Life is what matters

Sports aren’t important.
I’ve been mulling this topic for a couple weeks now.
There is more to life than sports.
About 95 percent of my life revolves around sports.
It is my hobby. It is my passion. It is my career.
But over the last few weeks, it has taken a backseat to more pressing issues.
For six days, the Jay County Fair consumed my life. It is the biggest event of the year — I was there seemingly all day every day.
In 2014, my experience at the fair was broken up by a handful of Portland Rockets baseball games.
That was not the case this year, because we’ve had a run-in with Mother Nature and her willingness to blanket the area with copious amounts of rain.
On July 7, Jay County was pummeled by rain. A total of 2.6 inches — the third-highest single-day total from June 8 to July 14 — fell from the sky.
I was caught in the downpour that day as I attempted to grab my raincoat from my car. From the east side of the harness racing track, I didn’t make it to the grandstand before the rain started to fall.

I took solace from the wetness under a tree as the precipitation intensified.
My attempt at staying dry failed.
Hours later, the same tree  I took shelter under was surrounded by nearly 30 inches of water.
Since that day, I have done many things for The CR that I may not have done otherwise:
•Shot weather-related photos, beginning with that day’s rainfall.
•Wrote a feature story on Mark Abbati, the Living Statue, who made his fourth appearance at the fair.
•Shot photos of kids playing mud volleyball and splashing through dirty water on the final day of the fair.
•Spoke with local officials regarding flooding July 13 and 14, the third such disaster downtown Portland had experienced in a month. Like each previous flood, I shot photos as well.
•Wrote a feature story as part of our summer series on the final graduating class of Portland High School in 1975 before consolidating into JCHS. In the process I learned a ton about the biggest pre-consolidation high school.
My life is generally consumed by sports, but since July 6 that has hardly been the case. I have only covered three baseball games, a summer basketball camp and two football camps.
Everything else I have done has been more related to general news, and frankly, it’s been a nice change of pace.
It’s a constant reminder that there is more to life than sports.
In a two-day span, I talked with Portland mayor Randy Geesaman more than I had in the previous two years. I had spoken with the Portland Police chief Nathan Springer for the first (and subsequently, second) time since I’ve been in Jay County.
I’ve written more about non-sports news in the last two weeks than I have in the last two years.
Strangely, I’m OK with that. I’ve been able to help my coworkers on some of the biggest stories impacting the area in a number of years.
Every single day of my job is different — no two days are the same. Some days I’m out covering sports, the next day I could be at a house fire or a flood.
The uncertainty of what each day brings is what has kept this gig fun and may make it difficult to leave should that time ever come.
And as each day brings new challenges, one thing stays true — sports are not the only thing that matters.
Life. That’s what matters.