I first Mike at a St. Anthony football game I was covering as a freelance writer and photographer in 2013. He was in the visiting side press-box covering the game for the San Antonio Express News. We had connected prior to that on Social Media, so I knew what he looked like. It was nice to finally put a face to a name, and since then we have kept in contact.
In 2014, and on one of my final visits to Alamo Stadium for renovation photos, Mike came with me.
I joined Mike twice in 2015 as he covered high school basketball. I was just there to be nosy and take photographs. I really appreciated him letting me into his domain, as I had a wonderful time. He is a class act, has a lot of experience as a sportswriter, and is passionate in what he writes.
How did you get started as a newspaper sportswriter?
When I was in eighth grade, I got an ‘A’ on a creative writing assignment in English class. By then, it was clear to me I would never be a professional athlete. And I realized that if I became a sportswriter, it would be a way to use all the sports knowledge I’d acquired. I had been reading the sports section every day since I was very young, basically since I learned to read. So it seemed possible.
What sportswriters inspired you?
The writers I looked up to in my teenage years were Chicago sports columnists Bob Verdi and David Israel, who went on to write for the TV series Bay City Blues about a minor league baseball team.
What brought you to San Antonio, Texas?
I first moved from the Chicago area to San Antonio in August 1986, when my mom moved here for health reasons. She convinced me it might be easier to break into the newspaper business here than in Chicago.
I gave myself a year to either get a full-time job here or go back to college. I was a stringer for the San Antonio Light in time for football season. In that year, I worked on the scoreboard (as I had in Chicago), covered the St. Mary’s University basketball beat, worked on the copy desk and covered a lot of high school sports. Travis Tingle and I were told in the spring we’d be hired full-time, but the Light was in a hiring freeze. I went back to college. When I returned for Thanksgiving break, Travis had been hired.
After college, in 1990, I returned to the Light, working part-time. Which led to 3 years at the Brownsville Herald as a full-time sportswriter. I then moved back to the Chicago area, intending to find a job outside of the newspaper business. But, eventually, I was hired as a full-time sportswriter again in 2000.
In 2008, none of the major Chicago newspapers was hiring. So, I moved back to San Antonio in August where both my mom and dad lived (separately), knowing that I’d probably never be a full-time sportswriter again.
I became a stringer again for the San Antonio Express-News just in time for football season. When football season ended, I became an independent contractor for the Southside Reporter for the next 15 years.
What was your first gig?
In fall 1975, I saw an ad that the local newspaper that was thrown on our doorstep needed a stringer to cover a new high school named Glenbard South. I had been writing sports for my high school newspaper for 2 years, so I applied and was hired.
For the last 2 years of high school, I covered both my school Addison Trail for the school paper and Glenbard South for the local paper. I was paid $5 a story for the first year and $7.50 for the second. By contrast, the last 3 years at the Southside Reporter, I was paid $150 a story.
How do you prep yourself for a game?
To prepare to cover a game, I’ll look at each team’s recent schedule so I know whether there’s a winning or losing streak, who has played well recently, what the determining factors were in close games and whether or not a team is playing to its potential. And I’ll be alert for other details that may be important, such as injuries or emerging players.
Of course, I tried to stay current on all the teams I covered so I didn’t have to cram as much at the last minute when I was assigned to cover them.
Preparing for a football game generally took 45 minutes to an hour. Preparing for games in other sports tended to take 15 to 30 minutes.
Have you ever had a story completed, and then for some reason, you had to start over with a new story?
As for having to scrap a story I’d written, never did I have to throw out a whole story. But last spring, Holy Cross softball, as two-time defending state champions had qualified for state. I had watched the game streaming on the internet – so I had tweeted out the details and told people they’d qualified for state. Then, on the day of the TAPPS Division 4-III state tournament I saw a tweet that said their supposed oppoent was playing a different team. So I called Holy Cross’ coach and eventually the school’s principal to find out that the school hadn’t submitted the proper paperwork to compete in the tournament and that Holy Cross had to forfeit its regional championship, allowing the team it defeated to advance. So I didn’t have to actually scrap the story. I had to greatly modify it, but still use the game details from the regional championship.
A story I had to entirely scrap came several years ago. Sam Houston’s girls basketball team was playing really well. But, because the Express-News owned the Southside Reporter, when David Hinojosa of the Express asked me not to do a story on Sam Houston because he was going to do one, I had no choice but to do what he asked me to. I didn’t do the story. But neither did Hinojosa. So I held off on the story under false pretenses. I’ve never forgiven Hinojosa.
