There have been plenty of frustrating moments over the nearly 40 years I've been a writer/editor/layout guy in my business.
But none of those were quite like Monday, September 24, 2018. Never in all my years in this business did I want to start a fist fight with someone I worked with more than I did that particular day. I'll get to that point later ... and trust me when I say this: I am not going to pull any punches here.
All this started on Friday, September 14, 2018. We were transitioning into a new editor who was two weeks into running the Palatka Daily News. Honestly, I didn't know what to think of this guy. He had a lot of bravado to him, but I've seen my share of new leadership and bravado.
It never works out in the end. Ego being too big, wears down on co-workers and someone wants to have a fist fight with this person, but never does because that person is eliminated or moves on rather quickly.
Anyway, let's get to this three-part story.
Part I
On this Friday night, I was to go to Wildwood High School, some 86 miles away from Palatka, to cover a football game between Crescent City and Wildwood. The two teams had met for years but this was the first meeting between the two teams since the fateful and unpopular decision by Wildwood High to not make up a football game at Crescent City the year before when Hurricane Irma rambled through Florida and one athletic director told the other "it wasn't going to make a big difference in the end."
Bullcrap! It very much did. When the seeds were announced for the 2017 FHSAA state tournament, Crescent City was on the outside looking in. The Raiders' coach, the legendary Clarence "Pooh Bear" Williams, was deeply upset, but he kept a strong, positive demeanor throughout. And as a "consolation" gift, the team was awarded co-championship with Wildwood in the short-lived North Central Florida Football Conference.
So this game at Wildwood was very much circled on Crescent City's calendar and there was no way in hell Wildwood was going to wriggle out of this one in case of hurricanes, tornadoes or other natural disasters. Not this time!
Still, Pooh Bear, the assistants and players, made it clear that "last year was last year and this was a new year" as they were playing yet another game in the NCFFC.
The Wildcats, though, weren't pushovers and they let the Raiders know that when quarterback Nate Mikell dashed 32 yards for a touchdown to make it 7-0. The Raiders, though, responded when quarterback Naykee Scott hit Dustin Carmichael for a 6-yard score to tie it at 7-all going into the second quarter.
The only score in the second quarter was a 3-yard strike by Mikell to Marcus Niblack, who also booted the extra point to give the Wildcats a 14-7 lead.
I will say this before we talk about the second half: Wildwood's press box people were some of the nicest individuals I ever came across. There was no hatred, no bias, nothing toward Crescent City at all. They knew this was a bitter rivalry, but they stayed above the fray throughout.
But I also noticed that things were beginning to slow down in this one. And it became apparent something happened to Mikell and by the third quarter, Wildwood had a new quarterback in Alfred Corbin, who was in because Mikell reportedly suffered a groin injury.
It was Corbin's game the rest of the way. But he struggled to move the Wildcats, and the Raiders pounced in the third quarter. Scott capped a four-play, 56-yard drive the first time Crescent City touched the ball with a 1-yard plunge to tie it at 14-all after Christian Lopez's extra-point kick. Then on the kickoff, Rodney Mitchell struggled to get a grip on the ball and fumbled it right into the waiting arms of Jeremiah Roofe, who scooped it up and went 11 yards for the score to make it 21-14 in the Raiders' favor.
The Wildcats responded after the score by going 75 yards on the next drive, capping it with a 4-yard Mitchell run on the first play of the fourth quarter to make it 21-20, but the Raiders blocked the extra-point kick, so they had the one-point lead. Wildwood's defense stopped the Raiders, forcing them into a punt.
I can still see the ball go off Lopez's leg in a wrong-way manner and going out of bounds. It was 12 yards and the Wildcats had first and 10 on the Raiders' 39. Then at the 32, Corbin threw a jump-ball pass that Nyzer Lucas came up with for the touchdown to make it 26-21. Corbin and Wildwood went for the 2-point conversion, but his pass was not on the mark and the Raiders could win the game with a touchdown.
