Adventures in Journalism

How I landed a roving columnist job at nineteen

As a freshman at Ft. Lewis College, in Durango, Colorado, I had already been bitten by the journalism bug as the 1994 summer break approached. I had written for my high school newspaper, back in Michigan, and also covered various beats for the Ft. Lewis College Independent, where I eventually became an editor. One day a young reporter named John Clarke, who wrote for our local paper, The Durango Herald, came in and spoke to our journalism class. I remember being particularly inspired by Clarke’s decision to move from the East Coast to take a job at a small town paper, instead of taking one of the more prestigious jobs he was offered. Having covered a wide range of topics for many national papers and magazines including political campaigns and both Democratic and Republican conventions, his resume was impressive. One of the things that resonated most with me about John, was his love for gonzo journalist, Hunter S. Thompson, whose writing had been had been introduced to me at a young age — looking back on it somewhat surprisingly — by my father. John had even driven up to Aspen and stayed with Hunter for a weekend, detailing his wild experience for the Denver Post, in a multipage spread that included some great photos. Meeting John had a big impact on me, and gave me the confidence to go after professional writing gigs, even though I was still in college.

I had chosen Durango for college because I was top level mountain bike racer as a junior, and a lot of pros lived there, including cross-country and downhill world champions Juli Furtado, John Tomac, Ned Overend, Missy Giove, Greg Herbold and Myles Rockwell. 1994 would be my first year in the “senior” division, and I was scheduled to travel the country, competing in the (now defunct) National Off Road Bicycle Association (NORBA) point series. Because mountain biking and cycling in general had long been part of Durango’s culture, I figured the Durango Herald might be interested in getting weekly updates from the road.

Storming the Newsroom

We didn’t do emails in those days, and I was too impatient for phone calls, so I drove down to the Herald, and asked to speak with John Peel, editor of the sports page. Newsrooms are busy places, and editors don’t exactly like to be dropped-in on, but I was in full GONZO mode, and got past the receptionist by saying I’d be quick. John was a nice, softspoken guy. I told him about my summer plans, that I’d been a member of the US National Team and raced in the world championship, the previous year. I also mentioned I wrote for the college paper. He was receptive to my pitch, and offered to pay me $35 per article. My sports page stringer would run weekly, all summer long, but I’d have to figure out the transmission details on my own. Which is to say, even the Durango Herald did not do emails in 1994.

Reporter at large

My column was not, nor had I planned it to be, a straight news account of the previous Sunday’s race. In fact, after covering soccer games and student council meetings as a college cub reporter, I was determined to purge the word “straight,” from my vocabulary. Did I mention my love Hunter S. Thompson? I was heavily influenced by Thompson’s work in a way that presented a serious conflict with the stringent lifestyle requirements of a professional athlete. If your imagination is failing you, I’ll just say that my racing results were not great for the first part of the season. And my results for the rest of the season didn’t matter at all, because there were none. At some point I quit racing altogether, but remained on the NORBA circuit, fulfilling my agreement with the Durango Herald which, of course, was both my journalistic duty as a young writer given a chance by a real newspaper, and too much fun to quit.

Meet your Deadlines!

Again, I want to point out the fact that we did not use email. Sure, this was not World War II, and I was not using a pigeon or a guy on a motorcycle to deliver my stories to the editorial office, but compared to what we do now, it was much closer to that type of scenerio. Every week I had to submit my story via FAX machine. Do you even know what a fax machine is? Would you know where to find a fax machine in the middle of Oklahoma, as a nineteen year-old kid, navigating the country alone, using only a United States atlas, pay phones and the verbal advice of gas station attendants? Do you know what an atlas is? I did have a primitive laptop computer, but no internet connection, and at some point my computer broke. Fortunately Kinko’s was a thing, which is now just a FEDEX store with a bunch of computers inside. So every week I would write my story on my massive IBM laptop, or on a Kinko’s computer, which I had to pay to use, or find ANYONE who had a computer, printer and fax machine, like a grocery store, library or whatever, and fax the story to John Peel, at the Durango Herald, often just in the nick of time. I never missed a deadline. That’s the first rule. There is no excuse. Editors do not think it’s cute, no matter how much you think they like you. The best writers in the world simply get fired if the copy is not in the editor’s hands when he/she needs it.

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