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What do you do?
I spend half of my life on the road. I cover all Missouri sports, primarily men's football and basketball. I also cover baseball, softball and volleyball. Athens in 2004 was my eighth Olympics to cover. It made for a busy summer. I write primarily people stories.

How did you get your job?
I was a student at Missouri and they had correspondents jobs for Kansas, Kansas State and Missouri. We went to football practices and wrote features during the season. I called the KC Star and asked about a job and sent my clips. I spent a year on high school sports and then went immediately to major league baseball. I did a year as the assistant city editor, the same year the Hyatt Skywalk fell down. I also worked for the Star Magazine for nine months.

What was the best professional lesson learned at the J-School?
My best professional lesson was actually from the now deceased Dr. Robert Knight, who did a lot of work with high school students before they came to college. My junior year of high school I went to a journalism workshop. We had to go out and find stories. While I was there, there was an anti-war protest in front of Memorial Union. I got talking to people, even though I was not assigned to the story. I took the idea to Dr. Knight and he said to write it up and turn it in. I got third place in spot news. Frequently, it is the story you don't know is there that you pick up and is better than the story you are out to get.

What do you consider to be your greatest professional achievement?
I was in Cuba doing prep work for the Pan-American Games. I went down with 16 other journalists and with the U.S. Olympic committee. I went down with the idea that I wanted to do some lifestyle stories. I wanted to show how the world stopped after the revolution. I ended up with 11 or 12 lifestyle stories. We got an interview with Fidel Castro, and that worked well. It was well received and the most satisfying stuff I've done. It may not be what people remember my writing for, but it is what I remember.

What makes you good at your job?
Sometimes, absolutely nothing. Sometimes, I'm not good at my job. I write people stories; what they are about. It's not my story, it's their story. I try to be fair. I try to write like Stephen King would write it. I would read him to develop my own style. You show people where the cracks in the sidewalk are. I think people like to read about what other people are like. If I were good at something, it would be imagery in my writing.

What are you working on currently?
The summer of Ricky Clemons has become the fall of Ricky Clemons. Olympic coverage will start in January, and I'm hoping the Clemons issue will be done by then. During the football season, I'm writing six days a week.

What are your next career steps?
I'd like to quit. I have a son in the business and I enjoy how he does things. Professionally, there aren't any mountains I want to climb. The ambition isn't as strong, but the passion to do well on a daily basis is still there. I don't want to change the world like I did when I left Mizzou.

What skill would you most like to have?
I'd like to have patience. I would like to have the ability to wait and not let it eat me up. I'd like to wait and watch things unfold, instead of trying to affect them. Patient people tend to be happier people.