In the social media realm, how did you keep up with all that and the game and the story you are writing?
Nothing changed my job as a sportswriter more than the pressure to tweet details of the game I was covering as it developed. Or sometimes a game I wasn’t at, but could find play-by-play information from online – such as through GameChanger.
Fortunately, I wasn’t a staff writer, so I didn’t have to limit myself to what my boss wanted to write. And I didn’t have to take photos or video during the course of a game (which I think detracts from doing your job as a writer).
What I eventually decided was that the stuff I tweeted would form the framework of my stories (which wouldn’t have been allowed for a newspaper staff writer; they’d want tweets and the story to be unique content). For the most part, I tweeted a lot of stuff that would never make it into my stories. Which I liked because the space allotted to stories declined constantly throughout my sportswriting career.
Baseball and softball were the best sport for tweeting because of the slow pace of the game. I could actually include details about defensive plays, the pitcher’s effectiveness and even who would be batting in the next half-inning.
With basketball, I would look for scoring runs and be cognizant of how long it had been since I tweeted. Play-by-play tweeting, for the most part, could only be done as the game neared its conclusion. I was always worried about missing a play.
When tweeting football games, I mostly concentrated on turnovers and scoring plays/fourth-down stops in the red zone. As with basketball, play-by-play was only attempted when the game was on the line.
I seldom seemed to reach a large enough audience to really justify the time and effort. But for those who really wanted to know how their team was doing in a particular game they couldn’t attend, I was providing a valuable service. And it was important to inform followers about the historical importance of the game, the milestones and to point out how a team won a game it wasn’t expected to.
What games stand out as memorable throughout your time as a sportswriter in San Antonio?
I’m going to take some liberties with regard to games. Because gymnastics and swimming are not games and you don’t play them. And because what matters more to me than one game is how it fits in the context of the season and/or the school’s athletic history.
I’ll start with the last event I covered for the Southside Reporter and work backwards.
East Central softball defeated defending Class 6A state champion O’Connor 4-3 in eight innings to advance to the Region IV finals for the first time in school history. The Hornets lost the first game of the 3-game series by a run and won the next 2. The San Antonio teams that I covered for the Reporter were most successful in softball. Holy Cross won 2 TAPPS Division III state titles and Southwest qualified for the Class 5A state tournament in 2014.
I’ve focused primarily on the postseason, but I had the pleasure of covering Don Gatian’s final regular-season football game as Head Coach at Lanier in 2021. The Voks scored 31 unanswered points to defeat Burbank, which had playoff aspirations, 45-14, to secure a share of the District 13-5A Division I title. It was the first time Lanier had won back-to-back district titles since 1937 and 1938. That meant even more to me because I covered 3 or 4 Chili Bowl matchups between Lanier and Fox Tech at Alamo Stadium, including the last one. No regular-season contest in any sport compared to the Chili Bowl in my 49 years as a sportswriter. Regardless of the competitiveness of the games, the pageantry and community involvement made it a unique event – as did the need to park near the zoo if you don’t get there early enough.
What stadiums stand out as memorable throughout your time as a sportswriter in San Antonio?
Which leads to my favorite football stadium, Alamo Stadium (or the Rockpile) if you prefer. I first covered a game there in 1986 and it still boggles my mind that high school teams regularly play there where the Gunslingers used to dwell.
My No. 2 choice is the sunken stadium at Southwest adjacent to the Medina River.
Heroes Stadium is an impressive modern stadium and a great place to work, but it doesn’t stir my emotions.
I’m mostly omitting Illinois here, because the high school football stadiums there don’t compare in terms of size. But I will give a shoutout to Glenbard West in Glen Ellyn. Behind you was a remarkable high school built on a hill and looking across the field you saw Lake Ellyn, the remnant of the natural springs that drew visitors to Glen Ellyn in the early 1900s.
For basketball, the Durbon Athletic Center at South San is my favorite gym. From the overhead scoreboard to the chairback seats all around on the upper level, it is the perfect atmosphere for a meaningful basketball game.
My No. 2 choice is the gym at St. Gerard, which has ceased operations. The old gym with seats above the left sideline and a stage above the right sideline made you feel like you’d stepped back in time.
