Along the Way: The stories behind the story — told from the press box

The old neighborhood looks the same, and friends still there are doing well.

Last week, I stopped by the press box — still anchored to the top of Arizona Stadium, I’m happy to report — to see how things were going. I hadn’t been to this colorful precinct since my last college football game as a full-time sportswriter on Nov. 25, 2006. Arizona lost to Arizona State that night, 28-14.

This time, the Wildcats fared better, defeating a tough Toledo team, 41-16.

Arizona quarterback Willie Tuitama completed 25 of 33 passes for 292 yards and a couple of touchdowns. Tailback Nic Grigsby turned 20 handoffs into 135 yards rushing and three touchdowns.

But you’ve read and heard about the heroes on the field already.

It’s the ones behind the laptops that made me proud Saturday night. Proud that I was once among them on a regular basis, in search of the bright word, the perfect adjective, the great line — and finding none of the above, just telling the damn story.

It’s a strange and noble line of work, sportswriting. It’s a craft of word mechanics and number mavens who carp about management and mismanagement, the establishment and the anti-establishment, the way we were, the way we are and the way we’re going to be.

They look upon themselves as reprobates, but down deep each one feels a summons to poetry.

On deadline you approach them with the same caution you’d come calling on a hive of killer bees. Or maybe the way you’d tap a mama bear on the shoulder and ask if you could borrow one of her cubs for a day or two.

Ask about what they’re doing and sportswriters will tell you, “As little as possible.” But the truth is, they work their fannies off and care deeply about doing a good job.

The best investment any newspaper — any magazine, radio or television station, for that matter — has is its sports staff. Other sections may refer to them as the toy department, but the hardest work and the richest human interest stories are always about sports and the people who play them.

As the last dinosaur on the small planet called Sportswriting, I bridged a very wide gap. I was there at the end of the days of Western Union, when sportswriters had telegraphers instead of laptops.

I experienced the wonderful heyday of the portable typewriter, and saw every new gadget and electronic gizmo since.

I remember the day when every sportswriter in every pressbox in the country had an ash tray placed at his work place. The air was filled with the pollution of cigar, cigarette and pipe smoke. Today, thankfully, every pressbox in the country is smoke-free.

Sportswriters are better educated and not quite as cynical today as they were in my day. But there aren’t as many who’d write — and file — a story for a fierce competitor who passed out from too much drink. Believe it or not, that wasn’t uncommon in the old days.

Part of the unwritten code of sportswriters was to take care of a fallen comrade (even if you couldn’t stand the jerk). There are very, very few hard drinkers in the business today.

One thing that hasn’t changed in sportswriting is pride. The old guys really cared about doing a good job, and the same is true today.

It’s like that guy wrote in Ecclesiastes:

“That which has been is that which shall be.” He wasn’t a sportswriter, but I think the boys and girls today would allow him in the press box.

As long as he wasn’t puffing on a cigar.

Former Tucson Citizen columnist Corky Simpson was the first inductee into the Arizona Associated Press Sports Editors Hall of Fame. He writes a Friday commentary for the Green Valley News.