'Thank you and goodbye': Sports reporter Dennis Maffezzoli retires after 48 years in journalism

Thank you.

Thank you to all the athletes, coaches, athletics directors, school principals and others who have permitted me to tell your stories during the past 48 years, the most recent 35 in Southwest Florida, including the past 25 for the Herald-Tribune.

I could stop there, but that would not be telling the entire story.

I’m retiring from the Herald-Tribune. My last day was Friday.

It has been a great journey, but it could not have been completed without you.

I’ve always said we need the athletes, coaches, athletics directors, and principals just as much as they need us, so thank you.

If there were just a few things I’ve tried to do during the years, it has been respectful of everyone’s time, and be fair, honest, and trustworthy. I know that probably did not come across that way at times, but I tried.

Along with new schools popping up everywhere and new sports being contested, the newspaper business and industry have changed, mostly incorporating social media in and on many different platforms.

It is a far cry from 1977 when I broke into the business.

Not good enough (in my mind) to play sports on the high school level, I began keeping score for the baseball team at St. Anthony in Trenton, New Jersey, where I attended.

Upon graduating from St. Anthony, the Trenton Times, one of the two daily newspapers in Trenton, hired me to work on a weekly sports insert called “Sports Scene.” Working under Wilson Barto and Gordon Parker, the section focused on youth sports in the area. It was great hands-on experience for someone who wanted to be involved in sports.

After nearly a year, I quit. I thought I would never have another summer off, so I willingly walked away from a paying job to play in slo-pitch softball leagues and tournaments for a summer.

Believe it or not, Trenton had a team in the American Professional Slo-Pitch Softball League called the Trenton Statesmen.

One day during the summer of 1978, the Statesmen fired their manager. That night I was playing in a recreation softball league.

When I came to bat, the umpire, Billy Drake, asked me if I had heard about the Statesmen news and I said I had. He asked me if I knew who the new manager was and I said I didn’t because the team had not named a replacement yet. He said, “I’m the new manager.” I said I’ll talk to you after the game.

I took some notes. Still in my softball uniform, I drove to the office of The Trentonian, the other daily newspaper in Trenton. I walked into the sports department and asked them if they knew about the Statesmen news. Incredulously, they looked at me and said, “Yeah, we know the manager has been fired.” I asked if they knew who the new manager was, and they said, “No, he hasn’t been named yet.”

I told them I knew who the new manager was and I had just spoken with him. They told me to sit at a desk and type in the story, which overtook the firing story on the back page of the paper.

A couple of weeks later, The Trentonian sports editor Joe Logue called and offered me a job on his staff.

For 10 years, covering not only high schools but professional sports in my hometown was a dream come true.

Since most high school football fields back then did not have lights, a typical weekend would be covering high school football games Friday afternoon, Saturday morning, and Saturday afternoon.

After almost a decade, the question in my mind became: Was I good enough to do this elsewhere?

I saw a job for the sports editor position at the Charlotte Sun-Herald in Port Charlotte, where the Texas Rangers held spring training. Not gonna lie, I had to check a map to see exactly where Port Charlotte was. And the thought of covering spring training was even more enticing.

I applied but never heard anything. So I took a vacation to Southwest Florida, barged into the Sun-Herald office, met with Jim Gouvillis, and told him how I could change his sports section.

After a month, he offered me the position. I started Jan. 26, 1989.

It was hard leaving family and friends, but the three times it snowed after giving my two-week notice was an indication sunnier days were ahead.

In the early 1990s, Collier County was interested in bringing the Baltimore Orioles to Naples for spring training. Then Naples Daily News sports editor Tom Rife hired me to cover spring training and prep sports.

A group in Naples thought the funds to build a ballpark were raised illegally and took the matter to court. A Lakeland judge agreed with the group and the funds then were earmarked for beach renourishment. A few months later, Hurricane Andrew literally washed the money earmarked for the new spring training complex and then redirected to beach renourishment into the Gulf of Mexico.

After a year-and-a-half of covering preps in Naples, Gouvellis re-hired me at the Sun-Herald as a sports writer. Three months later, I got my old job as sports editor back.

At an Associated Press Sports Editors (APSE) convention in 1999 in Scottsdale, Arizona, I saw a man walking in front of me with a T-shirt that had Lemon Bay on the back of it.

I said aloud “Lemon Bay?!?!”

Wearing the T-shirt was Scott Peterson, the sports editor of the Herald-Tribune. I asked him if he ever would consider hiring someone from the Charlotte Sun-Herald. He said it depends on who it is.

A few months later, there was an opening at the Charlotte Herald-Tribune, a bureau of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune when the paper had bureaus. Scott hired someone — me — from the Charlotte Sun-Herald on Aug. 23, 1999.

All the years in the business never has felt like work. I always told people I worked by watching other people play.

And to document the events and the people involved has truly been a blessing and a dream come true for someone who never could compete on their levels.

Thanks Wilson and Gordon and Joe and Jim (twice) and Tom and Scott for taking a chance on me. I certainly tried not to let any of you down.

Whatever I was covering at the time, I thought it was the most important event of the day and treated it as such, at least in my mind. (Scott and I got into some heated arguments about story placement at times.)

Whatever season it was, that was my favorite season.

Whatever sport I covered was my favorite sport.

The one thing I enjoyed watching was the evolution of female sports over the years and athletes from other sports, like football, compete in track and field: the linemen throwing and the skill players running or sprinting.

Some of the performances were incredible.

Thanks for taking me along.

It’s been one heckuva ride.

Keep doing great things. I’ll still be watching. And don’t be surprised if my byline pops up on an occasion or two. There are some things you can’t get out of your blood.

Thanks again.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Dennis Maffezzoli retires from sports journalism after 48 years