Excuse me for getting a little nostalgic today, but it's with big excitement that I learned that the guy who gave me my start as a sportswriter just got back in the game.
Let me take you back a few years, to Portland's Franklin High School in 2004. I was but a junior, and a lowly young writer for the Franklin Post, making my living off articles about bell schedule changes.
The man in charge was Geoff Ziemer, editor-in-chief. He also wrote a monthly sports column called the "2-2 Splitter." He was writing about the things I wanted to write about: The Blazers, baseball, the Oregon Ducks. And what made his column so good was that it was so anti-column - he didn't try to riddle it with messages or stir up unneeded controversy, his were columns about supporting the Blazers, or calling on the student body to be pumped up for a football game against our rivals. He just wrote from the mindset of a hardcore, knowledgeable sports fan.
Then in February 2004, the Blazers traded Rasheed Wallace, and, on a whim, I wrote my own column saying goodbye to the volatile yet talented star. I submitted it to Geoff, and being the Rasheed fan he is, he decided to publish it. After that, he gave me the reins as the sports columnist for the remainder of the year, and the rest, for me, is history.
Well, after a long hiatus in which he spent his years at the University of Oregon still passionate about his hometown teams, Geoff is back. He just started up his own Web site, The 300-Level, dedicated to following and analyzing the Blazers. His main page, The Z Post, is written as if it went straight from his thoughts to the page. So please, go check it out.
And for you Eugene-natives, you might already be familiar with his music. I recommend "Hip-Hop Journalism," a song dedicated to Oregonian sports columnist John Canzano.
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