Livin' Large

My new reporter is spending Sunday afternoon on a Harley with about 300 other bikers, all in the name of getting a story. Her wide-eyed excitement at this prospect brought to mind last week’s Steve Rushin column in Sports Illustrated. (I’m not sure if this link will work for everyone, since I was only able to get to the Web page because I’m an SI subscriber.)
Ben Malcolmson, a senior at the University of Southern California, is a sportswriter for the Daily Trojan. In a bold move laced with self-deprecation, he recently participated in walk-on tryouts for the football team because he thought the humiliating experience would make for good story fodder. Forced to list a position on his application, Malcolmson wrote, “Wide receiver?”
But in a bizarre twist of fate, he actually made the team. (And this, as you know, is no slouch football squad!)
After checking with coach Pete Carroll’s office to make sure it wasn’t a joke, he changed his story-in-progress from the “I suck” angle he’d started with to one called “Hauling in a Hail Mary.”
Then he quit his job at the newspaper, and headed straight for the gym.

How flippin’ cool is the job of a journalist? We get to step into a different person’s shoes for a day ... every single day! (That is, when we’re not arguing with public relations hacks who are trying to convince us that their client adding a new “cottage” to his law office compound is worthy of a news story or, at the very least, a picture in the paper. Grrr.)
Anyway, I’m just sayin’..... I kinda wish I was on a Harley right now. And if I really wanted to....I probably could be.