All of us would like to think we are in control of our lives, especially our destiny, but that is seldom the case.  

We make plans. We think our futures are certain. But through what I like to think is divine intervention our lives are usually filled with surprises, both good and bad.  

This week I was informed I will be inducted into the Tennessee Sports Writers Association Hall of Fame. I am one of three who will receive the honor in June at the TSWA’s annual awards banquet in Lebanon.  

I always loved sports. I played most sports to some degree. Football would end for me after junior high. Basketball lasted through my freshman year. But I played baseball through high school and even dabbled a little bit in an over-30 league.  

Not once during those years did I think I would become a sportswriter. I had plans to go to medical school, but there were too many labs in chemistry and biology and college life was too short to spend all those hours poring over experiments.  

I switched to business management my sophomore year with plans to go to law school. I did go through law school, ironically, while I was working as a sportswriter for the “Nashville Banner.”  

I could have made more money as an attorney I guess, or I could have pursued a career in business, but journalism always had a stronger draw for me. No day was the same.  

I can truthfully say that seldom did I ever go to work in sports writing, as editor of the “Times-Gazette” or as media relations director for Lipscomb University athletics without looking forward to what night be ahead.  

My first exposure to writing sports for money was in high school when I worked for the late “Bo” Melson at the Times-Gazette. He taught me the basics of game coverage as well as tips on how to deal with different personalities.  

Timing was everything when I was given my job at the “Banner”. They told me I was an excellent photographer and an average writer but promised they would make me a better writer.  

For my first couple of years there I would photograph and write about a game. They came through on their promise of making me a better writer though I am still far short of the “excellent” category.  

When I started at the “Banner” I wondered what would happen to me. I looked around the room and there was Kent Heitholt, a University of Missouri graduate, Pat Embry from the University of Illinois and Pam Clark from the University of Kansas.  

All were journalism majors. I had never even been in a journalism class.  

But I climbed the ladder through the guidance of editors like Joe Biddle who served as my mentor in many ways and ended my career there covering Vanderbilt before becoming the editor of the “Times-Gazette”.  

I still write part-time for Associated Press, the “Times-Gazette”, Lipscomb athletics and the “Walking Horse Report”.  

I miss sports writing on an everyday basis, but it is nice to still be around it.  

Never thought I would be a writer. Never thought I would be in a hall of fame. Sometimes it is nice to be surprised.