The Olympics... and beyond

Over the course of the 13 years or so that I've been walking the sidelines of local high school athletic contests in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire, I've had the chance to cover more than my fair share of teams that have earned trips to the finals. In fact, my very first season, back in Spring of 2001, I remember covering one of, if not the most dominating team I've ever covered, the Kennett girls' tennis team. That team just steamrolled everyone and I distinctly remember being at New Hampton School covering their championship match. The stories that I get to write after those championship games are always the best. Usually it's easy to find a hook, a way to bring readers in to the story. There's usually plenty of great quotes and happy pictures with championship trophies make great front pages. However, it's the stories on the other side of the championship games that are a bit harder to write. If the stories of the champions basically write themselve...

When I booked the trip to Russia to cover the Olympics, I made the decision to go through a travel agent. I gave her the time I needed to arrive, the time I needed to head out and told her to see what she could find. She did a fantastic job and despite the fact that seemingly everyone in the world was flying to Sochi around that time, she got me in when I needed to be in and out when I needed to be out. There were a few long layovers, but when flying internationally, I always expect that to be the case. And in the weeks leading up to my departure, a couple of the flights had minor time changes. However, once the trip began, there was not one single delay. Every flight left on time and arrived either on time or early. Just a few weeks before I had to leave for Russia, I flew to California for a Survivor event. I had four flights and of those four flights, three of them were delayed and/or cancelled. In fact, one of my return flights was cancelled before I even took off on the flight o...

The summer has traditionally been my "easy" time. Like school kids themselves, I often look forward to summer as a chance to take a break, to relax and maybe not work quite as much. While I don't go on vacation or anything, I do see it as a break in the action, a chance to catch my breath and maybe work 40 hours a week instead of 60 or 70 or 80. My schedule revolves mostly around the whims of high schools. Being as most of the coverage I do is high school sports, I will start full-tilt to the ground with games the final week of August and with the exception of a few weeks around Thanksgiving, a few days around Christmas and New Year's and a few weeks in March, I am constantly on the move until June rolls around. And that's all just fine. That's part of the job. I know there are much worse things I could be doing for a living. Watching sports and writing stories is pretty darn easy on the list of jobs that people can do. While I may complain a time or two abo...

I spent Thursday morning driving to southern Connecticut for a softball tournament. When I finally got where I was going, I took out the iPad just in time to find out that the Red Sox had traded Jon Lester and Jonny Gomes to Oakland for Yoenis Cespedes. I found it kind of ironic that I was at a softball tournament when I found out this news. In the fateful summer of 2004, when Theo Epstein sent Nomar Garciaparra to the Cubs and helped to engineer an impressive run that ended in the happiest moment of most Red Sox fans' lives, I was also at a softball tournament. I remember it distinctly because I was telling someone in vicinity of the dugout and one of the players absolutely lost it. Nomar was her favorite player and it was not a welcome trade in her mind. All day yesterday I kept up on the latest news. When I was in my car I had MLB Network Radio on, listening to the latest news and rumors. I also had my iPad and continually checked Twitter for updates from the local Boston beat...

I don’t fly a lot. But in the past year or so, I’ve done more than my fair share. And there’s been some positive and some negative experiences in that time. Of course, the most positive experience had to be the longest of the flights, the flight from Boston that took me to the Olympics. I flew from Boston to Paris, Paris to Moscow and Moscow to Sochi and there was not one single delay. Every flight was either on time or early. Keep in mind there were hundreds if not thousands of athletes, media members, coaches and spectators making their way to Russia for the Games.   This boggled my mind for a few reasons. First and foremost, just a week before I left for Russia, I made a quick trip to Los Angeles for a Survivor event. That flight had me going from Manchester to Chicago, Chicago to Los Angeles and back the same route. Before I even left Manchester, the flight back from LA was cancelled due to anticipated weather. Then the flight out of Chicago coming back w...

The Olympics have a way of putting things in perspective. My original trip to the biggest sporting event in the world really opened my eyes to how much organization, planning and hard work goes into pulling off an event of that magnitude. But it also made me a little jaded against other events, chief in that are the NASCAR weekends at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. When I first started covering the NASCAR weekends (I believe it was 2004 or 2005), the events always impressed me. There was more than one hundred thousand people cramming into the stands and infields. I was up close with the drivers, working alongside writers and television and radio personalities that I read, watch or listen to on a regular basis. I wrote in my weekly newspaper column after each race how cool it would be to cover the circuit on a full-time basis, traveling around the country from track to track. While I still think that would be a cool job, this year I look at the NASCAR weekend w...

