My first gig

On a cold, late-January day in 1994 Ron Wagner wrote his first newspaper article. The assignment was to cover the East Henderson girls and boys basketball games. The goal: Don't throw up in public, forget to write down anything crucial or piss off any coaches.

Well, one out of three ain't bad. I only threw up a little, but it was in my mouth.

I'm not sure what I expected in the way of training, but be at the gym at 6:30 and write something about what happens wasn't it (turns out, those are actually perfect instructions for reporters, as I found out later). I didn't exactly feel prepared, and I also hadn't realized just how much I would dread interviewing the coaches. In fact, I can honestly say that going up and instigating coversations with strangers was hands down the hardest part of the job for me.

That unsure, aloof, know-it-all manner is probably why East girls coach Kristy Kremer misinterpreted my question about her team's play.

"Did you ever think about changing to a zone when the other team kept hitting outside shots," I asked earnestly between nervous stammers and licking my lips like John Wayne Gacy at a Boy Scout convention.

"Who is this little cocksucker?" she thought. At least, that's what I found out later when she, somewhat ironically, became a co-worker. At the time, I just thought she was a bitch.

The boys game went by like a blur, or at least as blurry as 5-9, 140-pound white people with no athletic ability playing basketball can be. I thought I'd handled my panic attacks pretty well, but the adrenaline surged anew when I got back to the office and found out Tuesday was an early deadline night. I had 45 minutes to transcribe quotes from four coaches, type box scores and write something coherent. And I did a great job, too, until Thomas pointed out one small flaw in my work:

"What was the score?"

Damn! Shit! Fuck! The numbers were everywhere. My handwriting was incomprehensible. Paper fluttered, panic surged ... here they were! And other than that small omission, my writing got rave reviews. So much so that when my dad looked at the story the next day he pondered carefully before coming up with just the right Wagner compliment:

"Welp, reads just like a newspaper article," he said before putting the paper down to look for something that was actually interesting.

They like me! They really like me!

And we were off.