Seeing as how I don't have to be at camp today

Jun 11, 2015, 11:45 AM

And someone asked if I was full time earlier, here is kind of a brief synopsis of what got me to Clemson. When I was in high school, a man by the name of Dan Foster (the sports editor and columnist at the Greenville News) came by for a career day. I spoke with him after, and he invited me up to the News to talk about a part time job as a clerk. I was accepted, and pretty soon I was helping out with high school football Friday nights (under Tom Layton) - we chased every score in the state to run and I would write a two or three graph recap based off the phone calls. I was getting ready for college and still playing baseball (and softball) all over the country, so nothing was full time, but even when I was in college I was playing ball and covering Tennessee football and high schools, then came home to work full time for the Greenville Piedmont under Luther Gaillard. In the meantime, I was still being mentored by Dan Foster and he was dragging me to Braves games and Clemson games and the World Series, and I eventually covered the Greenville Braves and then the Atlanta Braves during a lot of their magical early 90s run.

I quit writing full time after my son was born and after the Braves World Series win (who could top that) to take a sales job and finally make some money, but I was miserable. I kept doing a lot of freelance work, and I was still writing anywhere from five to 15 articles for the Greenville News a week before finally going full time again and covering everything from Wofford to Georgia to Clemson to South Carolina to the Panthers and Hawks and Braves and Falcons.

However, I could see the writing on the wall for newspapers as far back as 2008 and began to see if I could land elsewhere and was thinking about taking the job covering South Carolina when I talked to Crump. The rest is history. But I tried to count it up the other day, and my guess is that I've covered in person somewhere around 350 (or more) high school football games and many hundreds more baseball and softball. I've covered well over 700 hundred Braves games and minor league games and probably 300 college football games.

I learned from Dan (and his friends he let me learn from like Blackie Sherrod and Bob Oates and others) that being first isn't as important as being right. That's why I don't just throw stuff out there willy nilly and HOPE I am right...if I put it out there it's because it's the truth.

It's why I also laugh when others talk about having done this for a long time and maybe I don't have a feel for recruiting or how to do this job...I was doing this job while most of the guys on this beat were still sitting at home on momma's couch and getting drunk on the weekends. So there ya go.

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being right" is, perhaps, a key ingredient of journalism as the writing itself.

Occasionally, I refer to my years at Clemson (1965-1969,) and my involvement with "The Tiger," which at the time was the main source of information and communication at Clemson. Although on a short time constraint weekly, we constantly insisted on verification, and no article was published until it had been vetted by a chain of assistant and senior editors, all of whom grilled the reporter on sources and quotations. Thus, by the time of publication articles had been thoroughly reviewed and rewritten for veracity, proper English and style. That attention to detail was one of the main reasons why the paper received a coveted All-American Award, recognized as being one of the top 25 collegiate papers in the nation.

Today, much of what I read appears to be opinions or outright false assumptions thrown up on the wall in a constant search for readers or hits, as we say. Additionally, anyone calling himself a journalist is either on the airwaves or the net, regaling us with his "wisdom" or opinions, much of it misinformed, uninformed or illformed.

Thus, it's a relief to behold a man trained as yourself, and for that, I am both grateful and thankful.

Seeing as how I don't have to be at camp today

David Hood... my source for all things Clemson.***

Oh yeah !? What are you weaRing "DAVE" from tnet***

That's all really neat, David. But it doesn't explain

maybe nikki's the broncos' fan?

The Broncos......

Haha gotcha

thanks, dhood, but you say getting drunk on the weekends

I don't think you're understanding him correctly

what if you work weekends, not me of course, but others...

According to davidhood, no***

the last thing i expected to happen today was leave tigernet

Seems like it would seal the deal to me***

You learned under a great one in Dan Foster. A very fine &

This seems like starting a thread to

David, your comment "...being first isn't as important as

Re: Seeing as how I don't have to be at camp today***

we appreciate having you in the family! I still have a

Awesome article David Hood...

True story ^^^***

been a long week at the camp...

you should hang out more often & continue to repair the

RA'd for starting the funny

I used to love to read Dan Foster's columns

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