Gilmer's Gospel

     After nine years of covering high school sports on a full-time basis, I’ve noticed that there are some things I can do without and some things that will be tough to live without.
     Here is a long list of these.

     I won’t miss my phone ringing late at night from someone who heard something about some coach taking another job, leaving the office at 1 a.m. on a Tuesday night, missing family members’ birthday parties because of a meet or match, not seeing my wife for days because of conflicting work schedules and filling up the gas tank two or three times a week.
     I will miss writing on deadline, knowing what the newspaper will look like before it hits the streets, pre-game meals at a variety of local establishments with a variety of other media and friends, early mornings in the office when no one else is there and seeing the annual football preview roll off the press.
     I won’t miss calls from parents complaining that their child (who’s 5-foot-7, runs a 5.2 40-yard dash and can’t cover me) didn’t get a scholarship from Clemson because I didn’t write about him, parents who disagree with the stats that coaches give me, hearing from fans who think the Herald-Journal is biased toward one school or another (guess what, the school you think I’m biased towards has someone who thinks I’m biased toward your school).
     I will miss getting notes from players thanking me for writing about them (I still have the note that former Jonesville basketball star Tiara Good sent me after she signed with Wake Forest), blog comments from thankful fans, hearing a handful of coaches who say ‘thanks for what you do’ every time I go out to cover their team, getting phone calls from outside the state from someone who wants to know how so-and-so did, and walking into a store talking with a random fan about the upcoming seasons.
     I won’t miss talking to crying girls after they lose, seeing runners vomit as they cross the finish line and smelling the odor that lingers in a locker room.
     I will miss being the last person out of a school (“Just lock the door when you leave”), hearing the squeak of sneakers on the gym floor and seeing a crowd fill up a stadium two hours before kickoff.
     I won’t miss some of the people on the SC Pigskin Prep message board (i.e. that guy who doesn’t know his caps lock button is pushed all the time), e-mails requesting me to do a story that I’ve already written once and remembering every morning not to put on a shirt the color of teams that I’m going to go cover that night.
     I will miss the smart high school sports fans that you can have intelligent conversations with and who don’t always think their team is the only team.
     I won’t miss answering questions to readers about how, when and why I did this job the way I did it. I did the best I could do and tried to be as fair as possible. Some may hate how it was done, but I think the Herald-Journal does an excellent job covering high school sports and sports in general.
     I will miss the people. The people I work in the newsroom with, the coaches I’ve talked to regularly, the players I’ve watched grow up and the sports fans I’ve met along the way.
     I’ll miss lunches on Thursday with my friends, Friday lunches at the Marriott with the Touchdown Club and Friday night pizza in the newsroom.
     I’ll miss Wednesday afternoon chats with Pete Yanity, talking every Friday afternoon to the guys at ESPN 1400 AM and sitting in on halftime broadcasts in press boxes across the state.
     I’ll miss stealing lines from Todd Shanesy, harassing Eric Boynton, learning from Burke Noel, watching our copy editors (Mike McCombs, Nick Foster and Mark Egan) produce great work on deadline and going on assignments with our wonderful photographers.

     I’ve had one of the best jobs in the world during the last nine years.
     I mean, I watched and wrote about sports for a living.
     It was a great ride.
     And there's four more days of work to do.