Hagerstown player Josh Johnson appeared on the cover of the Palladium-Item’s football preview section in August of 2001.
One of the most important things in life is to have dreams.
I have been fortunate enough during my 53 years to have achieved my two professional goals.
The first was to become a basketball coach. After getting cut from my grade school team, it didn’t take much thought to realize that I needed to figure out a different way to be involved in the sport I loved.
In seventh grade, I became the student manager for our basketball team at Pleasant View in Richmond, Indiana. I didn’t stop being a student manager until 10 years later, after serving with the Ball State University men’s basketball team.
A year later, I was a freshman coach at a high school. From there, I coached boys and girls teams from youth leagues to the college level.
It was a fun time and I believe the experience helped me as I reached my second goal.
The second aspiration was to become a sportswriter for my hometown newspaper. Ray Davis, my junior high school counselor, got me started as he introduced me to a sportswriter named Mike Lopresti. We had so much in common. Mike had been a basketball student manager at Richmond High School as well and he was working for our local paper the Palladium-Item.
Mike took me to a high school boys basketball game between Hagerstown and Northeastern in Fountain City, Indiana. I was hooked. It took 15 years and quite a few coaching stops along the way, but I finally wrote a story for the Palladium-Item. Ironically, it was a Northeastern football game.
Eventually, I became a full-time employee of the Palladium-Item and a colleague of Mike Lopresti even though by that time he was a national writer for Gannett newspapers. We worked for same company and spoke frequently.
I was able to learn the profession from Mike and longtime sports editor Jan Clark. Although there are many other great people that I worked with at the Palladium-Item, it was really these two great writers that lead me into the right direction.
After nearly 15 years of writing stories in the newspaper, I left and became the Sports Information Director at Earlham College, which is a NCAA Division III school.
In September of 2016, I returned to the Palladium-Item as a part-time writer. It was a blast to come back to a place I enjoyed working for so long.
However, it was much different. There had been many changes over the years, but there were still people on the job from my first stint. That was until Wednesday, May 3. My position was eliminated, along with three others. It was a tough day, but the memories will always be there.
Family Legacy
I’ve interviewed many famous athletes and watched great contests in so many different sports. I’m a memorabilia person. I have game programs, story notes, recordings as well as actual hard copies of many of the countless stories I’ve written over the years.
Unfortunately, there is a story that is not among the collection of artifacts. It is the one story that still makes me cry even after all of this time. I cried when I wrote it. Maybe that’s why it remains so important.
During my time at the Palladium-Item, the staff writers composed stories every year in December about our most memorable moments of the past 12 months.
Recently, I was putting some new stuff from the last couple of months in the box filled with old clippings and other items from my time at the newspaper. I found several of what we called “tabs” in the box. Tabs were special sections for football, basketball and even auto racing.
There is one in particular that’s always been important. In the fall of 2001, I went to the home of Bob and Connie Johnson in Economy, Indiana. Their third son was a senior on the Hagerstown football team. Josh was following in the footsteps of his older brothers Jamie and Jesse.
Josh was a great kid and fun to cover in football, basketball and baseball, so we decided to put him on the cover. I’ve told this story several times, but this is only the second time that I’ve written about it.
After watching a baseball game in Hagerstown in the spring of 2002, it was time to interview legendary coach Lloyd Michael. On this day, it was a struggle. My son, now 17-years old, was in a stroller and ready to go home. As a two-year old, Ryan was always fine watching baseball games, but he didn’t like daddy doing interviews. I find it humorous that he still feels that way today.
In an innocent and sweet gesture at the time, Josh Johnson stopped what he was doing and entertained my son during the entire interview. It was a neat moment, but not really significant until July of that year. At times, it’s hard to talk about to this day, but Josh and another person passed away in an auto accident. I found out listening to the news on the radio the following morning. It was stunning.
Reporters are supposed to be objective, but it became difficult to remain uninvolved on that summer morning. That was when I told my wife the story of Josh’s kindness. I had not really thought much about until that moment, but it became something I remember to this day.
Although I never really speak about it publicly, I think of Josh every time I walk in the Tigers dugout and see Bob Johnson during baseball games. I don’t go into every team’s dugout when I cover a game, but I always make a point to walk through Hagerstown’s each time.
Mostly, this is a story I’ve shared with my son. This morning when he picked up the tab with Josh on the cover he asked, “That’s him?”
It was the first time he was able to see the person, who entertained him on that spring day in 2002. It made the story complete, while providing an example for my son of how one should treat other people. Although he never knew it, Josh left quite a legacy for my family.
Hopefully, I’ll be able to thank him someday