My boldest pick was a South win against Princeton. The game was postponed halfway through Friday night due to a thunderstorm, and Princeton drove home to Cincinnati with a 20-12 lead. Princeton came back Saturday, and South won 30-27.
Jack Bianchi, the Springfield News-Sun’s former managing editor, walked by my desk that Monday and said, “How about that South pick?”
Memories like that make me smile as I write my final Wizard column. I’m leaving the Springfield News-Sun at the end of this month. Some things haven’t changed, and this was not a decision made as a half-hearted guess.
But some things have changed for The Wizard. I’m married, and our second child, Lucy, was born in April. Our oldest, Kate, is 2 years old.
I’m returning to college, to The Ohio State University, to pursue a degree in Forestry, Fisheries and Wildlife. I spend most of my free time in the outdoors, so as a family we decided that’s where I would spend my professional career, too.
It was my wife, Sarah, who wanted me to write this column. I wanted to fade away like fog in the morning. She said people would wonder where I went.
This column is traditionally about the people who make football and basketball fun. I like to think I’ve been a part of that fun. Here are a few memories I’ll keep from my 8½ years here.
• I covered the first home playoff football games at Shawnee (against Kenton), Catholic Central (Waynesfield-Goshen), Kenton Ridge (Carlisle), West Liberty-Salem (Middletown Fenwick) and Springfield (Hilliard Darby).
It can’t be a coincidence I was at all those games and the team I covered won. So you’re welcome.
• My pen froze during a 2002 Southeastern football playoff game thanks to its outdoor air press box. The next year, Rick Burton and the Southeastern “Press Box Dudes” gave me a pen wrapped in weather stripping. I still have the pen and the letter that accompanied it.
• The Graham boys basketball team’s run to the 2008 state tournament included amazing wins against Canal Winchester and Kettering Alter. At the state tournament the next week, I had never seen so many people at a high school basketball game.
• When the Northeastern boys basketball team won the 2006 Ohio Heritage Conference title, I asked former head coach Kregg Creamer how old he was in 1968, the last time the Jets were champs. He said, “Negative-5.” I’m sure he was thinking, “I wasn’t born yet, dummy.” Whoops!
• Springfield assistant football coach John Cupps pulled me aside this year after I wrote a story about a defensive “formation.” Cupps informed me a defense isn’t a “formation,” it’s a “front.” I’d written incorrectly about formations several times, but I told him if I put formations in the paper enough, it would soon be true.
This is true, too: The Wizard didn’t start with me, and it won’t end with me. It’s been fun.
About the Author