Hear it here!
It’ll be 10 years on October 12 since I started writing Stockton Says for The Thousand Islands Sun and on my website titled Stockton Says. I never realized how enjoyable and challenging it would be. It really was a case of coming full circle. It’s been chronicled how my first love was newspapers. Growing up in Queens, one of the five boroughs of New York City. My father Joe, who operated a printing business, followed sports and read many newspapers voraciously and was the chief reason the world of journalism appealed to me at a young age. I was 9 years old when he brought home seven NYC papers. So I perused the Times, Herald Tribune, Daily News, Daily Mirror, the Post, Journal American, and the World Telegram and Sun. We subscribed to the Long Island Press, so he didn’t have to bring that one home. We followed the New York Giants (that’s the baseball team before they moved to San Francisco), and read how the various beat reporters, (those are the ones who covered the team everyday), wrote the accounts of the games. They all had different styles, as did the columnists from those journals, and the two of us would compare how they wrote. At Forest Hills High School I wrote a monthly column, called They Make The Headlines, dealing with the school’s distinguished sports figures. Syracuse was an easy choice for college, since they had an outstanding journalism program. I meet people who assume I desired to be a broadcaster from day one and attended the great Newhouse School of Communications. I tell them that the dedication of the first Newhouse complex was in August of 1964, two months after my graduation.
I did write for the Daily Orange on campus and worked for the city’s afternoon paper, the Herald-Journal. I never gave thought to broadcasting until a friend suggested I audition for the campus non-commercial radio station, WAER, late in my freshman year. I did and as they say, more or less, the rest is history.
While spending my summers on the River, here in Alexandria Bay, I enjoyed the unique lifestyle and wonderful weather of the season. We read the only newspaper in the area, The Thousand Islands Sun every week and one day Jamie had the idea that it might be a neat pastime to write a column of sports and other views. I presented the thought to publisher and managing editor, Craig Snow, and he gave his okay. I’m glad he didn’t ask for a sample of my previous writing at Syracuse or even way back in high school.
This may be a shock to some or many, but I actually get more satisfaction in writing every week than I did on the air. Don’t get me wrong. I thoroughly enjoyed doing play-by-play for the many sports and prominent games I covered. My career was off the charts. I was blessed with working with and for wonderful people, and witnessing those events was a dream come true.
Getting to meet and know the players I watched and the announcers I avidly listened to may be the ultimate highlight of my decades behind the mike. But broadcasting games was a craft, and the calling of games required many of the same situations I saw so frequently depending on the sport I was witnessing.
Writing a column is different. It’s far more creative. The subject calls for deep thought, and then to figure out how it’ll evolve, how I will start the column, drawing readers to want to read on, and how I can appeal to a varied audience is a tremendous challenge that I love to embrace. I always ask myself how I can make sense to men and women of varying ages who may or may not have an interest in the subject and that’s ultimate puzzle I face every week. Since I regard the column as a perspective piece since it hits the newsstand or website in the middle of the week presents another hurdle. It is never meant to report on who scored the winning touchdown on Sunday or the latest standings or statistics that were out on Monday. So there is always a jumble of factors I have to consider when I write, usually on Mondays. Obviously, it is easier following a golf major, a tennis grand slam, or subjects that cry out for reaction to major events. When there is no major sporting event happening for me to comment, that’s when I have to come up with a different approach, similar to the one I’ve offered this week. If I have a major concern, it’s coming up with a topic when none is there.
What this has done is keep my mind working despite the fact I’m retired from my broadcasting career. And please don’t get the idea that what I feel that what I write will be accepted and embraced by readers and listeners. I have no idea. I can only hope for the best.
I appreciate those who approve of what I write and also appreciate those who either don’t agree with the subject or dislike it totally. And I realize some columns will hit home better than others.
That’s life.
For those who google the website, either Stockton Says, or dstockton.com, there is a place to hit ‘hear it here’, where you will receive my recording of the copy.
When Jamie suggested I write a weekly column and then reached out to The Thousand Islands Sun, I never realized how challenging and rewarding it’s become. I thank her for that. Thank Craig for giving his approval and thank you the readers and listeners for doing just that.
I never thought it would last a decade and beyond. But it has. And I am grateful. Yes, my interest in sports and journalism has come full circle.
Play By Play
Every Monday