Round Two: 'I know, in my gut, it's time'

It’s time.

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.

So I am retiring effective July 1.

Forty is a nice, round number, 1986 to 2026. Four decades. An even break. Young enough that I still have the health and energy to enjoy retirement for a while, old enough that I can hear the clock ticking on whatever time I have left.

There are no pressing personal health issues spurring my decision. I was diagnosed with epilepsy at age 18 after suffering a grand mal seizure in a college classroom, and doctors discovered an aneurysm about an inch above my heart during a routine checkup in 2021, but both conditions are under control thanks to the wonders of modern medicine.

Still, particularly with regard to the aneurysm, it’s a harsh reminder that as we age, the health danger zone widens. One day you’re fine, the next day your life could be measured in months, weeks or less. My mother and my closest uncle died of ruptured aneurysms. Mom knew about her aneurysm for years, and it eventually took her life at age 67. My uncle didn’t know about his until the moment it started to kill him. Fit and healthy until then, he was gone about an hour later at age 68.

Then there’s my father, who died of a heart attack when he was 63 – the same age as his father when he died of a heart attack nearly three decades earlier. My dad’s grandfather also died at age 63, and his great-grandfather died at 64 – all on the Hardesty side of the family.

I just turned 58, and I have taken note of the Hardestys’ bad habit of dying in their early 60s. I was diagnosed with high blood pressure several years ago, but it was caught early enough (thanks to my family history) that it so far has been successfully controlled with medication.

I say all this not to give you Hardesty Medical History 101, but to provide some insight into the reasoning behind my decision to retire. Again, nothing overly pressing health-wise, but just enough ailments starting to add up that I can hear the clock ticking loud and clear. Dad always used to tell me, “If there’s something you want to do in life, do it. This isn’t a dress rehearsal.” Those words stuck with me. There are things my wife and I want to do in life, and we plan to do them as much as time and health will allow. And the sooner we can get started, the better.

There are other reasons for choosing to retire now, including health issues of people close to us that are far more dire than mine. Retiring frees up time in that regard.

And there’s the inescapable feeling that it’s simply time. Over the years, I’ve had people who were about to retire tell me, “You’ll just know in your gut when it’s time.” I often wondered what that actually felt like. Hunger pangs? Nausea? Like the first hill of a roller coaster? How would I know?

Answer: It’s instinctive. It’s not that I’m burned out and no longer enjoy what I’m doing. After all, I knew I wanted to be a sportswriter as soon as I was old enough to read a newspaper. I couldn’t believe there was a career field where people were actually paid money to go watch football, basketball and baseball games, then write about what they saw. I grew up reading Tom Melody, Jack Patterson, Sheldon Ocker and Milan Zban of the Akron Beacon Journal, and Harry DeVault, Oscar Knight, Lynn Arnold and Chuck Condley of the Record-Courier. I read their articles every day for so many years that they started to feel like family to me – and in the case of Harry, Oscar and Chuck, they kind of were because I eventually became a co-worker of theirs in 1994. I ended up working with Chuck for 23 years.

Writing about sports appealed to me on a basic level because, growing up, I ate, drank, slept and breathed sports, especially football. Mom ran track and played basketball at Field High School, and Dad ran track and played football at Akron Kenmore High School, so I was immersed in a sports atmosphere from the moment I was born. I was the type of kid who looked forward all day in school to coming home and grabbing the afternoon newspaper off our porch – I always got home before Mom and Dad – and poring over the sports section like I was studying for a final exam. I went straight to the stories written by my favorites – the sportswriting sun rose and set on Lynn Arnold as far I was concerned – and could have recited the entire sports section to Mom and Dad by the time they pulled into the driveway.

In addition to an innate love for writing about sports, I’ve been blessed to work for and with some incredibly talented journalists and outstanding people at the Buchtelite, Suburbanite, Barberton Herald, Portage Lakes Herald, Record-Courier and The Portager. I was fortunate to have mentors like Lori Noernberg, my first mass communications instructor at the University of Akron who got me in at the Barberton/Portage Lakes Herald, where I eventually became sports editor at the tender age of 20; Dave Richardson, owner/publisher/editor of the Herald who leaned on me – hard at times – to squeeze out every ounce of my development that he could; Roger DiPaolo, editor of the Record-Courier who possessed more wisdom in one finger than most people do in their entire body; Tim Houser, sports editor at the Record-Courier who hired me after I gave the worst interview of my life (in fairness, I was frazzled because I couldn’t find the R-C building in Ravenna – even though I was born just a few blocks away); and Mike Perkins, sports editor at the University of Akron’s Buchtelite campus newspaper who brought me on staff in the fall of 1988 even though there was no actual position for me. Mike created one, and the experience I gained writing feature stories on Zips football players and covering the men’s basketball program under Bob Huggins was invaluable to my career.

And then there’s Ben Wolford and his sister Natalie Wolford, who gave a sports guy a chance to try his hand at news with The Portager and later The Spotlight and The Summiteer. I was unsure how that might go – for me and them – but doing something different turned out to be a breath of fresh air after spending over 30 years in sports journalism. Their guidance and patience allowed an old dog to learn new tricks.

So I’m not burnt out, and I still enjoy writing. In fact, Ben has invited me to turn in the occasional column whenever I feel the urge, so you’ll probably hear from me from time to time in retirement. It’s just that I know, in my gut, it’s time.

Of course, there are still more than two months between now and then, and I plan on writing weekly columns with anecdotes about some of the more interesting, entertaining, humorous and even embarrassing moments of my career, spanning the early days of the Buchtelite and Herald all the way through to The Portager.

I’ll start with this one:

It was Week 1 of the 1996 high school football season, and I was covering my first game as the Kent Roosevelt beat writer after covering Ravenna High School sports the previous two years. It was one of the area’s marquee early-season matchups: The Rough Riders were on the road at Akron Hoban and, as expected, it was a hard-fought game that saw Roosevelt take a narrow lead over the Knights shortly before halftime. The Rough Riders lined up to punt near midfield, figuring to pin Hoban deep in its own end and take their lead into halftime.

Except the Rough Riders attempted a fake, which the Knights blew up and turned into a score – and the lead – right before half. The failed fake punt changed the entire complexion of the game, and Hoban rolled to victory in the second half.

After the game, I waited with some trepidation for Roosevelt coach John Nemec to emerge from the Rough Riders’ locker room underneath the home stands at Dowed Field for the postgame interview. I had interviewed John only a couple times previously – once after his team had beaten Ravenna in the final seconds at old Gilcrest Stadium, and once for the 1996 season preview. This would be my first interview with him when things didn’t turn out Roosevelt’s way, and I wasn’t sure if I was going to get the measured demeanor of Tom Landry or the fire-breathing rage of Woody Hayes.

After a few minutes John exited the locker room, calmly sipping from a small paper cup and looking like he had just finished reading a good book. So far, so good, but I wasn’t going to take any chances. “Coach,” I started, wading into the conversation carefully, “do you have a few minutes to talk now or —”

“Sure,” he said. “Go ahead.”

Figuring I would accentuate the positive, I said: “Well, it was a good game there in the first half —”

But before I could finish my first question, John said matter-of-factly, “Yeah, it was a good game until the dumbass coach called the fake punt. Our kids fought hard. They didn’t lose that game, I did.” I knew right then this was a man of character and integrity and that I was going to enjoy covering the Rough Riders – who went on to win their league championship that season.

John and Mary Nemec have been friends of mine for 30 years now.

Just one of the countless gifts I’ve received for choosing sportswriting as my life’s work.