For baseball, the Northeast Sports Park is a home run. Diz Reeves Diamond at Burbank and Burrows-Gustafson Stadium at South San are my runners-up.
What players stand out as memorable throughout your time as a sportswriter in San Antonio?
The best athletes I covered included Danny Manning, Candace Parker (in high school), Mary Descenza (a former world record holder in swimming), Josh Levin, Don Sage, Tera Moody, Rebecca Mitchell, Chris Siemers, Mark Pilja, Jim Cramton, Kyle and C.J. Padera, Greg Busse, Chris Carmona, Jon Joyce, Eddie Ross, Pete Schmit, Tony Ellis, Gilbert Verduzco. I’ll stop here because none of these are San Antonio athletes.
Locally, some of the best I covered in 15 years at the Southside Reporter include Kayla Gonzales (East Central softball), Gia Reynosa (Holy Cross softball), Mike Agis (Harlandale baseball), Jeremy Jones (East Central basketball), Richard Torres (Southside football/basketball), Kalista Martin (Providence basketball), Henrianna Ibarra (Holy Cross volleyball), Aaliyah Ortiz (Southwest softball), Janiah Perkins (Highlands girls basketball), Isaiah Zavala (Southwest baseball), Matt Collier (Southside football), Aaliyah Prince (Highlands girls basketball), Andre Mitchell (Southwest football), Jawon Anderson (Sam Houston boys basketball), Deandre Marshall (Central Catholic football), Ben Rios (Central Catholic football), Kalijah Michael (Holy Cross football), Amir Ali (Holy Cross football), Aaron San Miguel (Jefferson boys basketball), Robert Christian (Sam Houston boys basketball), Martin Sanchez (Lanier basketball), P.J. Escobar (Central Catholic basketball), Art Vela (Edison boys basketball), Lorenzo Vela (Edison boys basketball), Caitlin Terrazas (Southwest softball), Alyssa Renteria (Southwest Legacy girls basketball), Ashley Corpus (Southwest Legacy girls basketball), Bella Valdez (East Central softball), Rafael Ramirez III (McCollum baseball), Zezar Torres (Southwest Legacy football), Alyssa Flores (Highlands softball), Matt Friesenhahn (Southwest football), Brianna Rangel (Holy Cross softball), Maddie Soto (Southside girls basketball), Desirae Arocha (Southside girls basketball), Chanisty Villanueva-Bermea (Harlandale volleyball), Izzie Stephens (Providence softball), Cayla Reyes (Harlandale volleyball), Matthew Salazar (Burbank football), Keven Hernandez (Burbank football), Shanelle Martinez (Burbank volleyball), Khadija Derry (Sam Houston girls basketball), Taylor Doege (East Central softball), Jocelyn Perez (South San softball), Gibby Salas (Holy Cross football), Jaime Ramirez (Holy Cross baseball), Amanda Villa (Harlandale softball).
I’m sure there are a lot of glaring omissions.
What coaches stand out as instant quote machines throughout your time as a sportswriter in San Antonio?
There are a lot of coaches to single out as favorites for a fun quote, but No. 1 on the list is Port Isabel football coach Tony Villarreal, who coached the Tarpons to the Class 3A state semifinals when I covered them in 1994 and came out of retirement to coach them in 2020. Tony had the gift of gab, could make a quip and no question was ever off-limits.
No. 2 on the list would be Hinsdale South boys gymnastics coach Eric Liva, for all the same reasons.
But I consider interviewing my best skill as a sportswriter and there are several coaches I could list as runners-up. What I enjoyed most is getting meaningful quotes out of whichever coach or athlete it was my task to interview.
What advice do you have for somebody who wants to be a sportswriter?
If you plan to be a writer for a living, write as much as you can (journals or diaries, if you can’t write stories) – and read as much as you can. Then find a niche in the PR industry that doesn’t require you to write exactly what your bosses insist that you write. Good luck with that.
The newspaper world that I planned to have a career in and revolved my life around doesn’t exist anymore and hasn’t for many, many years. I milked it for all I was worth. But if I’m ever to be paid for my writing again, I don’t know how to make that happen after I was extremely fortunate to have a 15-year run with the Southside Reporter (after moving here from Illinois, expecting to only be able to write stories during football season). So, I’m a cautionary tale.
If you’re exceptionally talented, maybe you can find a home at a newspaper or magazine. But keep in mind it can end at any time with little or no advance notice. Persistence and determination are going to be important.