Ahh, Spring Break! A time of relaxation and renewal … unless you’re in the local sports business. Because this life I’ve chosen is so chaotic at times that you wouldn’t believe it if I told you, I’m just gonna tell you and let you choose whether to believe it. But it’s all true.
Since we cashed out the 401k from the job I worked to pay my way through college (the second try) and moved here from Kansas site-unseen in 2005, our spring calendar has been built around the RBC Heritage — like most folks here in the Lowco in one way or another.
The Heritage was the biggest event of the year for the Island Packet sports staff, and we went all out to cover it accordingly. It was always the most exhausting, but most invigorating, week of the year — a chance to show what you could do covering a big-time event with a lot of eyeballs watching and a bunch of national reporters you looked up to working by your side.
Even with a full staff at the newspaper, it was still a grind and we had to ease off the high school beat for a few days. Then there’s the Heritage Hangover, which can be caused by alcohol (I don’t drink) or allergies (tens of thousands of people trampling over pine straw … oof).
Now that we’re parents of an 8-year-old and an 11-year-old, Heritage week is also their Spring Break. So how does a family manage Spring Break when daddy has to work every day of the year? Not easily.
We departed Sunday for Universal and had a nice family vacation until we had to book it back to Bluffton so I could head up the Heritage coverage at LowcoGolf.com, one of the many areas we’re looking to expand to create more revenue sources to support the future growth of Lowco Media from one man’s grassroots passion project to a full-fledged media company that can serve the needs of a regional market in need of community journalism.
Needless to say, the churn of sporting events didn’t stop for me. Nor did my cheap Chromebook or the hotel wifi comply with my need and desire to record and produce daily video podcasts in the small pockets of time I had in our busy theme park days. I stayed back in the hotel room during pool time a couple days to get in some work, recorded videos when I had a big enough window of time, and stayed up well after my family was asleep trying to catch up.
You know all those things you have to do to dig out when you return from a family vacation? Those had to wait, because the Heritage was happening. So I’ve been digging through the debris from last week as I try to get a handle on this week, which included numerous phone calls and meetings about the future of Lowco, two rec baseball games to coach, a volunteer shift at the ballpark, plus all my regular dad duties with a travel baseball tournament looming this weekend.
It’s a lot. We’re trying to keep up.
Big things are happening behind the scenes, and they’re pulling me away from the day-to-day at the moment, but they will lead to better days ahead and a more sustainable model for delivering the local sports news you want and deserve in a more timely manner.
Stick with us. We’re almost ready to come up for air.
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