Daytona 500 on their honeymoon. I played it all in school but was strictly bench material because I was more interest in fishing. My dad and I liked going to a Tennessee football game every year. We attended 2-3 NASCAR races each year. Even after I had left home for the Navy, my folks religiously followed the high school girls basketball team because they were multi-time state champions, and it was a community thing.

I entered the business because when I decided to go to college, I was reading Lewis Grizzard's book about his time as a sports writer, and it seemed like a good idea.
What did I wind up covering, motorsports, local high school sports, and fishing tournaments.

Go figure.

 

[wicked]

One of my cousins played hockey in high school. He was clearly one of those gritty third-liners. My mom’s sister was an athletic trainer at a mid-major D-I when she was in school and still coaches tennis recreationally in her mid-60s. That’s it.

 

[Shropshire Slasher]

I've had distant relatives who played at a high level, including Catfish Hunter and Tom Crabtree. However, I didn't develop an extreme interest in sports until I was 12, and at that point my parents weren't willing to pay for anything other than what the school offered and I'm certain that set me back, in the days before travel ball in everything short of badminton became the thing.

Might've gotten a scholly to Hillsdale in quidditch.

 

[Sam Mills 51]

My mother was a basketball player and ended up playing in college, even at 5-foot-3. My stepfather was a voracious reader ... so from a certain POV, I ended up a true product of my surroundings. My goal was always to get into sports media - I didn't hit puberty until late in high school and continuing into college (seriously ... I gave up 6-9 inches and 100 pounds to some of my peers in HS), so my being an athlete just wasn't in the cards.

Mom went on to play some sports when we were stationed overseas and transitioned into officiating soccer and basketball, the former at a D-I level and did some WUSA matches and eventually an international match or two.

So she, of all people, understood why I went on to do something outside the biz after getting laid off from my third newsroom for reasons beyond my control, but now freelance away from the regular gig because the publication here stupidly and thoughtlessly laid off the only high school sports writer on staff. After years on the desk, it's fun again and I know how I can help the SE and try to stay away from some of the lousy, cringy copy I saw too much of over the years.

 

[OscarMadison]

My family was big into motorsports and local high school sports because it was a community thing.
Neither of my parents played sports in school. My dad was too busy showing cows across the country (seriously), and my mom didn't have too many girls sports to even try. They went to the Daytona 500 on their honeymoon. I played it all in school but was strictly bench material because I was more interest in fishing. My dad and I liked going to a Tennessee football game every year. We attended 2-3 NASCAR races each year. Even after I had left home for the Navy, my folks religiously followed the high school girls basketball team because they were multi-time state champions, and it was a community thing.

I entered the business because when I decided to go to college, I was reading Lewis Grizzard's book about his time as a sports writer, and it seemed like a good idea.
What did I wind up covering, motorsports, local high school sports, and fishing tournaments.

Go figure.

Tell me you're from the South without saying you're from the South (or maybe the Midwest for some folks.)

 

[Songbird]

Was a sporto to the bone straight out of the womb.

My dad loved/loves sports but was probably not good at them but he has spent the better part of 75 years watching baseball and football and golf and reading the sports section just as long.

I grew up playing sports and reading the sports page religiously every morning ... agate page first, always ... from 7 or 8 till about 18 and then I got a job at the local big city newspaper.

Some say I got into newspapers subconsciously as a way to communicate with my dad.

I watched him read 2 thick papers every day after he came home from work.

He rarely engaged me during newspaper/dinner/TV time, maybe twice in the first 5,000 days of my life.

I don't blame him for any of that.

To paraphrase John Mayer,

Fathers, be good to your sons
Sons will love like you do

Totally forevermore. My love is corrupt.

At the same time, I loved holding the paper every morning during my formative years and consuming sports numbers like few boys in America.

Playing sports and eating the agate page were the first loves of my life.

Also, I ate this Vermont gala apple today. Loved it.

 

[I Should Coco]

Galas are a delicious variety, SB.

And so were daily sports sections in the 1980s. I remember the Sunday Chicago Tribune sports section ... it literally was bigger than the entire 2025 Tribune, at least on some days of the week.

 

[dixiehack]

My dad liked sports but was too busy working to watch much. He and mom played rec league softball when I was growing up but I did not inherit a single ounce of athletic ability.

Looking back I’d guess I got started with sports fandom as a way to relate to other boys, to have something I could be besides a neurotic, geeky, uncoordinated runt. But in no time flat I loved sports on their own merits. And whatever else I could or could not do, I could talk some damn ball.