Looking back on a sporting career

Winnipeg

An old adage is that all good things come to an end. For Memories of Sport, this is my final column. Who could have imagined that a freelance column about the history of sport with a focus on Manitoba would survive into its 14th year. It’s been an honour to bring stories about often forgotten events, teams, athletes, and builders to the Free Press Community Review readers every second week.

It’s safe to say that this final column will bring to an end a freelance sports reporting and broadcasting career (for lack of a better word) that began back in the early 1970s. After graduating from the first Creative Communications program at Red River Community College, I accepted a Prairie region public relations position rather than pursue a job in sports journalism that was my initial thought when I enrolled in the program.

Because of my connection to softball, I wrote game reports for the senior A men’s fastball league for both the Free Press and the Tribune. This led to my first freelance assignment when Trib sports editor Jack Matheson recruited me to cover the high school bonspiel that began each year right after Christmas. I remember asking Matty how much space I had and he said as much as I needed. Much different situation than the newspapers of today.

Matty later offered me a fuIl-time job as a sports reporter, but I chose to remain in my public relations position. I continued to cover both curling and softball on a freelance basis for the Tribune until the paper folded on August 1980. At the time, I also was writing a sports trivia column that usually ran weekly. My final column had been filed, but didn’t make it into the final edition.

During the 1970s, I did radio reports and TV colour commentary on the Winnipeg Colonels of the Western Major Fastball League. Bob Irving from radio station CJOB asked me to do voice reports on the annual MCA bonspiel, which along with covering some provincial championships, I did for many years. My radio experience also included colour for hockey games on Morden and The Pas stations and softball for stations in Thompson and Weyburn, Sask. For 16 years, until 2004, my media relations role for the McCain SuperSpiel West in Portage la Prairie included voice reports for CFRY in Portage and radio stations across the Prairies.

They say timing is everything and it was when I decided to take early retirement after working for more than 20 years in post-secondary educational communications. Winnipeg Sun sports editor Dave Komosky called to offer a job writing a sports people column patterned after a column in its sister paper, the Montreal Gazette. After much discussion, I agreed to do it with my friend Ted (Dutch) Holland, a journalism graduate from the University of Iowa, who had retired from his public relations position. Dutch and I figured the column called Toast & Coffee might survive for six months, but it proved to be popular and lasted nearly four years.

In late 2004, when Jack Matheson retired from writing a column in the Prime Times newspaper for mature adults, editor John Kendle gave us the task of writing a column in the shadow of a legend. Part of the reason for accepting the challenge was our desire to remember and help preserve the history of sports in our province. The Sporting Life column continued to tell those stories until the paper ceased publication in November 2011.

Earlier that year, Kendle asked the columnists to resurrect Toast & Coffee for the Canstar Community News papers. The full-page column, with sections titled Out & About and Hat’s Off, where local sports heroes were recognized, ran in the Winnipeg weeklies until Holland was unable to continue writing due to health issues. The first Memories of Sport column soon followed.

To end my final column, I want to thank the editors I worked with over the years for their support. Their basic message was to write about anything you want, but always meet your deadline. Finally, thank you to the readers.