Thirty years on the job
The newspaper is an exercise in regeneration. Report, write, repeat. The repeat part makes acknowledging milestones difficult, but every once in a while reflection rears its elusory head.
Early last month, my tenure as a full-time sportswriter reached 30 years. Three decades, four offices, a couple thousand notepads, and an unquantifiable measure of good fortune.
I pursued a career in journalism to maintain my love affair with sports. And while the athletic culture from which I arose has helped me sustain that romance, it is the passion for words that helps the finish line of a daily deadline something I continually sprint through.
I am among a fleeting few who may reference two of their greatest passions in their job title: sports and writer.
I am also fortunate enough to have worked with enough articulate, kind, patient, energetic, talented, accommodating coaches and athletes to fill an NFL stadium. It has been my pleasure to tell their stories as best I could.
The pleasure is ongoing.
I am generally as enthused about each working day as I was as a recent college graduate who was hired as sports editor of the Huntington Beach Independent in November, 1986, and soon transitioned to the Daily Pilot staff.
It has been fun these last few months, since the Daily Pilot has renewed its coverage of Huntington Beach, Fountain Valley and Laguna Beach, to reconnect with some of the faces and logos and locales that I covered with such novelty early in my career.
And it is a recurring delight that Newport-Mesa is a community around which my professional orbit has always rotated.
So, I take a moment to reflect on the games, the wins, the losses, the interviews, the stories, the laughter, the challenges, the mistakes, the relationships, and the relentless continuity that leads me to tomorrow’s assignment.
And I smile.
McInally to be honored
Pat McInally has built a powerhouse football program as head coach at Brethren Christian High. But the former NFL standout is still earning recognition as a player.
McInally is one of 16 inductees into the National Football Foundation College Football Hall of Fame, who will be recognized on Tuesday at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York City.
McInally, a first-team All-American receiver as a senior at Harvard in 1974 who went on to a 10-year NFL career as a punter and receiver with the Cincinnati Bengals, was the first Harvard alumnus to play in both the Pro Bowl and the Super Bowl.
When he finished his playing career at Harvard, he was the school’s career and single-season leader in receptions, touchdown catches and receiving yards.
He amassed 108 receptions (now fifth in Crimson annals), for 1,485 yards (now No. 10) and 15 touchdowns (now fifth).
His 56 catches as a junior in 1973 ranked second in the nation, and he was fourth nationally in receptions as a senior in 1974, when he helped lead the Crimson to a share of the Ivy League crown.
A member of the Harvard Hall of Fame, he was twice named first-team All-Ivy League and was New England Player of the Year in 1974.
A Villa Park High product, McInally was a National Football Foundation National Scholar-Athlete honoree in 1974 and produced the first verifiable perfect score on the Wonderlic Test used by NFL teams to gauge cognitive skills of perspective draftees.
McInally was a fifth-round pick in the 1975 draft and, after missing his first season due to a broken leg sustained in the College All-Star Game, played for the Bengals from 1976 to 1985.
McInally, who punted exclusively in his later years as a professional after sustaining a series of concussions, had 57 career NFL receptions for 808 yards and five touchdowns.
As a punter, he averaged 41.9 yards on 700 boots and twice led the NFL in punting average (43.8 yards in 1978 and 45.4 yards in 1981).
He was named All-Pro in 1981, when the Bengals were defeated by the San Francisco 49ers in the Super Bowl.
McInally, 63, was honored as a member of the 2016 NFF Hall of Fame class during this year’s Harvard-Yale game, Nov. 19 at Harvard Stadium in Boston.
