Sports Column

My days are numbered at the Chiefland Citizen. Monday will be my last at the paper as I’ve accepted a job to become the editor of Gator Country Magazine and GatorCountry.com. It’s what is best for my family and career as I try to grow in the Florida media world after moving here from Arkansas a year ago.

Chiefland, and Levy County, will always be special to me. It’s a special place with special people with a few, at times, that were a special kind of crazy.

When I first climbed up the stairs into the Chiefland baseball bus, a familiar smell washed over me. It was the odor of sweaty socks, something most athletic buses take on as players shed shoes for a long road trip.

On this trip, we were headed to Jacksonville Providence for the Indians' regional semifinal game against the Stallions.

When anyone approaches a reporter and says, “I have a real problem with something you wrote,” most of us instantly become defensive.

We pride ourselves on reporting fact. We stand behind every word. We aspire to report what we’re told accurately, and succinctly.

So when a parent came to me “with a real problem” about a sentence in a story about Chiefland finalizing its 2011 football schedule, I instantly put up a wall, ready to tackle whatever was thrown my way.

From the moment I heard about this job, I've been hearing about Chiefland’s Jamantye Thompson. 

To check out the paper, I went where anybody else would look first, chieflandcitizen.com.

"Jumpin' Jamantye" was the first headline to catch my eye. Then another on Thompson, and another, and another. Perusing printed archives after getting the gig, and the senior tailback’s pictures were plastered across the pages.