On wins, losses, and those who get you here
I was a 15-year-old sophomore in high school. Like most 15-year-old sophomores in high school, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, but I knew that I didn’t want to be sitting in a classroom.
A solution for the latter problem, as I saw it, was KCBY — the high school’s broadcast journalism/AV class that put together a weekly closed-circuit television show that loosely served as school announcements. But I had no interest in the news side or the dry reading of when the money was due for senior portraits; I wanted to take a camera out in the hallways and make dumb videos with my friends. You know, living the dream.
There was just one small thing standing between me and the sweet, glorious freedom of roaming the high school: a journalism class prerequisite. No problem. I enrolled in Journalism.
The teacher was a gentleman named James Rich, a kind and wryly funny man with a bushy mustache who served as the advisor for the school newspaper, The Sidekick. He went over the basics of journalism — the old inverted pyramid, interviewing skills, identifying types of stories, basic sourcing, and so on — and we soon connected over our shared love of sports.
As the term edged to a close, Mr. Rich approached me with an idea: forget the broadcast class and come aboard the newspaper staff. He said I had some talent as a writer, and the newspaper could use some sportswriters. He said that maybe, if I continued to grow, I could turn it into a career.
I’d never considered this. I’d always enjoyed writing — I fared pretty well in English class — and the idea of finding a way to work in sports while remaining woefully unathletic was compelling. I agreed, and joined The Sidekick.
I spent the next 18 months learning my way around a newsroom and, really, falling in love with journalism. Mr. Rich helped me shape my writing from an essay style into more of a journalistic tone, and it suited me — the idea of having creative freedom to tell stories while still maintaining a relative structure of passing along information appealed to the way my mind is wired. I launched a sports column — Tepper’s Take — and wrote and wrote and wrote.
Even after Mr. Rich’s departure following my junior year, I continued to hone my skills under the watchful eye of his equally passionate successor Gail Richardson. I’d been bit by the journalism bug. I’d started that journalism class seeking a way to get out of class, and finished it with a career path. I soon applied and enrolled at the Missouri School of Journalism.
I won’t bore you with my entire career path, but suffice to say that I’ve landed where I am now — managing editor of Dave Campbell’s Texas Football magazine and a television analyst on Fox Sports Southwest.
(I do recognize the irony that I ended up doing television work after my course correction in high school.)
I was able to keep up with Mr. Rich through the years, mostly through Facebook. I was able to speak to his journalism classes at his various schools a couple of times, happy for the opportunity to help out a guy who’d helped me out in my career infancy. It was relentless positivity from him — he’d show up in my Facebook messages to tell me he was watching the show on Fox Sports Southwest, or we’d run into each other on the sideline at a game. Of course, he’d want to talk sports; of course, I’d happily oblige.
Last night, I attended the Lone Star Sports EMMY awards, honoring the best and brightest sports broadcasters in the state of Texas. “High School Scoreboard Live”, one of the shows on which I appear, won the EMMY for Outstanding Sportscast — I got to take home my second EMMY award, something I’m truly honored by and a testament to the terrific group of professionals that I work with at Fox Sports Southwest.
This morning, I woke up to the news that Mr. Rich died suddenly last night — details are still scarce, but from what I understand, he’d suffered a heart attack sometime yesterday and never recovered. He was 51 years old.
Nobody gets where they’re going alone — whether it’s parents or friends or mentors or teachers or strangers, we’re all a product of the people who help us along the way.
I didn’t give an acceptance speech last night. If I had, I’d say that I wouldn’t be on that stage without people like James Rich. I know he was proud of me. I hope he knows how thankful I am.