Some are friends. Some are just people whose work we really respect. Some cover sports. Hopefully all will be interesting. Ben has seemingly done a little bit of everything for the Times over the years, covering baseball, football, hockey and so much more. Here, we discuss where he comes up with all those articles, go deep on a few of them and, of course, get his restaurant recommendations.
So: How did you break into journalism, and what led you to where you are now? How did I get here? The short answer: the generosity and kindness of others who were willing to vouch for me. The longer answer? By Benjamin Shpigel?
By Ben Shpigel? By Benjamin H. At Emory University , I majored in the school paper. Holy cats, did I write some bad stuff back then. This was, as he put it, Mondays with Gary. John happens to be one of the nicest human beings ever to walk this planet.
By the end of our chat, he had invited me to spring training in Florida. I met the beloved Tigers broadcaster Ernie Harwell an Emory grad! I graduated Emory in The job market was dreadful, and so I went to graduate school for journalism. I was so convinced I was going to Berkeley that I affixed the decal to my car. Then my acceptance letter from Columbia came. You should apply, he told me. So I did. Also, I kept in touch with Tyler. Just to let them know what I was up to: six-man football, cutting horse, geriatric basketball.
Apparently I covered that stuff well enough to get my internship extended. I accepted the night Grady Little left Pedro Martinez in too long. My reward: a position in our bureau up in Collin County, the sprawling northern suburbs with multi-zillion-dollar high school football stadiums and practice bubbles superior to those of NFL teams, to cover the Wolves and Lady Wolves of Plano West High School and also a few smaller Christian academies.
