It’s been interesting talking to other sports editors at this APSE judging. Kind of depressing, too, to be honest. One guy from the East Coast has gone through a round of layoffs and expects more in a couple weeks. Another guy thought some could be coming down any day, and it might be managers. One woman told me about one-week furloughs every staff member has to take in the next couple months to make up for company debt. Another found out his paper filed for bankruptcy before we broke for lunch Monday.
Our business is in a turbulent time, to be sure. We did have a dinner for first-timers Monday night and there were a lot of stories from folks all over the country about what makes our jobs special. You could see, hear, sense the passion in the voices as one by one people got up and spoke. One guy, from Pittsburgh I think, got a call from one of his young writers at 7 in the morning who said he had a tip that a local player was going to sign with Duke, and the young writer was all over the story. There’s a lot of enthusiasm in our business — I see it in our staff all the time — but sometimes it takes something as simple as that phone call to see it.
