The photograph above is the first one I had published by the Coast Dispatch around 1973. I was at the beach run because my dad was a PE teacher at Earl Warren Junior High and he helped to organize the race. My dad had also encouraged my interest in photography by giving me gifts of cameras when I was quite young and suggested I take pictures at the race.
But the key to getting it in the paper was the relationship I had with the Sports Editor, Dave La Borde, who was a one-man band responsible for covering youth and professional sports for a small newspaper in a growing region. Because I was a scorekeeper and umpire for the San Dieguito Community Recreation Department (my dad ran the basketball and softball leagues), Dave saw me at many of the events he was either playing in or covering.
The paper published twice a week, Wednesdays and Saturdays, and Dave didn’t like having to both write the stories and take the pictures. So when I expressed an interest in helping him with the photos, he was happy to take me up on it.
My favorite nights were on Fridays when there was a San Dieguito High School varsity football game at home. That’s when I was able to not only take the pictures but also go to the Coast Dispatch offices and process the film and make the prints which would be printed that night, with the paper available for reading Saturday morning. It was heady stuff for a young feller and I soon had dreams of working for a national newspaper or Sports Illustrated someday.
The next opportunity I had as a photojournalist was due to the same Community Recreation Department connections. Tom Saxe was the Sports Editor of the Vista Press and was often at the softball fields covering his local fast pitch softball team the Vista Bombers. He also was happy to provide me with film and the chance to take photos of events he was covering, which included being on the field at Chargers games and the first Holiday Bowl between BYU and Navy.
In the early 80’s, Tom gave me a call and offered me a job as a sports writer. I was a little surprised by this because I had no experience with writing and wasn’t sure it was something I wanted to do. But he assured me it was not that difficult and he would help me get the hang of it, so I took the position with primary responsibility for covering youth sports in Vista.
Since the Vista Press was a paper that published daily, they had credentials for the Chargers, Padres, Clippers and Aztecs sports. Naturally I enjoyed covering those games, and did so for years before being offered the job as a writer.
So it was natural for me to continue taking pictures at events where I was primarily responsible for writing a story. This created some tension with the photographers that we assigned to shoot the games. They didn’t really want my images to be competing for publication over their work. I understood but usually shot anyways.
The pay for the work I did at the Vista Press was pretty ridiculous and my request for a raise was humored with an equally ridiculously small increase. Alas, while enjoyed the access to professional athletes the job provided, the drive from Encinitas to Vista to cover youth activities eventually caused me to give up the job.
When I relocated to Anchorage, Alaska for a change of scenery, I applied for a job at the Anchorage Times as a photo lab technician. This made me responsible for processing the film and printing the pictures that the the staff photographers had shot while out on assignment. Eventually I was also getting assignments. I also did sports writing at the Times, mostly covering high school hockey.
I’ve added an album of clips that I’ve “scanned” with my camera below. It’s interesting to me to look back on the work and see some of the journey I’ve been on. I sometimes wonder how life would have been if I had decided to stay in the journalism profession. But the “ambulance chasing” aspects of photojournalism and the same set of questions a sports writer asks left me thinking I should find something else to do and I don’t regret that decision.