I don't spend tons of time listening to sports talk radio, mainly because I find many of the people who call in to these shows to be incredibly annoying. However, ever since WEEI returned Dale Arnold to a regular role (2 to 6 p.m.), I've been tuning in a little more. In my humble opinion, Dale is the most informed and intelligent sports media member in the Boston market. He knows his sports and he knows how to talk about sports. Yesterday, as I was sitting in my truck waiting out the rain to end and the Kingswood boys' tennis team's quarterfinal match against Wilton-Lyndeborough, I was listening to Dale and Holley and a couple of New England's "finest" called in to say that Jerry Remy needs to resign. Now don't get me wrong. Jerry Remy's son is an awful human being. He deserves to be rotting in prison. But that doesn't mean that Jerry Remy needs to go into hiding and run away from his position at NESN. The actions of an adult child should no...

In the last few weeks, I've had a couple of chances to reflect on my trip to Russia to cover the Olympics. I was invited to speak to the Wolfeboro and Alton Rotary Clubs and did a presentation that included a short speech and a power point presentation with photos. Public speaking is certainly not my forte, but I knew this was something I needed to do. The people of the local communities helped me get to the Olympics and I owe everyone a debt of gratitude. I also feel like I should give everyone the opportunity to hear about the trip if they want to and see the photos that I took. I am working on possibly doing the presentation for a few more groups and/or in a public presentation and I will certainly make those presentations known if there are people who are interested in hearing about the trip. Spending time talking about the trip really got me looking back in more fondness. As I've moved along with the very busy spring sports season, my mind has been pretty much occupied ...

So, it has been more than a month since I made my way back to the United States from Russia and things have slowed down a bit. It seemed that as soon as I got back, the schedule was full-bore with tons of playoff games and the finish of the regular season. I barely had enough time to catch my breath. I touched down in Boston on Monday, Feb. 24, and Tuesday, Feb. 25, I was back in the office and then back at basketball that evening, with the Prospect Mountain girls in the playoffs. However, the last few weeks things have been slowing down a little bit. One by one, teams were eliminated from the playoffs and soon enough the season was over. The time between the winter and spring seasons usually isn't that long, but with this year's major snow coverage, it appears we might have a game or two before schools graduate in June. Therefore, I have been taking it easy, relatively speaking of course. I covered some youth hockey with the Seacoast Hockey League and then hit up the She-Wo...

Less than a week after I made my way through Logan Airport’s customs line and climbed into my car for the ride back to the Lakes Region, I found myself back in the car heading south on Route 93, but this time, the destination was a little different. Sunday night I headed down to South Station in Boston to pick up my brother, who was coming in via train from Utah. My brother lives out west, but has spent a good chunk of the last year abroad, working the last few months of last year in New Zealand and then spending the first part of this year in South America doing some climbing. He arrived back in the United States shortly after I took off for the Olympics. Since he’d been abroad, Jared hasn’t been home in a while. Traditionally he his home at Christmas time, but since he was in New Zealand in December, he didn’t make it home. Instead, he came back east in March, just in time for his birthday. Of course, the train was delayed and I learned that having a train through...

One of my blog posts while in Sochi was about things I missed about home. So now that I’ve been home for a few days, maybe it’s time to write about some of the things I certainly didn’t miss about being home. I certainly didn’t miss putting gas in my car and truck. This afternoon I had to put more than $60 worth of gas in my truck after just two and a half days of being back in the States. That is certainly not much fun. I am happy to be driving again, but it would be great if gas was a little cheaper. Though I know I’m not the only one with that problem. I definitely didn’t miss paying bills. I went to the post office in Ossipee on Tuesday afternoon to pick up my mail from the two-plus weeks that I was away. Besides the magazines, the main thing piling up in the mailbox were the bills. American Express, Visa, Master Card, PSNH and insurance bills. Way too many bills to pay and it took me a few hours of time on Wednesday to get all caught up on those. I certain...