So I dont post anymore...but this makes me mad...

[gdickert]

Anyone care to hear the point of view from a former sports editor of The Beaumont Enterprise?

[NedDog]

Anyone care to hear the point of view from a former sports editor of The Beaumont Enterprise?

That would be great!

[gdickert]

I joined The Enterprise sports staff in 1993 as a sports writer.

My job was to cover small schools -- Class A through 3A.

Also on the staff was Kenton Brooks, who covered 4A; Pat Turner, who covered 5A; and David Widener, who helped out with coverage where we needed it on Friday night. Joe Heiling was sports editor.

We had no fewer than four staff writers covering games on Friday nights. In addition, we paid stringers to call in stats on games from Class A up to 5A.

We made sure we covered Beaumont schools ourselves, or had one of our more experienced stringers cover for us. At the time, we had West Brook and Central.

WO-S, Jasper, Lumberton ... all those 20-4A teams at the time were the responsibility of Kenton. For those of you who remember him, nothing got past him. His life was The Enterprise and he got everything. He worked Saturday and Sunday to get stats ... he was an interesting personality and I often questioned his journalistic practices, but he got the job done.

After I became sports editor in 97, we had various writers ... Kenton, Brad McBride (who is a coach in Lumberton now), Chris Gulstad, Michael Peters ... quite a few really good writers ... guys who knew what community journalism was about.

We instituted a beat structure that had one writer responsible for Beaumont schools, one for Orange County school, Brad was our MidCounty writer, and we had a writer who covered small schools.

Again, on Friday nights, we had a room full of people taking call-ins and paid stringers out in the field ... (One of the best was -- and I presume still is -- Coach Gordon Long in Lumberton.)

Even though we covered Lamar sports, Astros, Cowboys, Oilers, horse racing at Delta Downs, Rockets, etc. ... we still made sure high schools were our bread and butter. That was the only thing we could guarantee that we could have that no one else would have.

If you wanted to find out who won the Evadale game, we had it.

If you wanted to read about Orangefield's pole vaulting wins, we had it.

If you wanted to know more about West Brook's track or Lincoln basketball or Burkeville football ... we had it.

In exchange, I went through my first divorce ... I was never home.

There were always people going on about how we didn't do enough on one school or another. But I can tell you, there was never an unfair judgement made about which schools to cover. We were accused of racism and favoritism ... I was accused by one person of being a West Brook graduate, then less than an hour later, accused of being a Central graduate.

There are not enough hours to do everything all the time. But we tried.

I can't say what's going on at The Enterprise now. I'd hate to judge a situation of which I have no intimate knowledge.

I know the current sports editor Michael Peters is a good guy and is a dedicated journalist.

I will tell you that working for a corporation like Hearst leaves you little room for making your own decisions sometimes.

I understand their circulation has dropped and their dedication to hometown news as far as sports is concerned is definitely lacking. I would say that those two things are connected.

If you want to spend your money on a good news product, look at subscribing to a small daily or a weekly paper.

Van Wade is still doing a good job ... as always ... at the Orange Leader.

The Silsbee Bee, where I work, dedicates nearly half of its second section to sports news in Silsbee, Kountze, Lumberton, Spurger and Evadale.

Read the Vidorian, the Vindicator, the Hometown Press or the Kirbyville Banner and you'll get good stories about games, kids and maybe even an inside scoop on what's going on down at the high school.

A small paper is where I started my career and after too many years working for The Enterprise, I found my way back to a small paper.

It's where I thrive and where I'll retire.

[BigB BigD]

Interesting....

I remember the Enterprise being a good read back then. Saturday morning was full of HS Football info and a joy to read that everyone looked forward to. I remember Kenton Brooks too.....seemed like he followed Newton during the 98 State run.

Put the Silsbee paper online and I will read it.

[stangchain]

Thank you for your post, G.  It was nice to have it all put into perspective directly from the horse's mouth.  There are a lot of schools in the area for only a couple of guys to cover. 

And purple...thank you for recognizing and acknowledging that you misread my post.  I appreciate that.