Somers: One last column before I go

The best journey often has an unknown destination, but the beginning usually is easy to pinpoint.

At least that’s how it is for my career in sports journalism. Two events set me upon a path that led to today, my last day at The Arizona Republic, where I’ve worked for nearly 38 years.

The first, I had nothing to do with, other than showing up. I was born into a sports family. My dad taught and coached high school football for a while. My mother played high school basketball. Growing up, my siblings and I played nearly everything the YMCA and other organizations offered, and televised sports were appointment viewing.

The second came in 1980, when I walked into the student union building at Utah State University for orientation and noticed a display by the student newspaper. It was recruiting potential writers. Three credit hours and the chance to meet a couple of pretty girls I saw at orientation was an offer I couldn’t pass up.

I found a career there. One of those girls became my wife. Deal of a lifetime.

I’m leaving The Republic and azcentral.com on my terms, and those contained in a voluntary severance offer. They offered. I applied. They accepted.

It’s been an amazing ride, one that started in April of 1985, two weeks or so after I was married. My first sports editor was Bob Jacobsen, a chain-smoking, gruff ex-Marine, who, before the days of cellphones, warned high school writers covering games that they better find a “g--damn phone” to call in, or transmit, stories.

Behind his back, we wondered what the difference was between a regular phone and a “g--damn phone.”

I was sitting at my desk in the morning on one of those first days when “Jake” walked in, tapped me on my shoulder and said, “My office.”

I followed him, stomach churning, wondering what I had done to become the shortest-tenured sportswriter in Arizona history.

Nothing, as it turned out. Jake had read in a company newsletter that I was born in Alva, Oklahoma, where he had spent several years as a kid. He wanted to talk about Alva, Oklahoma. My career was not over before it started.

In those days, The Republic was the very best training ground for a sportswriter. Young reporters had to work their way up, proving themselves at every step. It wasn’t always easy. There was tough love. I once had a copy editor attach a note at the top of a story:

“I should have sprayed Lysol on the lede.”

I started in the community sections, covering high schools, youth soccer, Little League and even a little boxing. I remember interviewing a relatively unknown boxer named Michael Carbajal in the makeshift gym in the backyard of his family’s home in downtown Phoenix.

I moved on to cover junior colleges, Northern Arizona University, Arizona State and the Cardinals. For most of the last five years, I’ve written columns.

Every beat produced memories that make me both wistful and happy.

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I’ve covered numerous Super Bowls, Final Fours and two NBA championship series. They were fun, but no more so than covering legendary coaches Tom Bennett and Royce Youree leading Mesa Community College to a third-place finish in the national basketball tournament in 1987. Or being there when Paul Westphal led Grand Canyon to the NAIA basketball title in 1988.

On an off day in that tournament, I interviewed Westphal over lunch at Arthur Bryant’s Barbeque Restaurant in Kansas City. The Republic paid, but Westphal gave me a great interview. In the days prior to the tournament, he had to suspend his two leading scorers. It pained him to do so.

Typically, he said, he preferred the discipline policy of former Marquette coach Al McGuire, who was asked once what he would do if he saw his best player with a girl under each arm and carrying a six-pack of beer.

McGuire said he’d quickly try to hide so the player didn’t see him.

There were characters at every level, too. As a high school reporter, I covered the northwest Valley where coaches would meet weekly for beer, pizza and talk about that week’s opponent.

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Moon Valley coach Earl Putman always gave me something to write about, and he didn’t disappoint the week his Rockets were playing St. Mary’s, which was a powerhouse then.

“Those St. Mary’s players,” Putman said, “they hit like savages.”

As ASU’s football beat writer, I re-united with Bruce Snyder, whom I had covered a bit when he was Utah State’s coach. Not that Snyder took it easy on me if he felt I was out of line.

One night, ASU made a dramatic comeback. I was tight against deadline, and already had a story written about an embarrassing loss. I had to rewrite quickly. The final story was overly negative, and Snyder let me know about it the next day.

“Gee, Kent,”  he said. “I thought we won last night until I picked up The Republic this morning.”

Covering ASU basketball when Bill Frieder was coach was always an adventure. One year, Frieder had to suspend a few starters just before the team departed for the Maui Invitational.

The day before the first game, Frieder invited another beat writer and me to watch practice, which he never, ever did.

“Bet you’re wondering why I’m letting you watch this,” Frieder said.

The thought had crossed our minds, we told him.

“Because I want you to see how f---ing hard it’s going to be for us to score tomorrow night,” he said.

On Thursday, the Cardinals introduced new head coach Jonathan Gannon at a news conference in the auditorium of team headquarters. I covered eight of those events in more than 25 years as the Cardinals beat writer. None were more memorable than Buddy Ryan’s and Dennis Green’s.

In 1994, Buddy promised us we “had a winner in town.”

We didn’t.

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In 2004, Green was asked why he thought he could turn the Cardinals into a consistent winner when no one else had. He pointed to a chart that showed his .610 winning percentage in 10 years as head coach of the Vikings.

Green was fired three years later after compiling a .333 winning percentage with the Cardinals.

To their credit, neither man took much umbrage with negative coverage.

Beat writers met with Ryan every day on the field before practice. He talked as he twirled a whistle around an index finger.

If he didn’t like one of your stories, he told you.

“What y’all wrote today,” he’d say in that Oklahoma drawl, “was bulls--t.”

But he never held a grudge.

Covering the Cardinals could be drudgery, given the number of losing seasons. It could also be exhilarating, as it was in 1998 when they clinched their first playoff berth since moving to Arizona a decade earlier. Or in 2008, when they made it to their first Super Bowl.

People asked then if it meant a lot more work for writers.

Sure, I said. But covering a big story never seemed like work. And the Cardinals in the Super Bowl certainly qualified for a big story.

There was a lot of big stories over the last 38 years, at every level of sports. State and national tournaments. Pro sports championships. Coaching changes. Head injuries. A lack of diversity in hiring practices. The final years of Kurt Warner’s Pro Football Hall of Fame career. All the years of Larry Fitzgerald’s career. Devin Booker’s ascension. The Suns run to the NBA Finals. The Suns' change of ownership and the acquisition of Kevin Durant. And on and on.

All were a privilege to cover. Whenever I lost sight of how lucky I was, smart and honest people around me, mainly my wife, Paula, called me on it.

As I leave, I’m fearful. Not for what’s ahead for me, but for good journalism. When other journalists have heard of my retirement, most have congratulated me then quickly noted that it’s great I’m going out on my terms.

That’s sad because it’s an acknowledgment of how fewer journalists there are working now. Our communities have suffered because there are questions that aren’t being asked, stories that aren’t being told.

I’ll step off the pedestal now and come to the end of a long column that probably feels like a journey for you if you’ve read this far.

If you have, thank you. If you have read the work of The Republic’s sports department over the last 38 years, thank you. Thank you for the positive comments, the educational ones, and for the negative ones that didn’t question my heritage or call me names that would embarrass Buddy Ryan.

Like all new retirees, people ask me what I’m going to do now. I can’t say for sure. I think I will stay busy. I hope to still write, in some form. I have three kids, three grandchildren and a fourth one on the way.

My parents turn 90 next month, and they still like nothing better than going to games. I’d like to tag along to a few of them if they’ll have me.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Somers: A final column, a lasting thank you