My one-year anniversary of working for The Era is just around the corner and, with this week being National Newspaper Week, it has sparked some reflection. There have been so many amazing sporting moments in the past 12 months that have really made me proud to have chosen to take a leap of faith in coming here.
My first game covered was on a Friday night at Parkway Field, the Bradford football team was hosting Karns City. I had been told about the previous Owls seasons and the disappointing stretch they had been having. Back home, our football program was just as bad, if not worse, so I was expecting the same amount of turnout in the stands. However, walking onto the field, I was happily surprised to see a packed house, all cheering and shouting, some with signs.
It seemed more like a community event than just a game and it was the atmosphere I had envisioned and waited for.
Many of the memories that jump out for me come from Otto-Eldred. As a basketball fanatic, I had been waiting for the winter season with feverous anticipation and I realized early on that the fans in the Terror Dome had been as well. At every home game, the gym was packed, with fans, parents and previous generations of Terrors, all loud and ready to support their team.
Covering both the boys and girls basketball teams on their trek through the playoffs was some of the best reporting experiences I have had, especially on Super Saturday, when the Lady Terrors erased an 11-point deficit to claim their first-ever District 9 championship. Between the fans, the level of basketball being played and the emotions left on the court, that day is exceptionally highlighted in my mind.
Experiencing this level of enthusiasm for local sports has not always been the norm for me.
When I moved to Bradford, I left a small cow-town in Connecticut. My high school, Housatonic Valley Regional High School, pulled from six towns for a grand total of roughly 400 kids. Throughout my four years as a Mountaineer, sports were never a huge deal in the area.
Most of our sports hung around the middle to bottom of our regional standings and even our most successful program, the girl’s soccer team which reached the state tournament on a handful of occasions, never drew a significant crowd. As an athlete, playing in front of empty bleachers really took the wind out of our team’s sails. It leached our morale and brought around the question, “Who cares?” In a cyclical system of defeatism, no one bought in because we had no fans and we had no fans because we didn’t buy in and lost the majority of our games.
When I graduated college, I returned home to work for the local newspaper, focusing on Mountaineer athletics. I was happy to do the job and get involved in some way with my alma mater, but I saw that nothing had changed. There were still relatively no fans and absolutely no student section. Because of that, being a sports reporter in Litchfield County, Conn., really didn’t have that glimmer I had hoped for the past four years in college.
That all changed when I arrived in Bradford and it has made me much more appreciative for my position at The Era. Seeing how much the players and coaches care about their teams, as well as meeting people in the community and listening to how much they love reading about them, makes this job worth doing and makes me happy to be here.
It makes me think I’m exactly where I need to be.
(Email Hunter O. Lyle at hlyle@bradfordera.com)
