COLUMN: A news desert can be a sports desert too
Veterans Field at Keeter Stadium in Shelby has served as the home of the American Legion World Series in every season but one since 2008.
Shelby in mid-August doesn’t sound to many of us like the ideal spot for that final end-of-summer getaway.
But it’s been the dream destination for the nearly 3,000 senior-level American Legion baseball teams nationwide every year for about the last decade and a half.
Paul Schenkel Sports editor
That’s how long Shelby High School’s Veterans Field at Keeter Stadium has served as the home of the American Legion World Series. This year’s eight-team event runs from Aug. 14-19, with teams currently vying for berths in regional championship events being held in our own state, plus Maryland, Massachusetts, Illinois, Missouri, North Dakota, Montana, and California.
Each one of the 50 states has teams in the sport (Minnesota has the most teams, in case you wondered, with 377 this summer).
And even without making the trip an hour south, local baseball fans can catch some of the tournament as its semifinals and championship games will air as usual on ESPNU.
Based on my interaction at the ticket gate for Burke County Post 21’s N.C. Area IV road contest at Shelby Post 82 in late June, folks in Cleveland County should plan on having the TV on or attending in person if they want to know what’s going on.
I made the drive down that hot summer day reminiscing about a lot of things … having a mother and grandparents who were born and raised in Cleveland County, returning to cover sports there at the Shelby Star from 2008 to 2010, having covered some good legion ball down there, and having covered specifically the ALWS title game a handful of years ago.
Then my mind wandered to the faces who covered games alongside me over the years. Many of them are now no longer in the journalism field, and for most, it’s not because they retired. More on that in a minute.
I walked up to the stadium entrance, flashed my press badge for free admission, and was basically met with bewilderment.
The man taking money and handing out tickets started shaking his head side-to-side.
“We don’t honor any kind of media passes,” he started to tell me as I was attempting to mask my immediate shock and growing concern. See, sports journalists travel light in the wallet department. At least this one does.
Before I could express any of the jumbled thoughts that were hijacking my brain, two other legionnaires who were assisting Mr. No Free Entry chimed in.
“He’s fine, let him on in,” was the consensus, and the money man was persuaded to allow me to do my job that evening, graciously at no charge.
I walked in, and before I even took my seat, I unpacked what had just happened and why it had just happened.
The thought quickly hit me: this fellow didn’t know the proper protocol because very likely even if he’d been at every Shelby home game to that point in the season, he’d probably not encountered a reporter.
The Star hasn’t been the same since Cleveland County Sports Hall of Fame sports editor Alan Ford left after nearly 40 years in that role.
Alan was one of the fortunate ones. Richard Walker, an American Legion Hall of Famer, was let go by the Gaston Gazette soon afterward. Since that time spanning nearly a decade now, one person has been the entire sports staff for both the Shelby and Gastonia newspapers, who were once the ones to beat during N.C. Press Association awards season.
The trend of cutting sports staff has continued over the years everywhere. Locally, folks like Scott Bowers in Forest City and Bryant Lilley in Lenoir got out in the last decade or so for personal reasons, but they’re vastly outnumbered by writers and editors who were forcibly shown the door for no other reason than that their (miniscule) salaries were deemed too steep to pay anymore by large conglomerates’ corporate executives on the other side of the country.
Chris Hobbs in Hickory was legendary in his sports coverage of our area, both for the Charlotte Observer and Hickory Daily Record. Gone.
Justin Epley took over for me at The News Herald in 2021 when I left to provide for my family, and Daniel Crawley worked up to sports editor at the McDowell News in 2023. Gone and gone as of this year.
The News Herald and McDowell News, in fact, each currently feature one reporter. Period. No in-house publisher or editor, no sports staff, no photographers, no copy desk, no advertising department. One news reporter apiece for counties with a combined population of 135,000.
I’m sure reporters will be on hand for the ALWS next week in Shelby, and I’m equally sure almost all of them will be from outside the area who are covering their town’s team as it chases the dream. Also equally sure that not every one of the eight teams on hand will have anyone there to cover the team at all.
Post 82 did offer up ALWS magazines at the gate that late regular-season night – I assume those are still designed and printed by the Star, whose building I worked at has since been leveled, though I’m not sure – so it’s not like there’s been a complete vacuum of media coverage.
However, the head-shaking incident at the gate ultimately reminded me to pause and give thanks yet again to be able to do what I went to college and trained to do, what I love to do, and in the place that I have considered my hometown for some time now.
The Paper’s editor, Angela Copeland, recently discussed the idea of a news desert in an editorial. How sad that an event such as the American Legion World Series now takes place in a desert.
But how grateful I am to Angela, our publisher Allen VanNoppen, and you as our readers that keep us in business and keep my family fed, that I don’t live in such a desert but rather at least in an oasis that’s surrounded on nearly every side by proverbial sand made up of the solid award-winning resumes of some sports writers who are still not even close to their preferred retirement age.
Paul Schenkel is sports editor at The Paper. He can be reached at 828-445-8595 or paul@thepaper.media.
