Where to start?
Well, Journalism 101 is to never bury the lede, so I’ll start with the news of why I’m writing this.
Yesterday was my last day working at The Tribune. As some of you know, I’m an engaged man getting married this October, and my incredible fiancée recently graduated from optometry school and got a job working in the South Bend area.
I was able to land a job working at the University of Notre Dame, and even though I’m super pumped to start this next chapter, I’m sad to be ending this one.
The last two and a half years in Jackson County have been amazing.
When I first started in the spring of 2021, I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know how long I’d last. I didn’t know if I even wanted to be here. Thankfully, I stuck around.
I definitely made a lot mistakes early on trying to figure out everything I needed to do to run the sports section here in Seymour, but once I got the hang of it, I tried my best to provide you all with the best coverage possible.
Covering all of the sports teams here in Seymour has been awesome. Thank you to all of the athletic directors, the coaches and especially the athletes for every interview and friendly conversation over the last couple of years. You guys allowed me to share your stories, and I couldn’t thank you enough.
I got to cover so many school records being broken, so many sectional championships, a couple of regional titles, some semistate games and even a few state championship appearances.
That right there shows how talented the athletes are here in Jackson County. From Seymour to Brownstown Central to Trinity Lutheran to Crothersville to Medora, there were special and fun moments I had covering teams at every school.
I’ll never forget the memories I made here, and I’m going to miss covering all of these teams going forward. There are a couple of teams coming up this year in the fall, winter and spring that I believe have a chance to do some really special things. I definitely plan to keep up with how every team is doing, and I plan to try to make it back to some games in these upcoming seasons, as well.
But what made Seymour special wasn’t all of the wins a team could get in one year or how far they could get in the postseason. What made this place special was the people.
I formed so many great relationships with coaches, parents and athletes around the county who made this job fun. I wasn’t going to please everyone, and I’m sorry for the mistakes I made over the years or if anyone felt like they didn’t get enough coverage.
I wish I could’ve been at every game every night, but one of the things I was most proud of was trying my best to get every score from each night into the paper the next day. I tried my best to spread out the coverage as evenly as possible, and some nights were easier to do that than others, but at the end of the day, I tried my best to make The Tribune sports section a reliable source of content for all things athletics.
Special thanks to my editor, Aubrey Woods, for giving me the opportunity to run the sports section and allowing me to make it my own.
Thank you to Zach Spicer for always being an amazing resource and helping out when we needed it.
Thank you to my partner in crime, Arv Koontz. He’s a legend, and I thought we made a pretty good team, and it was an honor to work with him.
Thanks to John Regruth for freelancing for me, especially on Friday nights. He made my life a lot easier.
Speaking of Friday nights, thanks to Greg Jones and Jeff Lubker for their countless hours shooting photos for me.
Thanks to Lew Freedman for the articles over the years, and thanks to the whole Tribune staff for being awesome people and making the working environment a fun place to be.
Shoutout to everyone on the pagination desk as well. I couldn’t have done it without any of you. Thanks to everyone who helped design my pages and dealt with our tight deadline.
Thank you to everyone who followed along over the years, whether it was on social media, in the paper or online. I appreciated every message, good or bad, that I received. Jackson County has a passionate fan base, and I loved being in the crowds for games and meeting all of you.
You might still see my byline on some stories in the coming weeks, and that’s because I prepared some stories for future use.
My work email will soon be disbanded, but if anyone wants to reach out or send a message to me, my personal email is [email protected]. And if anyone has any photos of me talking to an athlete after a game, feel free to send it my way because I always cherished those moments. It wasn’t about me. I was just the one trying to tell the stories of the athletes in the county.
Don’t be a stranger, Seymour. I know I won’t be.
Good luck to all of the athletes and teams going forward. I know you’ll do awesome things.
Thank you, Seymour, from the bottom of my heart. I appreciate you.