Get to know your sports editor

Recently, I talked to someone I would consider a mentor in journalism, someone who I looked up to as a kid in Northeast Ohio. It was that man, Aaron Dorksen, that you wanted at your Friday night football game, your Tuesday night volleyball game, or your Thursday evening baseball game. His coverage was awesome. He seemingly got every storyline, every great picture, every good piece a local sports writer should get. He was a household name in my neck of the woods, with everyone vying for his attention. These days he doesn’t do as much writing, but his experience and his wisdom is something I already cherish. Never in a million years did I think I would be sitting in my truck talking to him on the phone taking notes, but that’s exactly what I did Friday afternoon.

I was pitching him ideas, filling him in on my first two weeks here at The Sampson Independent, giving him updates on local happenings and storylines I was looking at covering. He gave me pieces of advice that I wouldn’t have even thought about — how to get a little bit more out of an interview, what he did when he was starting out, and even feedback on what I have so far. We discussed some of his best articles, what he did to get them, and how hard he worked for it all. One of my biggest takeaways from what he talked about was his weekly column where he “broke the fourth wall” of journalism, where he let the readers know that not only was he an Associated Press award-winning journalist and editor, but he was a human — a father, a husband, an avid sports fan, someone that enjoyed vacations just as much as you and I.

So, out of that conversation came this. Brandt’s Corner. His journal. Stuff that otherwise is not normally covered in the newspaper. Sometimes, these will be all about sports. Other times not. Sometimes it may be a mix. These will be very random and rarely have any correlation to each other. Sometimes they will be long, and sometimes they will be short. Essentially, these are just going to be random thoughts I have that I think you will enjoy, too. My goal is to let you, the reader, get to know me via what I write on a personal level, rather than just writing and editing sports stories (which I absolutely love doing — don’t get me wrong). Regardless, I hope you have as much fun reading them as I do writing them. This takes me back to my blogging days, and that makes me very excited.

Thank you, Aaron, for everything you have done for the many student athletes, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and other interested parties in Wayne County by writing those stories. And a very special thank you from me, for everything you’ve already done for me in these two short weeks.

Brandt’s Corner

• I have been absolutely infatuated with entertaining others in some form since I was a child. I vividly remember listening to Matt Patrick and Angela (no, that is not three people, it is one man who had two first names and his cohost) out of Akron, Ohio and Bob and Tom out of Indianapolis (but syndicated nationally) at an age I was probably a few years too young to enjoy. Nonetheless, I knew that I wanted to do something like that. Couple that with Aaron and his team’s sports sections in The Daily Record (my hometown newspaper), and now Clinton, NC has a new sports editor. A massive part of my love of both sports and comedy is due to my dad, who also enjoys both of those things. We are both avid fans of Barstool Sports and the Pat McAfee Show, as one could assume.

• Being a dad is very fun, but don’t let anyone tell you that it isn’t difficult. I absolutely adore my daughter, don’t get me wrong, but she can be a handful. She turns six next month, and to be honest, I’m looking for this chapter in What To Expect When Expecting . If anyone has the copy that contains that chapter, please let me know so I can start studying. Looking back at my childhood, I cannot tell my dad “sorry” enough, now that I’m a parent.

• It’s hot, y’all. I came here from Colorado, which famously does not have much humidity. Everyone tells you about getting acclimated to going to such high elevation, but nobody tells you about the acclimation back at sea level. I moved here in May of last year, which was just in time to get the heat and humidity. Two years ago, in May in Colorado, it snowed over a foot. I have now seen both sides of the coin of that month.

I have done enough rambling for this week. Again, please let me express my sincere appreciation for Aaron for writing stories 10 or 15 years ago that led me to where I’m at now. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. I hope that I can be 1/10th of the writer and editor that you are. If so, Clinton and Sampson County are in very good hands for local sports coverage.

Fun fact of the week: A honey bee can fly up to 15 miles per hour.