Nine days until graduation

I enjoy feedback, and yesterday’s blog, about moment No. 10 on the list of my top ten most impactful moments of my college career didn’t cut it for my dad, one of my most loyal readers. I understand why he felt it wasn’t up to snuff with some of my best work, but it’s because that moment only tells part of the story of why I’d love to go into TV journalism, especially here in Cincinnati sports.

Moment No. 9 has to do with a national story that broke here locally, just a little over a year ago.

Moment 9: “Just showing up”(April 2, 2010)
“When Matt James died it was tough,” former FOX19 Sports producer Ron “Rufus” Millennor told me in February. “When you’re dealing with somebody dying, especially a teenager, again, I go back to being old-school, I’d rather be right than first. My bosses probably wouldn’t want to hear that, but when you’re dealing with life and death, it’s different.”

The night of April 2nd, 2010 was a pretty average night for sports in Cincinnati. The Cyclones were in town, and on their way to a second Kelly Cup title in three years. So, as a good sports intern, I followed FOX19 photographer Dan Wood down to US Bank Arena to shoot some highlights for the Final Quarter on FOX19 that evening.

While I was getting ready to edit the highlights, my phone buzzed.

“Matt James died,” the message read.

“What?” I responded. “Don’t mess with me. If this is true I want to run it by the news people here.”

James, an offensive lineman from St. Xavier High School, had committed to Brian Kelly at Notre Dame just two months before his fatal fall in Panama, Fla. He was the top offensive line recruit in the country according to most, and considered to be Kelly’s best recruit in the former UC coach’s first recruiting class in South Bend.

Given who I was talking to (a co-worker at the time, who shall remain anonymous, because I can do that as a journalist) I wasn’t sold on it being a hard and fast fact. Plus, it was dollar beer night at the ‘Clones game, so who knew if the message wasn’t a prank related to that.

As soon as my phone buzzed with the reply, “No it’s true [name redacted] got a message from a buddy who said it happened,” I spun to go tell Rufus. This was big, big news.

I turned to look down at Rufus’s desk (the video editing computers are a few feet above the news room at FOX19, and glass separates the two areas), where he had just hung up his phone, and looked across the newsroom. I’m not sure exactly what he said, but I’m pretty sure it was, “Everyone needs to find a way to talk to anyone to confirm Matt James has died, in Florida.”

Rufus and Zach Wells started working the phone lines, along with the folks at the news desk, and anyone else who could make phone calls. I began searching through “saver” tapes—old files tapes—of high school football looking for anything we had of the massive offensive lineman.

After logging some video of James, I headed out to St. X with Dave Smith, another FOX19 photographer. Before leaving Wells asked me, “Do you know who Steve Specht is? Do you think you can stick a microphone in his face and ask him a few questions?”

“Yes, sure I can do that,” I thought to myself. (Read more about that night in the blog I did on the one-year anniversary of James’s death in April: http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2011/04/one-year-anniversary-of-matt-jamess.html)

As it turned out, Specht had flown to Panama with James’s parents, and wouldn’t be on St. X’s campus that night. When Smith and I arrived the lights in the stadium were on, but we were told that no cameras would be allowed in the stadium. This was a private time for mourning, no TV cameras were allowed in.

Nothing can prepare you for a moment like that night. I never thought I would walk into FOX19 that night and end up at St. X after one of the most tragic events to hit the Jesuit high school on North Bend Road in recent memory.

But I learned something very important that evening, other than on the fly training for how to deal with a breaking news story that surrounded a sensitive topic. Zach Wells said this, advice I still hold with me today: “Half of this job is showing up. It was crazy tonight, but you did a good job.”

Whether it’s showing up to the most boring class or the best baseball game ever, more than half of life is about showing up. And that’s a lesson that will stick with me far beyond anything else I ever learned in college.
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That was moment No. 9 in the countdown. If you’ve got comments, suggestions or anything else for me to hear, leave me a comment, tweet at me, or e-mail me (if you don’t have my e-mail address all comments get sent to my e-mail anyway, so just leave a comment!). I’m open to new suggestions and comments on my stuff.

Hopefully my dad thinks this blog was better. If not, I better start working harder.