After a little over eight months in Connecticut, it’s time for me to go home.
Last August, I left USA Today, where I had been for more than a dozen years, and embarked on a new adventure. I was offered and accepted a job as copy desk chief at NBCSports.com, in Stamford, Conn. The plan was to sell the house and move the family from Virginia.
Ehh, but we never got around to the selling of the house. And then NBC laid off nine of my co-workers. And I got to thinking perhaps this wasn’t the most secure place I could work.
This is the way journalism is these days, and when I left a job of 12 years behind, that was a risk I was running, no doubt. But if I’m going to be in an insecure situation, I might as well be with my family. So I began to pursue other employment, and will start as sports editor for Verizon’s news portal on May 1, back in Northern Virginia.
But it was a risk I had to take, and I think it’s been a success. But it was a good season in New England. I got to see Amherst play four times before the Final Four, including the fall of the last unbeaten team. I saw WPI and Stevens, enough to posit on Hoopsville that Stevens was not to be written off in the first round. I witnessed a great atmosphere for Division III basketball at Keene State and got to a sectional at St. John Fisher I never would have attempted to see otherwise.
A couple of years ago, when Keith McMillan and I were still at USA Today, we ticked off which conferences we had seen and which we hadn’t in Division III football. At any rate, Keith and I started keeping a running tally of football teams, and in basketball this season I got up to 127 men’s programs and 74 women’s programs. Thank you, New England. 
I’d never seen the York (N.Y.) women play, or the NYU men, or Farmingdale women … or the Howard Payne men and women as well as other teams on the Tour de Tejas.
It was certainly fun, don’t get me wrong. I had a lot of time to work on the sites this season, and I think it showed.
Still, it’s hard to think of my time away as anything but a term of nine months in exile. You should see me in the Mid-Atlantic area again this season. And my wife and kids thank Division III for keeping me sane while we were apart and returning me to them safely.
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doodlesdad · April 29, 2007 at 4:32 am
Tough being a copy editor today; even tougher being a copy chief.
Pat Coleman · April 29, 2007 at 11:46 am
I hear ya — in the online universe, they’re not valued quite so highly. That in and of itself was not the problem, however.
wt · April 29, 2007 at 3:30 pm
Pat, looks like you made the correct decision to leave Connecticut. Welcome back to the “south.”
Just Bill · April 29, 2007 at 8:00 pm
Gee Pat, why don’t you just keep getting a new job in a different part of the country every year! Eventually you could see all of Division III.
You may not have a wife anymore, but sacrifices must be made!
David Collinge · April 29, 2007 at 8:55 pm
Congratulations, Pat, and good luck with Verizon. And before you ask: yes, yes, we can hear you now, fer chrissakes, so shut up about it already!
Old School · April 29, 2007 at 9:19 pm
There must be something about that Samford, Conn. area. This year, on the show The Office, they closed the Samford branch of Dunder-Mifflin and merged that with the Scranton branch. Maybe there are some job opportunities in Scranton for you! lol
Hope your new job goes well.
diehardfan · April 30, 2007 at 1:27 am
Perhaps I should be miffed at Conn and NBCsports.com for putting Pat several more conferences ahead of me in the race to see them all.
Just Bill: I like your way of thinking! Texas, Portland/Seattle area, New England, New York, etc. here I come!
Ralph Turner · April 30, 2007 at 6:45 pm
diehardfan,
Seattle/Tacoma, Portland, Spokane and all points in between–9 teams
Texas, from Alpine to Sherman, from Marshall to San Antonio–16 teams
Metro Boston — at least 25!
knightstalker1 · May 1, 2007 at 6:40 am
If you take a job in Trenton NJ you are within two or three hours of all the NJAC, all the CUNY, all of the Skyline and the majority of the MAC and Cenntennial schools.
Pat Coleman · May 1, 2007 at 7:27 am
But then I would have to make, whereas I have been taking all my career.
Pat Coleman · May 8, 2007 at 1:07 pm
Yeah … a little Trenton joke and the conversation comes to a screeching halt.