It was weird. It was bittersweet. And yet it was right. That’s what I said on the X formerly known as Twitter (Prince nod) last night as I called it a wrap on 20-plus years of sportswriting.

This wasn’t a quick decision. It started a while back as nothing more than a passing thought, really, just a little nudge somewhere in the back of my brain.

Back on March 6, Taylor High School’s boys basketball team had just dropped their sectional semifinal game with Sheridan in heartbreaking fashion, 67-66 in overtime.

One of Taylor’s four-year starters drained a long 3-pointer with three seconds to play in OT, making it a one-point game. But with no timeouts remaining, Sheridan held the ball out of bounds (the clock doesn’t stop after a made shot in high school basketball) until the final buzzer sounded to seal the win.

That also signaled the end of my winter sports writing season with the Kokomo Tribune. As the frenzied crowd roar lingered for a bit while I waited to chat with Taylor coach Fonso White about the end of an era with his talented senior class, the noise eventually dwindled to a few voices echoing through the gym, quiet enough to hear the tiniest whisper inside my head ask, “was this your last game, too?”

As it turns out, it was.

Last night, for the first time in 20 years, I was not sitting in a local high school press box on the opening night of football season, and more specifically, the Oak Hill-Eastern Week One rivalry game that I’ve covered the past 20 years.

Today, I’m going into my final book signing of the summer as I take part in Swayzee Days, from 12-3. This isn’t the end of me touring Lucy’s Way: A Dog, A Drunk, and The Tao, but rather, a chance to redirect as I figure out what I want to do next to promote this book.

It’s not the end of an era, but just a chance to look in different directions. Have no fear, there will be more book signings and events down the road as we head into the Autumn months.

Not so with my time at the Kokomo Tribune, though, as I’ve made the decision that’s really been on my mind the past few years that it was time to hang it up. I’d been wrestling around (sports pun!) with dropping this part-time gig for the past few years, asking myself how much longer I could continue to do it as my leadership responsibilities grew at my full time job. And let’s face it, the high school sports scene is a young man’s game.

That little thought in the back of my head on March 6 gained ground over the next few months and became reality recently when my longtime editor and colleague Bryan Gaskins sent me a message that he was going to be making an exit from the Kokomo Tribune.

Just recently, another great friend and colleague, photographer extraordinaire Kelly Lafferty Gerber had departed the Tribune to start her own photography business.

And a few months before that, another longtime colleague in that sports department was downsized out of his job. Pedro Velazco was the first person I shadowed at a game when my first editor, Dave Kitchell, sent me out on a couple practice runs before turning me loose on my own. Pedro, Bryan and myself formed what I felt was an awesome three-man sports staff that gave everything to the Kokomo Tribune local sports scene. Kelly added that photographic punch with an ability to so accurately capture the jeers and cheers, the sweat and tears, we were witnessing.

I’m going to miss the adrenaline of opening night with each season, which I realized first hand last night. I’m going to miss, as odd as it sounds, the pressure of sports room deadlines. There’s nothing like walking out of a game at 10:20 p.m. knowing you’ve got to have a story sent in 30 minutes. It’s pure fear squashed out only by the adrenaline of finishing those last words and sending it off.

Like I said though, this is a young man’s game, and just as the miles covered on the Indiana highways traveling all over on Friday nights wears down vehicles, it’s become more taxing on me over time. Last winter, when I had the chance to  attend a few of my good friend Paige’s sons’ basketball games, I realized how enjoyable it is to actually sit back and watch the games without worrying about catching every single stat and watching that deadline inch closer, especially when the dreaded overtimes factor into the mix.

Writing on deadline in many ways is an art form, one it takes time to hone. I remember my first story for the Kokomo Tribune, a Taylor girls basketball game, weighing in at 12 inches, which translated to approximately 450 words, and I barely met deadline with a prepared lead, got the final score wrong in the story, and walked away from the desk that night with a slight urge to vomit.

My second assignment was an afternoon game with a much easier deadline but presented a new level of anxiety. I was covering a heated county girls basketball rivalry between Taylor and Eastern. Kitch made it clear that interviews with both coaches was mandatory. When Eastern’s coach picked up his second technical foul in a fuming tirade and was ejected before the first half ended, that feeling of wanting to vomit returned.

Afterward, sweating profusely as I prepared to leave the gym and lose my job after my second article, I saw the Eastern coach, pacing and still fuming, in the hallway outside the locker room. Feeling that tug of anxiety pulling me in two different directions, and getting ready to walk off, he waved me over and we did the interview. My first question was, “soooo, what happened there?” and he started talking. A few minutes later, he let out a laugh as we finished up.

