Volleyball wasn’t his favorite sport.In fact, it probably wasn’t in his top ten.
But Sideline Smitty will be missed.
The Seattle Times’ Craig Smith wrote his final column this morning, tearing another huge hole in the increasingly tattered landscape of local print journalism. Smitty took a voluntary buyout, a euphemism for “we don’t pay you much, but we nonetheless can’t afford to keep you anymore.”
Like an episode of HBO’s The Wire come to life, the Seattle Times—and the citizens of the state of Washington—have just lost more than three decades of institutional memory. This is a very sad day for high school coaches who care about kids.
Why worry about institutional memory? Reporters who’ve been around the block are much quicker to spot insincerity, to detect patterns or deviations from the norm, to know whom to call when some really important story breaks. They are the worst enemies of those who push style over substance, who urge us not to pay attention to the man behind the curtain.
When I was a young reporter, it was the grizzled veterans who set me straight. Don McGaffin, Bob Simmons, Mike James, Phil Sturholm—each helped craft my writing and demanded I understand the crucial role of journalism in a free society. While younger reporters who hang on at depleted newspapers are unquestionably talented, their professional development will be significantly slowed by the absence of generous colleagues like Craig Smith.
