AJC > Sports > Tech > Blog > Archives > 2008 > June > 03
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Thanks for four great years
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It has been a real pleasure and privilege to have the chance to cover Georgia Tech sports for four years. Thanks for reading what I have written. Many of you have taken the time to share your thoughts, either through conversations, letters, e-mails or blog comments. That meant a lot to me, even when you took issue with something I said or the way I said it.
I will soon begin covering the Thrashers, and I hope many of you will continue to read what I write, just as I will continue to have an interest in Tech sports.
It is somewhat awkward to be moving on to another assignment so soon after I made a point of telling a group of Tech fans I stayed on the Tech beat because I enjoyed it so much. I’d like those people to know I meant what I said.
Tech’s athletes, coaches, sports information staff, athletics department officials, students and fans have treated me well. Those I have interviewed have been generous with their time and almost without exception classy in their willingness to answer questions, even difficult ones asked at inconvenient moments.
Chan Gailey, the Tech coach I covered most, made it a rule not to single out players because he knew he was likely to offend a deserving one he forgot to mention. I could never list even a twentieth of the people I should. From Tashard Choice to Janie Mitchell, Steven Blackwood to Kristi Miller, Gerris Wilkinson to Luke Schenscher, Tech athletes have made my job a pleasant one. And I owe just as many thanks to Tech people whose names rarely if ever appeared in print, people like Allison George, Dean Buchan and Mollie Simmons Mayfield.
I have spent 23 years since my own college graduation covering college sports as a reporter and as an editor. The Thrashers beat provides a tremendous opportunity for me to try something different. It gives me a chance to immerse myself in a game I discovered as a kid watching Butch Goring, Marcel Dionne and Rogie Vachon and rediscovered as a college student fortunate enough to cover three Hobey Baker Award winners — Mark Fusco, Scott Fusco and Lane McDonald. (For you non-hockey people, think Heisman Trophy.)
I am thankful for the people I have met on the Tech beat, and I look forward to continuing as many of those relationships as I can for years to come. Stay in touch.