There was 6:50 left. Plenty of time for the Raiders to do something.
Actually, the Raiders didn't need much time. They needed 100 seconds.
Crescent City went six plays to go 81 yards in that time frame. Scott hit receiver Tyler Unruh for 19 and 37 yards, while running back Kevin Williams had runs of 23 and 5 yards. It was Williams, who had 88 yards rushing on the night, who finished the drive with a bulldozing 6-yard run up the middle, giving the Raiders the lead as Lopez added the extra-point kick.
The Raiders weren't thinking about the previous year, but they wanted the win badly and needed to stop the Wildcats at least a couple of more times. The first drive ended somewhat quickly as Williams picked off Corbin. The Raiders had to punt the ball away and with 1:51 to go, the Wildcats had one more opportunity.
They got into Raiders territory, but Corbin was picked off by Bernard Wright at the Raider 25 with 50 seconds left that sealed the 28-26 victory, one of the better games I've ever covered.
Both teams had wonderful handshakes at midfield afterward and I had the chance to talk to an exuberent Pooh Bear, who told me, "I was interested to see how we responded to falling behind. My coaches had a vision of what we were to expect (from Wildwood) and our guys got back up and played well."
He smiled that Pooh Bear smile I recognized to his sad passing on February 17, 2022, and wished him well in the next game the following week against Interlachen.
From here, my job was to get something small to eat, jump on I-75 and head north to Ocala to a reliable hotel I had been to many a time to type in a story before deadline, the Courtyard by Marriott. My deadline was 1 a.m. All I needed to do was just type in the boxscore of the game as well as the story and we were done, even though I had the obstacle of a football game that lasted 3 hours and 10 minutes and saw the two teams commit 31 penalties for 259 yards.
I don't wish that sloppiness on anyone, Both teams played a great game, but both were fairly sloppy in the process.
Turns out the beginning of my nightmare was under way.
Part II
It was 10:35 p.m. after leaving this great game and total debacle all in one and I headed north on I-75 until I got to Exit 350, which was State Road-200 in Ocala. I knew my way to this hotel, which over the years was absolutely fantastic to me in writing up stories, the first of which came in the spring of 2009 when Palatka lost to Dunnellon in the state softball tournament.
I had written at least five game stories on deadline there whenever I was in Marion County or in the surrounding areas. I got there just after 11 p.m, knowing I have two hours to get things done. Piece of cake. I reach the front desk and a very friendly face is there and I ask if I could use the Wifi because I'm on deadline to get a story done and they have always been great about telling me I could.
That was the same situation here. I went into the restaurant area, which was now closed other than the seats to hang out in, to start typing my story. First thing I needed to do was get a pair of briefs done, one being Crescent City volleyball in an annual tournament they go to in Bell, the other being a girls golf match involving Palatka that took maybe two graphs and that was it.
Done! Out of the way. The next part is the toughest: Compiling the statistics of a game that got complicated because of all the penalties became a chore. It was after 11:30, but I vowed I'd be done in 15 minutes with it, leaving me only the game story from this Friday night.
I got that out of the way when I said I would. Now I have the story and it's 11:45 p.m. It's about this time I'm going to be meeting ... the overnight manager. I'm starting my story and, of course, it's not the typical 35-0 or 42-0 blowout that I can bang out in 15-20 minutes. This was a heck of a game in spite of all those stupid penalties.
We make small talk and then she hits me with a question that I to this day believe had no relevance to this situation whatsoever.
"How do you like your room?"
If I knew now what I didn't at that time or of what was going to happen next, I could have just lied my way through the conversation and said, "It's quite nice, ma'am. Thank you!"
But I told her the real reason I was there and that didn't sit well with her at all.
"I can't have you staying here after midnight if you aren't a guest."
Really?! After all these times I've come here to get rescued by writing and sending a story, now I get the Overnight Manager from Hell telling me I've got 15 f**king minutes to get my story done and get the hell out?!
