The retirement of Bill Knight, after 40 years at the El Paso Times, may be fodder for you anonymous cheap-shot weasels. But it will do nothing to enhance coverage of the Miners.
The EPT sports staff is now down to two -- Felix Chavez to focus on the Sun City's umpteen high schools and Bret Bloomquist to cover UTEP sports. All of them. Men and women.
History lesson: Just after playing my senior season I was still on scholarship my last semester while working at the Times, December 1971 to May '72. (Might have been a violation of some vague NCAA rule.) I was sixth man on the sports staff, covering a few high school events, filling in on the El Paso Class AA minor league club (Dodgers chain) and laying out the section.
We also had a full-time intern who was taking journalism classes, as I had done. Which means we operated with 6 1/2 staffers. The rival Herald-Post had just as many.
The so-called "bulldog edition" was circulated from Silver City to Roswell, N.M., from Van Horn south into the Big Bend country. Sunday circ was +/- 92,000.
Without a car, I walked or hitch-hiked from the UTEP campus to the office for the night shift. I would get back to Miners Village at 1:30 in the morning, then stumble to my 8 o'clock classes. Small wonder I lost from +/- 235 pounds down to about 210.
My salary was $90 a week. Green as a gourd, I was overpaid.
Today, the EPT distribution is a fraction of a generation ago. Deadlines are so early, you can forget getting next-day coverage of night games in the Central Time Zone. Living 300 miles away, I take the EPT, online. I'm happy to have the lifeline to El Paso and to the only alma mater I will ever have. You whiners who complain about paying for a subscription, make me wonder.
You think we should receive Miners sports coverage for free? Got some extra goofy dust? If so, kindly wave your magic wand, and sterling, wall-to-wall UTEP sports coverage will just magically appear.
Please, neighbors, spare me the wisecracks and your thin baloney. The contraction of the newspaper industry and the retirement of an earnest, honest sports writer is our loss. It should bring you no joy.
The EPT sports staff is now down to two -- Felix Chavez to focus on the Sun City's umpteen high schools and Bret Bloomquist to cover UTEP sports. All of them. Men and women.
History lesson: Just after playing my senior season I was still on scholarship my last semester while working at the Times, December 1971 to May '72. (Might have been a violation of some vague NCAA rule.) I was sixth man on the sports staff, covering a few high school events, filling in on the El Paso Class AA minor league club (Dodgers chain) and laying out the section.
We also had a full-time intern who was taking journalism classes, as I had done. Which means we operated with 6 1/2 staffers. The rival Herald-Post had just as many.
The so-called "bulldog edition" was circulated from Silver City to Roswell, N.M., from Van Horn south into the Big Bend country. Sunday circ was +/- 92,000.
Without a car, I walked or hitch-hiked from the UTEP campus to the office for the night shift. I would get back to Miners Village at 1:30 in the morning, then stumble to my 8 o'clock classes. Small wonder I lost from +/- 235 pounds down to about 210.
My salary was $90 a week. Green as a gourd, I was overpaid.
Today, the EPT distribution is a fraction of a generation ago. Deadlines are so early, you can forget getting next-day coverage of night games in the Central Time Zone. Living 300 miles away, I take the EPT, online. I'm happy to have the lifeline to El Paso and to the only alma mater I will ever have. You whiners who complain about paying for a subscription, make me wonder.
You think we should receive Miners sports coverage for free? Got some extra goofy dust? If so, kindly wave your magic wand, and sterling, wall-to-wall UTEP sports coverage will just magically appear.
Please, neighbors, spare me the wisecracks and your thin baloney. The contraction of the newspaper industry and the retirement of an earnest, honest sports writer is our loss. It should bring you no joy.