One of the reasons I started this column was to share some of my funnier experiences as the Richmond Observer’s sports editor.
And as we’re on the eve of starting a new, challenging school year, I thought now would be a good time to share one of those stories.
Like the time I was locked in — yes, locked completely inside — Purnell Swett High School’s football stadium.
Somewhere along the line, I was given the nickname “The Night Writer,” a moniker I’ve made my own the last couple of years. I don’t know exactly when or how I got it, but a lot of it had to do with the amount of time I spent writing game stories from my car.
I’ll get back to more of this in a little bit.
Part of the excitement of being a high school sports journalist is the thrill of piecing together a game story. There’s a fine line between rushing and not rushing, and part of the art of being a good journalist is finding the sweet spot.
The most daunting gamer is undoubtedly a high school football game. While the Richmond Raiders have a phenomenal stat team of Reggie Till and Bennie Howard, two gentlemen who I’m forever thankful for, a football game story takes the most time with the most pressure.
I’m old school and keep hand-written notes in a notebook. Part of the rush is deciphering your own shorthand that only you can understand. But thanks to the stats team, I get a 20-page PDF minutes after the final whistle to scan through for verification.
Plus it saves me time on adding and subtracting yardage numbers. I’m an English teacher, remember?
Then there’s taking game photos, recording postgame interviews and uploading them to Twitter and Facebook, the whole nine yards.
Another cool aspect of journalism is storytelling, something I’ve always tried to incorporate in all of my gamers. It doesn’t matter if it’s volleyball, basketball, golf or softball — there’s always a way to write about an athletic event that isn’t just posting the box score and a couple quotes.
Take all of these things into account, plus the winding clock to meet a desirable deadline, and you have a perfect storm for something that happened like the night of Nov. 9, 2018.
The Raiders were on the road at Purnell Swett for a make-up Sandhills Athletic Conference game due to Hurricane Florence. It was a 41-0 trouncing by the Raiders that completed a perfect 7-0 conference record and locked up the first conference championship in eight years.
Former senior Bobby Terry had three rushing scores, junior LaCyrus Ellerbe added two more and junior Noah Altman had one rushing touchdown. The story kind of told itself, but it was up to me to be creative.
At the time I had a Jeep Patriot and it was my postgame office. Many nights were spent sitting in the passenger seat with my Macbook writing stories, playing back quotes and editing photos.
Most of the time, I make the journey back home to Richmond County before I write. But football is different, and I try to get the story out as soon as possible.
I remember it was just cool enough that I had to turn my Jeep on and crank the heat while writing my story. I often get lost in my work and don’t pay much time to the clock or anything else that’s not directly related to the game or story.
Things went smoothly that night, and it took about two hours start-to-finish to publish the story on our website. It was roughly 11:30 p.m. when I finished.
And then things got interesting.
If you know Purnell Swett’s facilities, the football, baseball and softball fields are all located behind the school. To get there, you have to drive through a gated entrance, pay for your ticket and park in one of the several lots.
I was rolling by the field house when I realized I was the only car in the lot and a pretty little lock was strung up between the two swinging gates that led out to the main road. I remember getting out and checking the gate, and when I confirmed it was locked, I drove to another exit gate to find the same thing.
I’m not going to hide the fact that a little bit of panic had set in at this point. Here I am, 45 minutes from home, locked into a school parking lot at almost midnight with no known way to get out.
This started a series of phone calls — first to the Robeson County Sheriff’s Department to let them know the situation and to ask for a deputy to come out — and others to a series of Richmond coaches and administrators.
Long story short, with the help of offensive coordinator Brad Denson and athletic director Ricky Young, a maintenance worker came out to the school about an hour later to let me through the gate.
I still laugh about it today, and it’s a story that people often joke about me with that shows my dedication to Raider athletics. Really, I think it was just an oversight on my part. I’d been to numerous schools all over the state and had never been locked inside a facility.
Moral of the story — drive to the nearest McDonald’s or gas station before I start writing. And also not to get so caught up in my work to forget to laugh in the moment.