I told her I would be done in about that much time and I'll be out of her way. Obviously, this horrible human had decided I was some unwelcome guest at her little workplace and I absolutely had to go, f**k deadlines.
Now, I'm rushing to get this story done because if I'm not done in 15 minutes, we will have an unpleasant episode if this horrible woman was of her word. I get halfway through this thing and then she comes over to me to tell me time is up.
Needless to say, it's just after midnight and I'm not done. And here comes you know who in my direction.
"You have to leave now."
Let's say it got heated, but I left before she called security. That's how bad it got. Before I left, I promised I'd send a letter dressing her down to her company and that she wouldn't have another job in the hospitality business ever again.
For the record, I didn't, but I figured she probably wasn't a good manager anyway and someone would find the truth out in the end.
But it's now 12:05 a.m. and I have to find another hotel to finish this story out. Thankfully, there were enough hotels up and down SR-200 for me to stop in. I ended up stopping at the La Quinta down the road.
When I got to the front desk, I met Bill and Stephanie, the overnight front desk people. Bill was an older man and Stephanie was a younger lady who was an absolute sweetheart. After I explained my situation and how I got thrown out because "I wasn't staying at the hotel" and that I was trying to beat deadline, they could not have been nicer to me. You know: How hotel employees treat guests, whether they're staying there or not.
They showed me where to set up, gave me the password to the Wifi and off I went to finish the story.
But now I had a new problem: Where the Wifi was perfect at the last place, La Quinta's was giving me trouble and suddenly, my laptop was acting stupidly slow. Remember: All I had left was to send the story! That was it.
I got done with my story and proofreading it by 12:35 a.m. Sending the story was a nightmare because nothing seemed to connect. I think I ended up calling Andy about half a dozen times before we got the story through.
By then, it was 12:58 a.m. Needless to say, we were late.
I thanked the pair one last time for being upstanding people and letting me get my job done correctly.
Oh, but the fun was just beginning after I left their hotel.
Part III
The scars of what I had to go through one week earlier: And the horseshit that was taking place in our newsroom with a new editor who thought he was the greatest thing to ever come out of journalism school (ha!) and whose sports background commaned him to go run our sports department.
What a f**king asshole! That's another chapter in my career that I will share someday. Let's just say I have never covered another regular-season golf match or a piss-poor excuse for a volleyball match involving two lousy teams since then.
Again, what a f**king asshole.
It was now Friday and I had survived the week with only a Crescent City-Interlachen football game to cover that night. I still had a column to write.
So I wrote about my trials and tribulations the prior Friday ... and I held nothing back on both kudos and criticisms, especially the woman who gave me the hardest time. The only thing I spared my reading audience from was her name. I never found out and I didn't care. She was going to be turned into my personal whipping post and I asked for her being reprimanded.
Even fired. I didn't care. It's my goddamn opinion as far as I'm concerned.
Now it's Monday, September 24, 10 days after the horrible ordeal I had dealt with. I am summoned into the office of the editor.
He takes out a piece of paper -- this shit's not even on official Palatka Daily News letterhead, just the name typed at the top.
I'm told by him how bad a person I am for even doing a column like I did and that I'm supposed to sign this piece of paper that for all I cared, I could have thrown on the parking lot grounds, whipped my dick out and pissed all over it.
He wrote this, but I know this wasn't his dirty work by any means. This was my publisher's work, and let's just say my four years at the Daily News with this guy in charge was a little bit frosty. I hated him. I'm sure he hated me. This man threatened me with my job at least five times.
Yes ... five times! And a big reason why: I was doing a morning radio show at WPLK down the road from the paper from 6-7 a.m. This guy didn't like my format because half of it had to do with telling people scores and highlights of games, but I was also promoting our paper to people who wanted to read it or subscribe to it.
