Column: Long and winding road leads back to Marion Star

MARION - Blame Anthony Conchel, but it really started with John Short.

As a sports-minded kid growing up in Marion in the 1970s, my earliest memories are of watching Harding's basketball and football teams play. The next day, even though I couldn't read at the age of 4, I could look at the pictures in the paper of guys like Pete Dettra and Randy Gipson.

As I got a bit older, I could decipher the box scores for guys like Clyde Lutsch, Kelly McGowan, Sherbie Owens, Ed Robinson and Lamar Ross and read the game stories, too.

The 1970s morphed into the 1980s and I realized the gray haired guy across the way or up in the press box — future Ohio Prep Sports Writers Association Hall of Fame member John Short — was the reason for my Saturday and Sunday morning entertainment in the fall and winter, especially on Sunday's when he'd uncork his Short's Sports column, a notebook-style article filled with tidbits and newsie nuggets.

By the time I was in junior high at River Valley, it became obvious that if I wanted a future in sports it would either be as a coach or as a writer. The Celtics weren't clamoring for a point guard of my stature and skills, so by high school, teachers like John Flaugher and Sharlene Morris influenced me enough to try out sports writing as a career.

Getting started

I went to Bowling Green, majored in journalism with an emphasis on sports writing, and got my career started at the Waldo Hometowner, working for fellow RV alum Kristy Bender as a summer freelancer with the emphasis on free. The next year I was ready to earn a paycheck as a writer. I sent resumes to papers all over central and northwest Ohio and two responses stood out.

The old guy in Bucyrus was crotchety and didn't want to be bothered. The managing editor in Marion spent the entire three-minute conversation fretting over why he never saw my resume. When I told him I'd happily send him another, he shot me down and said he wasn't hiring, but couldn't figure out what happened to his mail. I thanked him, wished him luck with his mail problem and hung up wondering if I'd ever get a break.

At the end of spring of my sophomore year of college, I was doing freelance work for the suburban papers around Columbus when the phone rang at home.

"Hey, Rob, this is Eric Davis," the voice said as if we were long-lost friends. Now I knew Davis because he covered lots of RV games when I was in high school, but how did he remember me and what did he want?

"How would you like to work for us at The Star as a part-timer this summer?"

Ahh, the long lost resume must have landed on his desk as the new sports editor instead of the managing editor's. Short had recently retired after more than 40 years in the spot, sending out a ripple effect of staffing that eventually touched me.

"When can I start?" was followed by "How about this weekend."

And that's how I got my first big break in the business — answering the phones and writing up beer league softball roundups, golf league scores and Little League results. At the end of the summer when it was time to head back to BG, I planted the seed of being an intern the next summer and followed up on it as winter turned to spring in 1991.

The next step in Marion

I desperately needed an internship to fulfill a requirement to graduate and told Davis I'd work for free if he'd take the time to fill out some paperwork on my behalf at the end of the summer. Turns out it was the best summer I'd ever spend in the business. I gave Davis a list of story ideas for enterprise pieces and features, and he gave me the go-ahead to pursue them all. Best of all, he paid me to do it.

Open enrollment was on the horizon and I did a blowout piece investigating how it could impact Ohio schools, especially those in Marion County, by looking how it worked in other states. I did a series of stories on the late and legendary Harding basketball coach Dan Baker, talking to many of his former players, coaches and colleagues. I did a story on how Ridgedale was getting a new wood floor installed. I covered the charity celebrity golf tournament at Whetstone, and did lots of other fun things over the course of three months.

It was a revelation. I found my calling. I was going to be a sports writer.

Full-time career

The following year I graduated and I went job hunting. Not many were hiring in the recession spring of 1992, but The Star was. The managing editor with the mail trouble — Conchel — liked my work in his sports department and offered me a job as his "bureau chief" of the new Richwood/Delaware County office The Star was opening.

Covering council and board meetings, making police calls and writing news stories didn't interest me, but it was a paycheck and a start. Within a couple months, I resigned to become the sports editor at the Van Wert Times-Bulletin. Conchel warned me not to leave, but the thought of chasing fire trucks and covering fatal car accidents left me cold.

Van Wert was a disaster as Conchel predicted and before long I was back at the homebase, working as a part-timer in the sports department at The Star. That spring Brett Middleton, who I replaced when Davis made that first call, was coming back to The Star full-time, which left his sports gig in Bucyrus available.

Luckily for me the crotchety old dude retired and Lisa Miller saved my career with a full-time spot. I was back to being a true sports writer.

I spent five-and-a-half years at the Telegraph-Forum and did all I could there. As much as I liked it, changes were coming and I needed new and different challenges. That summer my job was to find a new one, and while at a meeting in Newark with other sports guys in the company mapping out our "Bigger, Better, Buckeyes" football coverage plan, a familiar face approached me — none other than Conchel who was then working as the sports editor at the Mansfield News Journal. A spot was opening in the fall and would I be interested?

I told him I would hand deliver my resume, but he didn't get the joke, forgetting our long-ago first conversation.

So in the fall of 1998, I went to Mansfield. Conchel came and went a few times over the next 17 years, before finally winding up back where it started in Marion. And like I have so many times in my career, I'm coat-tailing Conchel, who started out as my mentor and ended up being my best friend in the business.

This last week was my first official week in Marion. Now I'm the gray haired guy across the way and up in the press box writing sports for The Star. So when I inevitably write something you don't agree with or cover something you don't like, go ahead and blame Anthony Conchel for my return, but just know John Short put it in motion long, long ago.

Rob McCurdy will revive the weekly local sports column on Sundays in The Star, next week looking at why he came home and what readers can expect going forward. He can be reached at work at 740-375-5158, by cell at 419-610-0998 or by email at rmccurdy@gannett.com. On Twitter follow @McMotorsport.