Column: After 34 years of scores, stadiums and stars, it’s time for this sports editor to say goodbye

Not long after I started working at the San Diego Tribune, I remember talking with my dad, who first introduced me to sports, coached me in Little League and was always supportive of and excited about my career.

But he also always wanted to know what was next. Where was I going after college? Where was I going after that first job, with the Escondido Times-Advocate? And now, he was asking me, what’s next after the Tribune?

“Nothing,” I told him. “What else would I want to do? I’m working at a major paper in the one place above all where I want to live. Where am I going?”

And though we had no way to know, and sadly he’s no longer around to see it, I’ve been lucky enough not to have to go anywhere. I still don’t have to — but I’m choosing to leave the Union-Tribune on Friday, five weeks shy of my 34^th anniversary here.

Sports editor Jay Posner in 2018.

(San Diego Union-Tribune)

Jay Posner, on his first day at the San Diego Tribune, Jan. 9, 1989

(U-T file)

It’s been more than I could have expected, or dreamed. The business now isn’t what it was, not even close (not that all the changes are bad by the way), but I feel good about working for this long at one place. I spent nearly 20 years as a reporter and copy editor before Doug Williams, then running the department, asked if I wanted to become an assistant sports editor. I made the move never really thinking anything more would come of it, but I became sports editor in 2010 after Doug left the paper. I switched two years later to a job in Arts & Entertainment, came back to sports 3½ years later and have been here for nearly seven years. And that’s enough.

Our database doesn’t keep track of stories edited, but it shows I’ve written more than 6,000 stories, and yet I’m probably most known for the aftermath of a three-sentence item that ran Sept. 21, 1998, the day after a horrible Chargers loss in Kansas City.

The aftermath being a video shot that afternoon by a local TV cameraman in the locker room of the Chargers’ Murphy Canyon complex.

Yes, it was me.

I’m the other person in the Ryan Leaf video. The one seated on the bench with the shocked look on his face.

The three-sentence item written by Jay Posner and published Sept. 21, 1998 that angered then-Chargers QB Ryan Leaf.

Everyone, it is said, has their 15 minutes of fame. As my brother often says, after being asked yet again about his name and the video, mine lasted more than 15 years. More than two dozen years, actually.

But that was literally about 15 seconds in a career that lasted some four decades, depending on when you start the count.

Was it that day in 1978 when I had my first byline in the Carmel Pine Cone, which later would have an owner far more famous than any video with an angry and immature quarterback? (Think Dirty Harry.)

Or was it that early fall day in 1979 when I walked into Kerckhoff Hall, an old building along UCLA’s famed Bruin Walk, a nervous 17-year-old freshman hoping to get a tryout at the Daily Bruin? The sports editor, Steve Hartman (you might have heard him on the radio these last 40 years), told me to check with his assistant, John Kelly, who assigned me a story. A short time later I was hired to the staff (I think we got a stipend of $80 a month plus priority registration) and John told me the cross country team was my beat. He said to call Bob Larsen, the coach, and he’d help me out. And did he ever. There were dozens of coaches and executives I would deal with through the years, and those who helped me with their knowledge and time were many — but I’m not sure any were nicer or more patient than Bob Larsen.

Or was it that day four years later when a recent college graduate really hoping to stay in his native Southern California got a call back from an editor at a small paper in Escondido offering him a chance? “We need someone to answer phones on Friday nights and write a roundup of the games we can’t cover,” said John Maffei. And that’s how my five years began at the Escondido Times-Advocate. That included four seasons of covering San Diego Chargers football and competing with (and mostly learning from) legends such as Jerry Magee, Clark Judge and T.J. Simers.

Or, finally, was it that day in January 1989 when I took my first seat inside the old Union-Tribune building in Mission Valley? For some reason Clark and Nick Canepa had taken a liking to me, and Nick especially was determined to get Bill Pinella and Tom Cushman to hire me at the Tribune. In late 1987 I lost out on a desk job to a much more qualified candidate (Doug), but when Phil Norman was about to retire from his job as horse racing writer and copy editor, Bill asked if I had any experience with horse racing. Well, my dad took us to the track when we were kids living in Del Mar Heights in the mid-70s, and I continued following the sport through college, when I worked summers at Del Mar first as an usher and later as the press box elevator operator. So, yeah, I had “experience,” even if my first racing story for the Tribune really would be my first racing story.

My initial story for the Tribune actually was about football. It appeared Jan. 17, 1989 and featured an interview with one of my favorite coaches through the years, former Chargers defensive coordinator Ron Lynn.

Since I decided to retire, I’ve had people ask if I was going to write about my favorite events or people or both. I don’t know how I could pick from the hundreds of Padres and Chargers games I witnessed, as both a fan and writer.

On the baseball side, I was lucky enough to get to watch the likes of Tony Gwynn and Jake Peavy with the Padres, and talk baseball with them as well as Bruce Bochy and Bud Black (and so many others). Sometimes the games run together, but I can’t think of too many nights more captivating than Games 3 and 4 of the recent NLDS against the Dodgers.

I covered the Chargers for more than a decade, starting with Dan Fouts and Kellen Winslow in the latter years of Air Coryell and then witnessing the incredible careers of Junior Seau, LaDainian Tomlinson and Philip Rivers. And then, not even a year after I came back to Sports, the Chargers left, leaving a huge void in our section as well as, of course, the city.

But there has been so much more. Not surprisingly, since I began here writing horse racing, many of my favorite moments involve that sport. I was at Del Mar for the inception of the Pacific Classic, two Breeders’ Cups and, most memorably, the stunning upset of Cigar. I also covered multiple Breeders’ Cups elsewhere (Sunday Silence at Gulfstream, Zenyatta and Beholder vs. Songbird at Santa Anita stand out) as well as each of the Triple Crown races.

There were so many more games, tournaments and events I was fortunate enough to cover: Rose Bowls, national championship bowl games, a Final Four (unbeaten UNLV lost to Duke), multiple NCAA regionals, two U.S. Opens and several PGA Tour events at Torrey Pines, dozens of NBA playoff games including Michael Jordan’s last Finals appearance for the Bulls in Chicago, Game 7 wins by the Lakers against the Blazers, Kings and Celtics as well as the Robert Horry game, the Stanley Cup Final and I even snuck in the MLS Cup last month. And I’ll never forget the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, especially the hundreds of Canadians singing their national anthem a cappella before every game and the final where Canada snapped a 50-year drought without a hockey gold medal thanks in part (they said) to a “Lucky Loonie,” a $1 Canadian coin that had been secretly buried at center ice before the Games by an arena worker.

Sports is about more than events, though. It’s also about people, and there’s no way I could list all of those I was lucky enough to meet and who shared their time with me. The likes of Black and Rivers were especially gracious, as were many PR types locally and nationally (Dan Smith at Del Mar deserves special mention), and I can’t leave without recalling the legendary troika of Gwynn, Seau and the Colonel, Jerry Coleman. They are missed to this day.

And then there were the co-workers who helped my career and, best of all, many remain friends to this day. I wouldn’t have reached this point without those I mentioned earlier, and no editor could ask for a better group of people to work with than I’ve had these last few years. My bosses, Jeff Light and Lora Cicalo, were extremely supportive while allowing me the freedom to make my own choices.

But this is the right time to step away. I don’t know what’s next, other than hopefully more golf, reading, travel and watching games without worrying about what time they will end. And most of all, a chance to spend more time with the woman who 35 years ago next week agreed to go to a movie with me (we saw “Wall Street” at the long-defunct Glasshouse Square theaters). We got married more than 32 years ago, and I still haven’t made a better decision.