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What Mr. Harwell taught me - without saying a word
It was late August 2003.
I was interning in the sports department of a FOX affiliate in Lansing during my last year at MSU. On this particular day, I was conducting interviews following a Lansing Lug Nuts game at Oldsmobile Park.
The sports reporter and I were walking up to our seats in the press box, and when we turned a corner near our spots, we passed the booth where the radio broadcasts take place. This little man gets up, smiles as he looks at the field, and turns to leave. It's then that I realize it's Ernie Harwell - a voice I heard on my Granny's combo radio/7-inch black and white every day, every summer when I was a young'in.
"How you doin,' young man," Mr. Harwell said to me with a smile as wide as the grill of a '77 Cadillac.
I didn't know what to say. I don't remember, but I'm sure I had a glazed look on my face. I imagine I'd react the same way if I ever met Halle Berry - but for different reasons, of course.
He had to leave shortly after that, so I didn't have a chance to pick his brain like I would've liked to, seeing as though I had been trying to carve out my niche as a journalist at the time - a field I'm still in nearly seven years later.
The smile Mr. Harwell had on his face while he stared out at that field said more than any words ever could. What I took from that look was that Mr. Harwell enjoyed getting out of bed every day and going to do his "job."
I had always heard it isn't work if you love it, and Mr. Harwell loved baseball. What I got from that look, and from listening to him on the radio for so long, was that he had a passion for what he did.
If you have that passion, you can go a long way and be a success at anything because you'll dedicate your time to perfecting your craft. And that's what Mr. Harwell did.
That passion will also help you keep the love for what you're doing on the days where nothing's going right. And with the way journalism, and more specifically newspapers, have gone in recent years, that passion has done more to keep me going that anyone could ever know.
That's a lot to get from a smile, isn't it?
Some people just have a way of conveying thoughts without words.
Rest In Peace, Mr. Harwell.
I was interning in the sports department of a FOX affiliate in Lansing during my last year at MSU. On this particular day, I was conducting interviews following a Lansing Lug Nuts game at Oldsmobile Park.
The sports reporter and I were walking up to our seats in the press box, and when we turned a corner near our spots, we passed the booth where the radio broadcasts take place. This little man gets up, smiles as he looks at the field, and turns to leave. It's then that I realize it's Ernie Harwell - a voice I heard on my Granny's combo radio/7-inch black and white every day, every summer when I was a young'in.
"How you doin,' young man," Mr. Harwell said to me with a smile as wide as the grill of a '77 Cadillac.
I didn't know what to say. I don't remember, but I'm sure I had a glazed look on my face. I imagine I'd react the same way if I ever met Halle Berry - but for different reasons, of course.
He had to leave shortly after that, so I didn't have a chance to pick his brain like I would've liked to, seeing as though I had been trying to carve out my niche as a journalist at the time - a field I'm still in nearly seven years later.
The smile Mr. Harwell had on his face while he stared out at that field said more than any words ever could. What I took from that look was that Mr. Harwell enjoyed getting out of bed every day and going to do his "job."
I had always heard it isn't work if you love it, and Mr. Harwell loved baseball. What I got from that look, and from listening to him on the radio for so long, was that he had a passion for what he did.
If you have that passion, you can go a long way and be a success at anything because you'll dedicate your time to perfecting your craft. And that's what Mr. Harwell did.
That passion will also help you keep the love for what you're doing on the days where nothing's going right. And with the way journalism, and more specifically newspapers, have gone in recent years, that passion has done more to keep me going that anyone could ever know.
That's a lot to get from a smile, isn't it?
Some people just have a way of conveying thoughts without words.
Rest In Peace, Mr. Harwell.
Labels: Detroit Tigers, Ernie Harwell
posted by Jason Carmel Davis at
11:04 AM
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