That same coach became a good friend and always great interview over the years. Win or lose, he always took time to talk with me after games. Eventually I got to watch this coach, Mike Springer, lead the Eastern Comets in 2016 to their first basketball sectional title since 1956, and just the second in school history.

I could rattle off a darn long list of all the tears of joy and pain I witnessed over those next 20 years as I moved from a part timer to a full timer and then back to a part timer again. Team and individual records broken in a multitude of sports, talking to so many kids and coaches over the years as the faces and memories sped past in the blur of dazzling dunks and game-winning shots, homeruns and touchdowns.

My favorite interview was probably with former Chicago Cubs manager “Sweet” Lou Piniella in 2016.

After years of being on the cusp, I watched Eastern’s football team claim its first ever sectional championship in 2024.

I witnessed an awesome run with Kokomo’s football program. I remember running down to the field to talk to players when they topped Michigan City Rogers 21-14 in the semi state to book their first trip to the State Finals in 2017.

Growing up as a Marion Giants fan during the Purple Reign era of three-state basketball championships from 1985-87, I was convinced I’d never again see that kind of magic on the Indiana high school hardwood.

But I got to witness a new Purple Reign era with the Northwestern girls basketball team, who put together the greatest four-year run in girls basketball the program will ever know. Madison Layden and Kendall Bostic, potentially the best 1-2 combo in Indiana girls basketball history, led Northwestern to two consecutive state titles and three consecutive state championship appearances, winning it all in 2018 and 2019. I was lucky enough to be on Press Row at Bankers Life Fieldhouse for the 2019 title.

I also covered a fantastic era of Kokomo boys basketball when a foreign exchange student who had never played basketball in his life touched down in Kokomo his sophomore year. Flory Bidunga changed the landscape of Kokomo – and Indiana – basketball over the next three years.

It got to the point where high school parking lots and gyms were packed the way they were during that magical Marion Giant basketball era. Wayyyyyy too many alley oop dunks later, the Kats had completed an astounding run, packing high school gyms to the rafters as well as the parking lots all over North Central Indiana when Flory came to town.

Again, I was lucky enough to be on Press Row at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in 2023 when the Kats played Ben Davis in the 4A title game. Unfortunately, it was not a win for the Kats as Ben Davis prevailed, though the energy was insane.

While this chapter is closing, it certainly isn’t the end of writing for me, and who knows if I’ll end up writing a sports story again sometime in the future.

It’s also not the end of that anxiety, as that’s also ever present as I continue to do Lucy’s Way events.

For every event I’ve done, there’s the same sense of anxiety heading into it. The biggest thing is usually that fear that I share with many other authors I’ve met along the way: will anyone show up, and will I sell any books?

Another thing that’s always anxiety inducing is when I do readings at events. While my event today won’t include a reading, my next event, which is a private booking in October, will be the next time I do a reading.

The first few readings I did,  I stuck to the script with very specific sections of very specific chapters. Lately I’ve been branching out, reading something “new” or at least new in the sense of never before read at my last three readings.

I’ve read from “Balancing Act,” “Purple,” “Old Friends…New Friends…Best Friends,” “Common Scents,” “Practicing Eternity,” and “Digging Out.”

Most recently, on August 8 at Elwood Public Library, I read from “A Sheltered Life,” which tied in well to the theme of the day with the Elwood Animal Shelter in attendance.

A friend put up pics and a beautiful testimonial recently when her dog passed away, and reading her words made me remember that the whole initial point of Lucy’s Way was to memorialize my dog so the memories wouldn’t fade as quickly. And in the process it became something else, a message of recovery and hope and love.

I want to start focusing more on pet and recovery organizations, and how I can spread the message to and through them.

Endings are always doors to beginnings (Chapter two in the hooouse!), and there are changes on the horizon for Lucy’s Way and the way I continue marketing myself and my first book, while planning what’s next.

And what’s next is going to be fun. It’s going to be busy. It’s going to be playing with all the potential ideas that have been dancing around in my head and figuring which one has the most potential in terms of me sitting down and putting it all together on the screen.

Will it be the spiritual sequel to Lucy’s Way, based in part on Buddy the Cat? Will it be a chronicle of my journeys with Chip? Or one of my favorite ideas I’ve had swirling around, an illustrated children’s book about a day in the life of Chip? Will I finally get around to starting the audio version of Lucy’s Way? Or will it be the fiction idea I’ve been rolling around in my head following the recent floods, a psychological thriller type of idea based on the year 1995 when I graduated high school?

What would you most like to see next? Drop me a line and let me know.