From Hashmarks to an end zone: See ya around

Mar. 17—Indulge me.

For 22 years, I've told your stories.

For my last one, ending a treasured run here, I'm going to tell you mine.

I've come full circle twice in my career path. I came here, quite frankly, quite unexpectedly, a decade after a first trip through sports writing.

For 10 years following six years in this business in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in which I lived in my first 30 years, I was in church ministry. Growing uncomfortable with my denomination, I took a risk on going with an independent association to start a church from the ground up in my wife's hometown. My support job was as a news-sider for the West Memphis Evening Times. Four months in, some movement along the top brass pushed one down to the staff and kicked out the last hired, me.

Three weeks later, I was called back in an emergency fill-in for the sports guy.

For two weeks, I covered an American Legion state baseball tournament, where I learned that a pitching coach for the local team connected with them as he was finishing a local sentence after his arrest due to a stop while working as an over-the-road trucker. Part of his sentence involving community service was lawn maintenance and clean-up at the city park. The relationship between he and the boys became life-changing for him.

I told his story. The next day he met me as I entered the gate, tears in his eyes. "You don't know what you have done for me," he said.

The Evening Times was at that point getting emails to bring me back. I refused to come back on those terms, given the guy I was filling in for was having a family crisis.

But I used this experience and applied at two papers, one being here. Kristi Fry, then the executive editor, called me within an hour of me sending a resume.

Fry changed my life — maybe even saved it. We were homeless at that point — well not literally, but my wife and I and our two young children were living with my mother-in-law. His son Jarrod, who still means more to me than he knows, helped move us in, almost as a one-man furniture moving company, carrying dressers and couches on his back up a flight of stars in 103 degree August heat.

I was mad at God, mad at the world, but I had a job again. And a boss who appreciated hard work and solid journalism, and let you know it. We had our battles at times, but he one time told me he never saw them as personal, just two guys with a passion for what we do.

Kristi died suddenly 17 years ago, just after our paper was sold to our current ownership. Part of me died with him. He, in a sense, is a hero for seeing in me in that short time in West Memphis enough to know that I cared about my work. He was especially impressed that I went to the then-Muskogee High football coach, Mike Monroe, to get his thoughts on the Phoenix the morning prior to my interview for the job. I got hired over a guy on staff that had applied for the job, and one of his closest friends at the time rounded out our department.

Think that was tough navigating?

What was even tougher was what my family went through in my struggle of all that had happened to us. For five more years I waited on the next thing, trying to steer God himself, and keeping my family stuck in a two-bedroom apartment — the only thing we could find at the time we moved here, but something I refused to budge from until I got clarity on some things.

Over the years I know they've suffered in other ways — an evening job is not conducive to family life. It was easier to sandwich in those moments in the days of a larger staff — my daughter's YMCA soccer team when practice demands were but one day a week, or my son's baseball team I inherited when some of the parents wanted the actual coaches removed — I and another dad took that on, and we won three of our last four after they'd gone 1-7.

But those avenues were few. They're grown now, but along the way when I almost moved to another position at the Phoenix they were like "No, Dad, it helps that my teachers who are coaches know you."

As for my wife, I'm a lucky guy she handled a lot of those years as the single mom, the single lady at social events, and so on. But she knew it brought bread to the table.

Over the years I guess I've touched a lot of people. Only a couple months at the job, I went to talk to basketball coaches and players at Tahlequah High and Sequoyah High, both of whom had been impacted by a traffic accident on U.S. 62 that killed several from both schools, including members of the teams. One of the coaches was nervous about letting me having access to his team. The twin sister of one of the victims wouldn't talk, but her best friend on the team did. The interview lasted about an hour, broken into pieces as she had to leave for a time to regain her composure.

The story ran. That morning I got a call from the coach, who sounded like he was in tears.

"Mike, what you did for our team in that story is probably the best thing anyone could have done!" I recall from the message.

Years later, I wrote about Callie Slader, an 8-year-old tied to racing families and whose passing brought together a racing community. This year, that community found itself coming to terms with the way-too-early passing of Hayden Ross, a 20-year-old late model stud going places on the tracks. I wrote about his service.

There was also the Stigler football player who didn't show up for his season opener because he had taken his life in a nearby park. I covered the service with a column.

And, the passing of a guy who did more for stabilizing Hilldale football than anyone ever, that being the great Don Hendrix. Telling that story through his sudden and shocking death built me a forever relationship with his oldest brother. Gary, don't be a stranger.

Though awards are far from motivation in these stories — my intent was always to uplift those who laid eye contact on it — I have state and regional honors or some of these.

I guess it's a gift. I'm grateful to share it.

And that gift is taking me back to ministry. As of next week, I will become the Chaplain and Coordinator of Bereavement Services for Seasons Hospice here in town. In becoming that, it heals a part of me left from those days of actual ministry. My wife always told me my storytelling became my ministry. Many of you helped me understand that.

But over those years, the newspaper business has changed. The winds of economics has sent many of my colleagues, some of them some great writers and super people, out of the business. While the paper has changed, and maybe not to your liking, there are some hard-working people in the Phoenix office who probably don't get their deserved due. But when I got here, there were many more of them. A week into my time 9/11 occurred and we did an extra — yes, a morning extra — that hit the streets before lunch. Those were different times, and I miss a lot of those folks and the energy of the times. One, the late Bob Branan, once told me about a stint he had as a multi-person copy desk at the Tulsa World. Even the big guys don't have those anymore.

Change isn't easy, but I leave on my own terms, and on God's timing, something one Brandon Tyler told me about just days after a similar change for a friend who leaves the Gore football program for Sallisaw. Like him, leaving your roots is hard.

As I think of you, including those of you who I've covered and watched grow into adults and now have kids playing the sports you played, and the many of you coaches and athletes who allowed me to get close to you, my heart is sad, but in a good way.

Thank all of you for letting me tell your stories, for letting me into a corner of your domain, and for the simple but meaningful things like a certain softball star out there who waited nearly a half-hour after I did my Muskogee postgame one football night to make sure I got to see her College World Series ring. Or the long-since graduated Rougher who made a post saying I helped him out in ways I don't even know. And at this point, I hope to find out.

Thanks to my freelance support, some in specific sports and others year-round — the ever-unselfish John Hasler, who without his grace our Media Days in football would have never materialized. Also Nick Hampton, Shane Keeter, Chris Cummings, Eric Shannon, Jimmy Stinson, Tommy Cobb, and Jim Weber, Michael Bray on roundups, and for years, Von Castor.

So I won't be moving— Jarrod's back is not what it was in 2001 — and I hope in some way to stay connected to the games and you. I hope I've left this place in good shape and I hope someone follows me that can sustain it or grow it in these times.

Again, thank you for enhancing my life, God bless, and be sure and look me up from time to time. I'll do the same.

Reach Mike Kays at muskogeesports@gmail.com.