The blinking cursor on the empty screen is giving its subtle, yet audacious hint: you can’t put this off any longer, kiddo. It’s time to write.
I have been both dreading and eagerly anticipating this very moment since December 1, 2007.
That afternoon, while sitting in a north Macon coffee shop, the arduous task of filling another blank screen with about 700 words of my thoughts sat before me. For the first time of my five-month-old career, I wrote a sports column. The next day, it appeared in this very space, the same space that after today will no longer include this face.
As of Tuesday, the next phase of my professional life officially begins. Just like college coaches who suddenly change allegiances and pro players who get traded, I too, will soon be moving to another city and calling another team home.
I’ll be working for The Orlando Sentinel and South Florida Sun-Sentinel, covering Florida State athletics from Tallahassee, Fla.
New unfilled screens and their flashing cursors will be awaiting my services.
I’m excited about the opportunity to continue my career, to leave my home state for the first time since college and to tackle a sports beat at another major institution. Some pundits believe Florida State could contend for national championships in the coming seasons. I’d be lying if I said chronicling a title run wasn’t high on my bucket list. So, if it happens, great.
I also believe that with some tweaks here and there, Georgia Tech -- the program I’ve covered for The Telegraph since fall 2007 -- could be in that conversation in no time, too. I wish head coach Paul Johnson and the Yellow Jackets the best of luck in that regard. (And yes, Georgia fans, your beloved Bill Shanks would threaten physical harm if I didn’t add that the Bulldogs could very well turn things around soon, too.)
Anyway, now that I’ve gotten all the news out of the way, let’s get some opinion to this column.
Opinion: embrace winking computer cursors and blanche-white screens, or whatever similar symbols exist in your lives. For writers, those represent the world’s unknowns, its mysteries waiting to be discovered, explored and told. The afternoon of December 1, 2007, I had no idea where my thoughts would take me.
Condemning some of my journalistic peers, the inaugural column was about the rush to judgment many writers had in the days following the senseless murder of Washington Redskins defensive back Sean Taylor. They abruptly tied the killing to his previous off-field run-ins and exhaustive bad-boy rap sheet. Before his body was even lowered into his grave, some all but said that he got what he had coming.
I asked for pause until the facts were known.
In the days after the column ran, police in south Florida, where Taylor was killed, found no connection between him and his assailants. His death was the result of a botched robbery in his home.
That story isn’t mentioned to convince you that I was always right in my columns. It was purely meant as background to prove my desire to tackle big, sometimes unsolvable issues, and to show that when I had an opinion, I stuck to it. As my e-mail inbox -- one I’ve spent the last five days cleaning out -- can attest, there were plenty of times readers felt my convictions were wrong.
Of course, Atlanta Falcons fans who paid attention back in April 2008 won’t let me forget my comparison of first-round draft pick Matt Ryan to former backup quarterback Joey Harrington.
As I’ve done before, I’ll admit again here that maybe, just maybe, Ryan turned out better than I originally thought. (OK, he really turned out better than I thought, although there is still this matter about Ryan and winning in the playoffs ...) The thing was, those high interception numbers in college alarmed me, as well as the fact that following the Michael Vick saga from the summer before, the franchise was about to lump a ton onto the shoulders of a guy my age.
Not sure why I had many doubts about the latter. Ryan, like I would hope I would if in his situation, has handled it all well: with grace, dignity and a carefree smile.
The columns also took me through discourses about Macon’s sports franchises to those about using athletics as a way to stem the tide of a blood-filled summer that once splashed our fair city’s streets. Sports, I also wrote in an Inauguration Day column two years ago, have been and still can be part of America’s on-going racial “healing.”
As part of that healing, I’ve used my columns to push for added diversity in sports sections across the country. When blacks and Latinos are seldom seen in major league baseball press boxes -- just three blacks cover MLB’s 30 teams on a daily beat, for example -- the issue hits home for me.
My only hope is these columns made you think. I hope they made you want to scream at the situations they discussed or even scream at me. As long as they got you talking, my job was done.
Macon and Middle Georgia, this has been a great four-year ride. Thanks for allowing me to share my empty screens with you. Here’s to many, many more.
Until we meet again.
Contact Coley Harvey at charv1914@ gmail.com.
