The most important -- and lasting -- rewards of spending most of one's life in the sports field is the number of -- and the quality of -- the interesting people you meet and work with.
The rewards certainly do not include the amount of money that you bring home, or the number of hours that you put in in covering the events involved, or learning the whys and wherefores, the strategies of those involved in playing the games -- but the talented friends you make, those with the ability to communicate the excitement of the contests, to remember things past and their importance and relationship with the present, to be articulate and honest story tellers -- these associations are the important rewards.
I have been fortunate to have accumulated many good friends in my long sports career -- first as a gym rat, then as a high school athlete, then as a college football player, then as an official (for a very short span,) then as a radio broadcaster -- and a sports writer, and always, in all of those many years -- a fan of all the competitive activities.
It would take a very large book to report on all of the friends that I have made in the long period of time that I am talking about -- but I have recently again had contact with one of my favorites -- a guy who I first became acquainted with when he was a student at USD over thirty years ago -- when I was the P&D sports editor and the KYNT play-by-play broadcaster at the same time (an unusual arrangement made possible by two buddies, Les Helgeland (P&D editor) and Lloyd Reedstrom (KYNT boss) and an understanding wife.
The guy that I am talking about is Mike Mahon, who was working his way through college by helping the Coyote Sports Information Director Ron Lenz (who is now in Division One sports at SD State).
Mahon, a genial Irishman whose pleasant personality and great sense of humor makes him a pleasure to be around, has become one of the top SIDs in the country. He took over for Lenz when Ron moved to Brookings at about the time that the DakotaDome became a reality in the late 1970s, then moved back to his home town, Des Moines, Iowa to head the sports info department at Drake University -- and he's still there. But now he ranks as one of the top men in the field -- and here's proof.
As the SID at Drake, an average person would be busy enough just covering the athletic activities of the Bulldogs and their big annual weekend, the Drake Relays, one of the most important -- and biggest -- track and field events of the year. Mike has became a very important leader in the Drake Relays administration because he wants to help to continue its success.
And he has become and important figure in the whole track and field scene -- not only at Drake, but nationally and internationally. He volunteered to work in the press corps at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, and was assigned to be the press steward for the obscure team handball venue, an assignment that he handled well even though it was a new sport for him.
He returned to the Olympics staff (this time in track and field) at Barcelona, Spain in 1992, and in Atlanta, Ga., in 1996 -- and now, in 2004, he will go to Athens, Greece, as a press steward in the headline track and field events. Mike has earned a world-wide reputation in that capacity.
He has also worked in several of the prestigious Pan-American Games (last year in the Dominican Republic) and he was forced to turn down an invitation to work at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City because of conflicts at Drake University.
Mike's schedule this year calls for him to fly to Athens on Aug. 6. He will return after the Games on Aug. 30.
I asked him if the world-wide terrorist scares worries him. He told me that he has attended two meetings with the US Olympic Committee about that concern. "After those meetings and their assurances that the security measures were well-conceived and in good hands, I feel very comfortable about going to Athens, after all," he recalled, "there were terrorists around in the other years in LA, Atlanta, and at Barcelona. This will be a good and an interesting trip."
Mike will have another volume of new stories when he returns. I look forward to hearing them. We have a date in Vermillion on Sept. 2 for the opening USD Coyote home football game.
Bon Voyage, my friend.