Family Matter
- Share via
Although I have lived in the county for 20 years, I had reservations about reporting on high school sports when I transferred here after The Times closed its zoned editions in Los Angeles County. I worked in those zones 12 years, mostly covering college teams.
I was apprehensive because I have first-hand knowledge of interviewing teenagers: My 14-year old daughter played two varsity sports as a freshman this season at Marina and I have a preteen on the way up.
Among themselves, these kids babble forever. Many times, though, they don’t have much to say to a guy who could be their father.
Following some of my daughter’s contemporaries was also eerie. I remember many of them as kids in youth leagues, not as big-headed media megastars that the overexposure in the county has a tendency to create. Now, in some cases, I was writing about the same players who competed against my very own kid.
That made conversations at the dinner table intense. Sometimes I heard things I didn’t want to hear. Other times I knew things I couldn’t reveal in front of the family.
My wife was out of town on the night of my first high school football game--Savanna vs. Kennedy at Glover Stadium--and our daughter was going to her first school dance. She had to be picked up no later than 11:30 p.m.
I wrote the game story on a laptop at a burger joint near Glover. At 11 p.m., with several shady characters looking on, I sent the story over the wire on a pay phone.
Then I hit the road at speeds of 70 miles an hour. Southbound in Cypress, a cop pulled me over on dark, deserted Valley View Avenue at 11:25.
The beam from his flashlight found the laptop on the rear seat. He eyed a press credential on the carrying case.
“L.A. Times?” he said.
“Yep.”
Who played?
“Hell, I don’t remember.”
Who won?
“Man, I don’t remember that either. I have to pick up my kid.”
I got off with a warning.
At 11:45 p.m. the parking lot at Marina was still full of noisy teenagers.
“How was the dance?” I asked my daughter.
“Fine.”
“Fine? “
“Fine.”
I sighed.
One of the side benefits of all this, I guess, is all the great job experience I get at home every day.
More to Read
Get our high school sports newsletter
Prep Rally is devoted to the SoCal high school sports experience, bringing you scores, stories and a behind-the-scenes look at what makes prep sports so popular.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.