A Clean Slate

Near the end of high school I vividly recall staring into an eerily similar blank computer screen in my childhood bedroom writing an autobiography just as painful as this one. I always hated writing about myself. My teacher told me that there are only two reasonable explanations for my dilemma. Either, I don’t like who I am or I don’t know who I am. At the time, maybe both were true. I’d like to believe she didn’t mean that, but the motivating words were probably worth it anyway. So, I wrote that day how I hoped the next four years would be better than the last. That I would take the proverbial clean slate and find my future. But, my story begins many years before.

Looking back, I guess I was groomed to be a journalist and destined to be a sports fanatic. I really didn’t have a chance elsewhere. My father forced me to read the paper with him every morning. The Daily Herald; first the news, then the sports. At every possible oppurtunity my father would rant about corrupt politicians and greedy professional athletes. I just wanted to get through the news so I could read yesterday’s box scores and my favorite sports columnist.

Working for my high school newspaper was hell. I wanted to play sports, not cover my friends’ awards ceremonies. I was embarrassed enough that I didn’t even play one semester of high school sports, but of course, my friends wouldn’t let me forget it. Every time I had a story in the paper, they would joke that maybe a college newspaper editor would recruit me. If it weren’t for my father I probably would have quit. I continued. I spent two years writing the staff editorials for my high school paper. I found a niche in journalism that I really enjoyed. I now regret having let my friends get to me, but back then I was shy and embarrassed that I had a talent and desire to do something different.

This is where that college clean slate came in. I chose a university where journalism was valued and where professional newspaper editors really do recruit reporters.

I’m sure most journalists have similar childhood and high school memories. But my memories won’t escape me now. I wake up and go to sleep with them every night.

My father died exactly one year and 25 days ago. New Years day of my junior year. It was the most defining yet numbing day of my life. He was my biggest fan and my biggest critic. Even when he was terminally ill with cancer and in and out of a hospital bed he read every story I wrote. He relentlessly analyzed my work and let me know exactly how he felt about every aspect of the story.

I once visited my father at a suburban Chicago hospital, the same day my first front-page centerpiece was published. My mother called me early that morning and told me he had taken a turn for the worse and I should come visit. I immediately drove to the St. Louis airport and booked a flight while on the road. I landed in Chicago a couple hours later and took a train to a station nearby. When I finally walked into the hospital room I was terrified of what I would see. It had been building in my mind all day. He was sitting upright with a full yellow-pad of questions to ask me about my story in his lap. It turned into one of the most fulfilling discussions of my life.

He continued to read the Missourian online everyday and then would email me, often before I would even wake up. He was truly relentless. He always had a list of questions that he would have asked. He never held back. But, most importantly, I knew he was telling me how proud he was.

My biggest fear as I continue in journalism is that nobody will ever care for one of my stories the way he did. His persistence got me here and I now have to carry it the rest of the way. It is a very scary thought.

In an age where anybody can be a journalist, I went to the best journalism school in the country because my dad instilled in me that it has to be done right. There are corrupt politicians out there that need to be exposed, there are greedy athletes that need to be put in their place and there are fathers and sons out there that want to share a quality newspaper together over breakfast.

I realized that I worried too much about what other people thought about my work. I was filled with self-doubt about whether I could really do this. But the most important thing I learned in college, which didn’t even happen in a classroom or a newsroom, was the confidence and relentlessness needed to be a great journalist.

In a few months I will have another clean slate.