By admin 
When I speak to high school and journalism students, I tell them that I was one of them once: Ready to seize the world if I can just remember where my car keys are and if my shoes match my outfit.
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I open the classroom dialogue by telling them that I started at The Sacramento Bee in 1989 as a 10-year-old prodigy. They stare back. Really? Well, no. Not really. But I caught their attention before they dozed off.
This is my last day with McClatchy Media and The Bee, and I feel like that young student ready to seize some new action. My new gig starts next week, in Sacramento, at Abridged/PBS KVIE, where I will continue covering the region.
I started at The Bee in the Stone Age of technology. It was pre-internet. How did we ever get by without the joys of Google?
The first story I broke for The Bee was following up on a lead that John Volek had accepted the Sacramento State football gig. This was in 1995. I used the white pages telephone directory, a Fresno edition, and found a John Volek listed in the Central Valley. He confirmed his hire over a quick phone call, and we still laugh about that direct approach all these years later.
Local sports are where the heartbeat is
I covered the Kings and the NBA during much of the Rick Adelman coaching era, from 2002-2006, when the club was a global draw. As much as the Kings entertained, my heart was always rooted in local sports: The high school teams, players, coaches, communities and towns. And the college players locally and across the country. The local beat is where the real heartbeat of community beats.
It’s been a joyous ride. This was the only job I wanted and the only one I applied to over the decades. It was an honor to chronicle seasons. I got to know so many coaches that it pained me to have to write their obituaries, including all-timers such as Ron Limeberger of Christian Brothers baseball; Erv Hatzenbuhler of Galt football; Mel Fontes of all-over football; Dick Sperbeck of Christian Brothers fame; Mike Takayama of Del Oro basketball; Len Frizzi, the decades-long public address voice of prep events; and the great Mike Alberghini of Grant football.
I was invited to the funerals of coaches or teenagers who died too young. The families who invited me trusted me to handle it. I am not a Sacramento native, but I embrace the region as home because the region embraced me, except for the occasional grumpy email with the subject line of, “Shame on you!”
Flashbacks to player deaths
The most moving stories I covered were about football.
This includes John Bloomfield. He was a Grant Pacers football star who made tackles and many friends at Sacramento State as a two-year starter and team captain. He died in 2013 in a Sacramento hospital room, hooked to tubes, surrounded by grieving family and friends. Bloomfield had lapsed into a coma, the result of a collapsed lung.
His dear mother, Sitella, called me and encouraged me to visit her in her son’s final days. She said her family had clipped all the stories I had written on her son and his teams. I went to the hospital. I saw her grief. I felt her grief as she squeezed her son’s hand and stroked his face.
She spoke of how proud her son was to receive a new pair of shoes as a 10-year-old boy growing up poor in the Bay Area. He loved being a teammate. She had one last plea. She wanted her son to wake up one last time to say goodbye. She soon had to make the crushing decision to end his life support. Bloomfield lives on in memory, and Sac State’s annual roster lists him as No. 43, to signify his retired jersey in memorial.
The other moving moment that I can still see so vividly was in 2015.
JJ Clavo was a Grant Pacers football leader who told coach Mike Alberghini that he was going to take a car load of teammates for a food run hours before a playoff game in Del Paso Heights. It turned tragic. A 15-year-old gang member approached the car, fired shots and fled (he was ultimately arrested, charged and convicted of first-degree murder). His shattered teammates drove a mortally wounded Clavo back to the Grant campus, where they felt safe, and where they knew they would find Coach Al.
Clavo died in the coach’s arms. Then Coach Al called me.
I was pulling into Loomis in Placer County to cover a Del Oro playoff game, and he said, “I’ll probably get fired for calling you, but I had to call you.” Through searing emotion, Coach Al explained what happened and that there would be no game that night, and that the season was suddenly dedicated to this fine young man who did not deserve this end.
Days later, on a Monday night before kickoff, the Grant football field was lined by coaches and athletes from nearly every school in the Sacramento region. It was a powerhouse show of unity and support as Grant had long been embraced as Sacramento proud. Alberghini told me later, “I’ll never forget this show of support for the rest of my life.”
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Years later, he said he still tears up thinking about it. Whenever I see Clavo’s mother, Nicole Clavo, we share a long embrace. Her smile matched her son’s.
Great players in Sacramento
One more Grant story: I saw Shaq Thompson as a Grant sophomore in 2010 — tall, swift, dominant—and I thought, “I think this is an NFL guy!” He was a first-round draft choice whose greatest impact in the NFL was off the field. Along with his pal Arik Armstead, another local star who reached the NFL, Thompson was several times named by his peers as a candidate for the NFL’s Man of the Year.
I saw Thompson take to heart a message from his mother when he was at Grant. He didn’t want to sign autographs for children after a game because he was too shy and didn’t feel worthy of such attention. His mother, Patty, stopped him and said, “Son, you sign. Those kids waited for you.” Said Shaq years later, “Mom was right. Moms are always right.”
The first great prep football player I saw locally was in 1985. I was on the sports staff of The Davis Enterprise, and there was this national recruit for the Davis Blue Devils named Marc Hicks. All-world Marc Hicks. Running back, four-sport athlete, and still on the shortest list of class guys. He was coached by the first great local coach I saw work his magic: Dave Whitmire.
The next great local prep I saw was Troy Taylor, a dual-threat star for the famed Cordova Lancers in 1985. He quarterbacked Cordova to the region’s first 14-0 season. Taylor is also the finest football coach I saw up close — how he built teams, his practice sessions, his in-game coaching from his coaching days at Folsom High with co-coach Kris Richardson, another all-timer, to his remarkable run at Sacramento State. The Hornets are in the FBS due in no small part to Taylor’s impact.
The first great strength and conditioning coach I saw was Dave Hoskins, who coached local football for nearly 60 years. Now it’s Paul Doherty, whose Folsom team seeks a sixth consecutive section championship this season. Yeah, it does start in the weight room.
Mount Rushmores of coaches
My Mount Rushmore of area football coaches: Mike Alberghini of Grant, Max Miller of Cordova, Troy Taylor of Folsom/Sac State and Terry Logue of Bear River (who will be inducted into the section Hall of Fame this month). None are coaching today.
My Mount Rushmore of area boys basketball coaches — three of whom are still active — includes Drew Hibbs of Foothill/Woodcreek, Joey Rollings of Sheldon, Mike Wall of Folsom and Hank Meyer, the retired Jesuit mentor.
My Mount Rushmore of area girls basketball coaches: Bill Baxter of El Camino, Duwaine Ganskie of Bear River, Rexanne Simpton of Colfax and Harvey Tahara of McClatchy (whose pupils include current McClatchy coaches Jessica Kunisaki and Jeff Ota). Only Simpton is active now.
My Mount Rushmore of area baseball coaches: Jeff Carlson of Elk Grove, Guy Anderson of Cordova, Joe Potulny of Jesuit, Pat Esposito of Granite Bay. Potulny and Esposito are still active.
My Mount Rushmore of area softball coaches: MaryJo Truesdale of Sheldon, Art Banks of Roseville/Woodcreek, Sean Erickson of Del Oro and Amanda Buck of Elk Grove. Erickson and Buck are still active.
There are too many names, teams and memories to recount and not near enough room. I thank you, the readers, the coaches, the student-athletes, everyone. Go watch a high school game, any sport. It’s the best entertainment for your dollar in town, or in any town. And the players will appreciate it.
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Joe Davidson can be reached through email at [email protected]