With an Advocate career that's spanned nearly six decades, Dan Manley bids farewell as sports editor

Let’s go back in time, oh say, 59 years ago.

Maybe you can’t, but I can.

There was one of the best men I ever knew running the Mt. Sterling Advocate as Editor/Publisher. 

His name was Jim Smith. 

Jim Smith loved sports. He came from Alabama (no, he didn’t have a banjo) and who in Alabama doesn’t love sports.

That became our connection. In those days, to take pictures of a football game you needed a big battery to power the flash. 

I carried his around at football games. 

And then he taught me to write stories of the games. He let me watch and learn the whole process of turning an event into a story, with or without pictures, something that appeared in the paper. 

Voila.

Almost six decades later the ink still runs through my veins.

Now, the ink is running more slowly and after conferring with the most important ones (God, Betty and the dog) I’ve decided that I’ve probably been at this task longer than I should have stayed. 

I’m passing the torch. 

However, you’ll still have to put up with me, when you care to, in the Advocate each week. 

I’ll be writing a column in this space where I’ll look back to the past, evaluate the present and anticipate the future of, primarily the sports world.

Hopefully it will be reflective, informative and entertaining. 

As for the regular events that happen around Montgomery County in the sports world, that will now belong to Tonia Witt. 

She’ll not only be sharing her always outstanding pictures but she’ll be covering the games and other such things that happen in sports. 

Tonia knows the sporting world and I’m sure you’ll feel well informed each week on these pages. 

I’ll try to add something each week that you’ll find worthy of your time (at least part of the time). 

Thanks to those who have read what I’ve written over the years. 

If ever something was written that you felt was of a negative vein about you, your child, a loved one, a friend or even someone you didn’t know, I’m sorry. I tried to be a positive writer.

A few years back a woman wrote a letter to the editor saying that I was no longer any good and I needed to retire. She simply thought I was of no value to the paper, or to anyone. 

I’ve thought about it for a few years and I’ve decided to give that lady her wish.

Even though I’ve written columns over the years, it takes on a new dimension to be “only” a columnist.

A columnist is defined as a writer who regularly contributes pieces, often containing personal opinions, analysis or commentary to a specific publication.

Unlike news reporters, who focus on objective facts, columnists provide a unique, subjective viewpoint on a variety of topics. 

I’ve always enjoyed reading sports columns, by those much more talented than me.

Red Smith, the iconic writer  for the New York Herald-Tribune, is one.

He was good enough to receive a Pulitzer Prize for his work and to receive an honorary doctorate from Notre Dame University for his contributions to sports journalism.

If you ever get a chance to read anything he wrote before he died back in 1982, don’t pass up the chance.

Those columns might seem out-dated, but the great ones aren’t time sensitive and most of his I would qualify as great. 

Red Smith covered 45 World Series among his many work duties. 

Then there were Dave Kindred and Billy Reed of the Courier-Journal and Lexington Herald. 

Kindred moved on to the Atlanta Constitution and Reed to Sports Illustrated.

I’ve watched Dave Kindred write a column in a half hour and then had a chance to read it the next day and sat astonished at the mastery of the English language and of the context that he was writing about. 

You won’t get anything here in the weeks ahead that will amaze you, but I’ll try to share things about our past, present and future around these parts that will be sometimes worthwhile.

Thanks to all of the players and coaches over the years who have made covering the sporting world here such a fun experience. 

Moving on ...

Tonia Witt will be taking over as the Sports Editor.

Tonia is an award winning photographer who has provided most of the pictures that have appeared on these pages, so you can be assured of continuing to get those same outstanding photos. 

Tonia also heads up a state-wide organization called Rise Up that has a mission to promote female athletes so she is not new to the writing world.

I’ve been doing this for a long time and I’m sure it’ll be different, and in many situations, better, than what you’ve gotten in the sports coverage in the Advocate. 

To anyone who’s been offended, I promise I didn’t mean it. 

I’ve always tried to make it a high level publication and cared about those I was writing about.

I hope it showed.