Oh, he also didn't like the fact I had a sports guest on every Thursday on the radio show and that I'd interview them there, even though I had interviewed them for our paper as well.
Simply put, he hated the people at the radio station. I know they were not crazy about him, either.
But in 2018, my publisher made things personal against me. I know he did.
Let's put it this way: NOBODY said a word about my column during that week or the week after or the week after that.
My publisher decided to make it about "Mark's a baaaaad person and needs to be punished."
So here is the memo as chiseled out by my editor, but actually written originally by my publisher. I know this: The editor didn't give a shit.
Re: Sept. 22, 2018 sports column
Let this serve as a written warning as it pertains to your job performance following the publishing of your sports column on Saturday, September 22, 2018.
The column should not have been written for a number of reasons, first and foremost is the fact that you publicly criticize a corporation for not allowing the utilization of their services at no cost. This happens to be the same exact same policy that not only Community Newspapers, Inc. implements on a daily basis, but most businesses throughout every industry follow the same policy. It is common sense. CNI will be very lucky if Marriott doesn't ask it to publish a public letter of apology. Secondly, you cite a specific Mariott International employee and state that she should be suspended or terminated. Your basis for this assessment is that she implemented company policy and you didn't like it.
It is one thing for a sports reporter to write a column calling for the termination of a prominent coach or team executive. That comes with the territory of sports reporting. It is quite another to do so for an employee of a corporation, who doesn't work in such a public environment, especially when all she did was enforce a corporate policy.
Thirdly, this topic may have been a significant matter to you, but it is of little interest to our readership,. In fact, it paints the Palatka Daily News in a terrible light.
The message to our readers is that we will use our platform to disparage a business simply if we don't like its polices or we are inconvenienced.
I have spoken with the publisher regarding this matter and we have agreed that a written warning is needed at this point, as well as a 30-day probationary period. If any further behavior similar to this occurs within that time frame, further disciplinary action will be taken up to and including termination. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
OK, let's answer each one of these points:
1. Marriott didn't give a shit and we never heard from them over it.
2. Not all businesses work under the same congeniel attitude. When I went into that hotel that night, I was given the go-ahead to do so without the threat of being thrown out. If the person there had told me I was not allowed to do my work from the start, I would have been disappointed, but would have left without incident.
3. This person I called for termination wasn't the first time I asked for such an action to a non-sports person. Nobody gave a shit about that then. So this wasn't my first rodeo where all bad things happened because someone got a case of crotch itch and decided I was the person to take it out on. Publishers shouldn't judge award-winning column writers on subject matter, really.
4. As stated above, NO ONE cared about what I wrote about. So really, it never put us in a bad light.
5. The "acceptance" that I get thrown out of a hotel at deadline is the first sign that you don't really give a shit about whether a story of local note gets into the paper or not. That's an easy sign for me to know you aren't a very supportive person.
Believe me when I say this: I soooooo wanted to tempt that last fate badly. Things that particular week before (when I got sent to meaningless regular-season boys golf and volleyball) got so bad, I called up my buddy Skeet Alford, who ran WPLK, and asked if I could get a fulltime job there. He painted a less-than-rosy picture, but still wanted me to think about the situation.
And to be honest, if they had fired me during that time period, they would have done me a favor.
This newspaper stopped being a wonderful place to come to every day. It started to feel like a prison and that everyone had to be on their best behavior. Really, the only reason why I didn't try to get myself canned was because of my boss, Andy. He kept trying to tell me that he wasn't ready to start anew with someone else instead of me after 15 years together, and certainly not under the current situation at that time.
I bit my lip and tongue until it bled, but I did all I could to be a good co-worker. Every day, I told myself the same thing, over and over again, when I went into that building: Please don't do anything to make me punch these people in the face.
Man, was that challenging! That period of my life is long over now, but the memories of it still sadly linger Sarcasm gets me through those times.
Nothing ever gets you prepared for the worst time of your life.
And September 2018 was the worst that it got.
