When an ending becomes a new, familiar beginning

Every ending is a new beginning.

I can relate to senior football players at three schools who ended their gridiron prep careers.

Yet I’m a bit more like a coach, like Kevin Motsinger, Battle Holley or Hugh Martin – whose schools ended their season in the second round of the playoffs last Friday, but returned on Monday to start on 2024.

But like the graduates, I’ve found a new home.

And yet I’ve went absolutely nowhere.

I spent the past nine years covering Duplin County athletics and that continues without interruption this week with a salute to three programs that exited the playoffs too soon.

In 2017, I saw all three play in the state finals, and football season generally runs 15 to 16 weeks.

But my game-watching has been a constant for the past 30-plus years.

You might have a job that pays more, but you can’t touch me on the ‘fun meter.”

I have worked in the print business in New Jersey, at the Robesonian in Lumberton for 15 years and in Wayne County for five years.

As a life-long scribe, I found my perfect place in the heart of Duplin County.

It took a while for y’all to understand my ways, since I’m more of an acquired taste. But I’m 100 percent old school.

I’m super excited to be at the North State Journal, where I get a new start on familiar fields and gymnasiums.

I have great respect for the job our prep coaches do in fostering boys and girls into adulthood.

Duplin coaches are some of the best anywhere.

I look forward to keeping this area informed on athletics. Not just football, because those players out there are someone’s son or grandson, daughter or granddaughter.

That being said, expect great things from these pages.

While I’ve been around for what feels like two lifetimes, I am open to suggestions and questions.

Like the coaches, I have a calling. And I take it as serious as a fourth-and-goal from the 1 in the playoffs.

What the athletes of Duplin do on and off the fields of play is sacred ground for me.

I care unconditionally about the power of athletics, even through changes that are nothing like I experiened growing up.

Here’s a little ditty that I thought about two weeks ago when East Duplin sophomore RB Shawn Davis broke his collarbone.

Many moons ago I was wrestling in a summer tournament and ahead of a grappler who placed third in the state.

All I had to do was stall my way through the final 30 seconds on bottom and the win was mine.

But I was taken to the mat and my collarbone was broken.

That provided the best inspiration in the world for a rising sophomore.

Three state final appearances later, I discovered that life is about nothing more than how one reacts to a problem.

No one is immune to having bad things happen.

And I truly believe we are nothing more nor less than how we recover.

I have been sober for 35 years, breaking a very long chain of alcoholism in my family.

I had a moment of clarity and I was blessed with a gift.

Because life is also about what we do with the many gifts we are given. How we care for each determines the road we travel.

Some things have changed since I graduate high school in 1977.

Some things – hard work, teamwork, hustle, compassion, determination and dedication — have not.

Stay tuned and buckled up, my sportscar ride isn’t over. In fact, it got rebooted and supercharged.

The news made by a younger generation is still paramount.

Hey, where else than in athletics do boys and men hug each other and celebrate?

Here’s to hoping that continues, and I’m there to document it.