Longtime sports editor says goodbye

Well, this is it, my friends, after six long years I’m finally about to graduate. So this is the last Bo Knows column I will write for The News Record.

I’m sure that will make any UC student who follows Ohio State, Kentucky, Notre Dame, Xavier or women’s basketball happy.

But I’d like to thank all those people who read my column and e-mailed me comments, even if they hated me more than I hate Charlie Weis. Their criticism kept me from going overboard with my UC basketball homerism.

Well maybe they didn’t, I still ended up predicting the Bearcats would make the tournament this year. That was a mistake, but next year … I guarantee Deonta Vaughn, Yancy Gates and Cashmere Wright will lead the Bearcats back to the
NCAA tournament.

I’ve had a lot of fun writing this column and covering UC sports for The News Record. It’s by far the best job I’ve ever had. (Although pretty much anything is better than working at Subway, LaRosa’s and Thrifty Car Rental.)

It’s been an amazing ride. I’ve covered the Final Four, the Orange Bowl and I pretended to cover the football game at Hawaii while I sat on the beach drinking Mai Tais in December.

But if it wasn’t for a few people – students and faculty – in the journalism department, I’d probably be miserable right now, working on some lying politician’s campaign (I also have a degree in political science) instead of getting paid to watch sports and write about it. So I’d like to use this last column to thank all the people who made my sports writing career possible.

Jenny Wohlfarth, who may be the most enthusiastic professor I’ve ever had. I took Jenny’s introduction to journalism class as an elective and it was the first time I thought about being a writer. When I came to Jenny a few months after the class and told her I was thinking about giving journalism a shot, she gave me the encouragement I needed and talked me into going down to The News Record.

Kathy Wilson, who taught me how to write a column. Her columns and reviews class is one of the best classes I’ve ever taken. Kathy is that rare type of professor who will flat out tell you that you suck if you don’t bring you’re “A” game on a column. Which makes it that much better when she tells you your latest column was fire.

Len Penix, the director of student media for The News Record. Len lives and breathes the newspaper industry and never hesitates to offer up nuggets of wisdom from his 32 years in the business. Although the industry is changing with blogs and Twitter and all that new media stuff, Len makes sure we at The News Record stay true to our roots as newspaper people.

Jon Hughes, the reason why there is a journalism major at UC. Jon is as old school as it gets and listening to him spout off old war stories from his experience as a journalist is one of the highlights of my time at UC. He is also the reason why I can appreciate great photography now.

Elissa Sonnenberg, who set up my first internship at The News Record. Elissa has always been there to help me with my resume and cover letters. From what I hear, students really learn a lot in her classes. But they are very challenging and don’t deal with sports so I never took one.

Sorry Elissa.

Chris Crawford, who was the sports editor when I started writing. Chris gave me a column and brought me in as the sports editor when he stepped down. I was really nervous and shy when I started and Chris took me with him to UC football games until I got comfortable covering one on my own.

Keith Jenkins, who was the editor in chief when I became the sports editor. Keith came up with the name for my column, Bo Knows, and really got The News Record to where it is today. He constantly challenged me to get better and helped my writing improve greatly.

Kareem Elgazzar, Pete Marx and Tom Smith, or as we say, The Crew. I think it’s safe to say that we covered more UC football road games than anyone in the history of The News Record. Throughout the season, instead of sitting around drinking away the weekends, we’d pack up “the truck” with rations and drive to games in Huntington, W.Va., Morgantown, W. Va., Louisville, Ky., and Miami. It was always great company even when our conversations drifted to random topics like weasels, goats and walruses. Pete’s holding down the sports desk now and Tom and Kareem taught me how to take photos. There’s not much else to say except that we balled out.

Kristy Conlin, who was pretty awesome as the editor in chief this year. Kristy was a great boss and is a great writer. She even had the balls to jump out of an airplane for a story. Kristy helped bring The News Record into the new-media era of newspapers. I’m hoping someday she becomes the boss at some big newspaper and gets me a job.

Taylor Dungjen, who is the new editor in chief of The News Record. Because of Taylor I now know that girls wearing leggings as pants is unacceptable. She is the hardest working writer I’ve ever met and has basically been the Tiger Woods of the front page since she started working here.

Garrett Sabelhaus, who lobbied pretty hard to be included in this column. Garrett took my place as sports editor and we were lucky to find a young writer with as much talent as him to keep the sports page going strong. With Garrett and Pete The News Record’s sports section is in good hands.

The designers. Jamie, Ali, Claire, Zach, Linda, Renee and Rasputin always made the sports page look amazing and without them we couldn’t have a paper.

And all the other staff members at The News Record who have been a pleasure to work with. I made a lot of friends here and had a lot of fun going out after work, talking about The News Record and the state of journalism. The staff for next year is really talented and I have complete faith that new editors Gin Ando, Amanda Woodruff and Ariel Cheung will help continue to make The News Record the best student newspaper in the country.

If anyone wants to read my writing in the future, talk boxing or defend Ohio State, Notre Dame or Kentucky send me an e-mail to bojessee@gmail.com. If you are interested in my writing, I will send you a link to my new blog when I get it started.

Stay thirsty my friends, Mahalo.