Tom Hardesty

Retirement was always something that happened to other people. When I was growing up, I would hear my mom and dad talking about how so-and-so at work was going to retire.

Saboteurs have been part of sports for as long as sports have been part of the human condition.

One constant of my 40 years in journalism is that each day has been a new adventure. Or, many times, a misadventure. Things I didn’t expect to happen, things I never dreamed could happen, things I’ll never forget whether I want to or not.

As I cross the T-minus two months threshold on my retirement countdown and take stock of these last 40 years in journalism, a common denominator is emerging: It’s the things that happened outside the lines and never saw the light of day in a newspaper that stand out most to me, behinds-the-scenes stuff that I’ll take with me into the sunset.

I had never covered a high school track and field meet prior to being hired at the Record-Courier in March 1994. What’s more, I had never even been to one.

After 40 years in journalism, having my first article published when I was 17 years old and working as a professional journalist since age 18, it’s time to bring the train into the station.

When I heard the news earlier this week that Lou Holtz had passed away at the age of 89, my mind immediately drifted back to a spring evening 32 years ago.

After a sharp decline in traffic fatalities in 2024, Portage County experienced a grim 2025 on its roadways: 17 fatal crashes resulting in 18 total deaths. And it was the usual culprits of impaired and distracted driving that claimed most of the lives.

A day that was forecast to have “generally fair” weather ended up as the worst weather disaster in Ohio history.

I recently finished reading Chas Madonio’s book “Bars, Bands, and Rock ‘n Roll: The Golden Era in Kent, Ohio,” which was published by Kent Historical Society Press in 2022. Like I said awhile back, I had a stack of books to get through, so I got to Chas’ eyewitness account of the wild Kent bar scene in the 1960s and ’70s a little late.

Laurene Jae Jackson has packed a lot into her 81 years on the planet.

What happened? Where were all the football players? That’s what Novell wanted to know. Joe Adolph had some answers – and together they have come up with what they hope is a solution.

July 1 will mark 20 years since the day my dad died. He was only 63 years old and looked great. I had just talked to him on the phone two days earlier, and he sounded great. That was a Wednesday afternoon. By about 7 o’clock Friday evening, he was gone, the victim of a heart attack while sitting on the couch in his living room. Toward the end of our Wednesday conversation, Dad was trying to think of something […]

I was all set to write this as soon as the 2025 NFL Draft ended, but I figured: A. I’d let the dust settle a little bit, and B. Browns fans were crowding the ledge after the Shedeur Sanders pick so better to make sure everyone had gotten safely back inside.

April having come and gone, it got me thinking: April Fools’ Day just doesn’t cut it. Yeah, it’s a day for jokes, pranks and assorted other mischief, some of which are repeated year after year, others which are new and inventive. Some are clever, others are downright cruel. Some result in belly laughs and guffaws, others in fistfights.

Late July, 1983. I was camped out on the bed in my mom and dad’s room, my leg sporting a cast from the foot to the knee and propped up on some pillows, and sweat dripping from every pore in my body in the sweltering heat of the little bedroom, which, thanks to the fact our house didn’t have air conditioning, was like sitting in a blast furnace.

Portage County’s roads were significantly safer in 2024.

Buckeye Nation has been basking for a month now, Ryan Day has made the rounds on the talk show circuit, and the national championship trophy sits in Columbus, Ohio.