The best way to a sports writer's heart...

Most sportswriters are underpaid but over fed! Lotsa free food. Everywhere sportswriters go, whether it’s a high school football game, a high school track meet and/or especially a pro sporting event such as the Dallas Cowboys or an NBA game, there always seems to be something to eat, mostly buffet-style. That means all-you-can-eat.

Take Craig and me for instance. We were both underpaid, or believed we were, that’s one reason we changed jobs, but we also were both over eaters. Not so much now. The first time I met Craig was at a Cowboys game and he can attest that the Cowboys always had plenty to eat in the press box. When Clint Murchison and Tex Schramm ran the show, the press box food was delicious, more so than when Jerry Jones took the reins. BBQ all the time, soft drinks whenever you wanted them. Mercy! One time I took dad to a Cowboys game and I told him all the food and drinks were free, so it was okay for him to help himself. He was a little uncomfortable with it, and asked me if it was always like that. It was pretty much the same with high school games, although on a smaller scale. Think high schools don’t know the way to a sports writers’ heart? It’s through his stomach!

I went to several NBA games in Dallas and it was pretty much the same way with the Mavericks, too. And the Texas Rangers baseball games. Plenty of food to scarf down. And at every high school track meet I covered, there was usually a spread for you would die. Craig wised up and got out of sports writing and into banking business. Me, I changed jobs not so much because of the work, but I got into PR work with a college, and one thing I always had to do was make sure there was something to eat, or something for snacks, when we wanted something covered. Kinda like, “If you feed them they will come.”