Comments:
I'm just living and getting by in Houston, Texas. I never figured marriage out -- struck out in that arena. But fatherhood has been great.
I have two fantastic kids in Tommy and Caycee. Tommy is quality control director for all the Luby's cafeterias while Caycee is still working her way through college at the University of Houston. Tommy has given me two wonderful grandkids who are a source of great joy.
In Tulsa right after high school, I got into some rock and roll bands. A lot of people don't know this about me, but I also spent a couple of years appearing in a gag band on the Mazeppa TV show, which launched the careers of Gailard Sartain and Gary Busey, who both went on to do pretty well in Hollywood. I always tell people the only person on the Mazeppa Show who didn't become famous was me.
On the show, I fronted a band called Bo Velvet and the Desert Snakes -- greasing my hair up, wearing mirrored sunglasses and singing gag songs like "Bend Over I've Got a New Pair of Shoes." It was a real kick for a while, but then Gailard and Busey went on to the movies and I went into sportswriting.
And I've been a lucky guy in my career. I have worked for some excellent newspapers and done a lot of radio and television work on the side as well. I started out with the Tulsa Tribune and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram
I then went to the Houston Post, Los Angeles Herald-Examiner and the National Sports Daily, which was the best paper ever for sports. It was conceived and run by Frank DeFord, probably the greatest sportswriter ever and a heckuva guy to work with.
I've also worked for numerous magazines -- including being the Astros beat guy for the Sporting News for four years -- as well as several online sites like MLB.com and Texans.com and the Associated Press. I still do a lot of work for the AP.
In my sportswriting career, I've interviewed and written about just about every major sports figure from the last 35 years and covered everything from the Orange, Cotton, Sugar, Sun, Liberty and Fiesta Bowls to two Super Bowls, two USFL championships, one World Series, three NBA finals and several College World Series as well as countless major league baseball games and hundreds of NFL and NBA games. It's been a great ride and I always say -- it's been better than having to work for a living.
But with the demise of newspapers, I have switched to television news writing the last four years, working as an associate producer for the local Fox station in Houston. I still write a lot of freelance sports on the side.
Now after a quadruple bypass and some other health problems, I've got no complaints. I'm just looking forward to retirement in a couple of years and playing with the grandkids.
