Outgoing APSE president Naila-Jean Meyers gave her closing remarks Saturday night during the Awards Dinner of the annual APSE Summer Conference in Charlotte, N.C. Here’s her speech, in its entirety.
There is symmetry in The Sporting News being the sponsor of tonight’s banquet. We were talking in a session this morning about our first jobs, and mine was at The Sporting News. Benson Taylor, who’s been around this weekend, hired me and was my first boss. One of those connections I’m always talking about.
Speaking of that … one of the perks of being APSE president is getting to speak with the Sports Journalism Institute class. I had my turn to be interviewed by them a few weeks ago, and when they went around the Zoom room and introduced themselves and said where they would be working this summer, I realized that I knew nearly all of their bosses.
The connections between APSE and SJI have always been strong, but it was a reminder of my greatest joys of being part of this organization.
It was a good reminder to have at the end of my presidency. A year ago in Las Vegas, I talked a lot about connections, how much I value them, how I want to establish more of them.
But I also said I knew this job was about fundraising and financial stability. I didn’t know at the time, though, how much of my work would be about organizational infrastructure.
Every week was infrastructure week!
Bill Eichenberger told me early on that this would be a “year of austerity.” And I eventually did start to feel like the “bad cop,” having to bluntly explain our financial circumstances while asking our members for more money, having to say no to ideas or programs I wanted because we couldn’t afford it.
But endless talk about budgets? Having to make choices based on finances and not solely journalism? Trying to do more with less? That’s the life of a sports editor these days, isn’t it?
I wanted small successes. Things that would make us stronger, re-enforce our foundation.
I balanced the budget, with significant help from revenue chair Tommy Deas and generous sponsors and donors to APSE.
I wanted to start an Instagram account because I have seen other journalism organizations use the platform to great effect for promoting events and their members. I did that.
I wanted to update our member directory so that it would be accurate and most useful to those who wanted to make connections. We did that.
I wanted to come up with a standard way to welcome and connect with new members. I did that too.
I sent well over a hundred individual emails to members in my term. I’d say 90% of them got no response. But the few that did – the ones that said, “I never knew that about APSE,” or “Thanks for reaching out” – made the effort worth it.
I wanted to make our website more useful to our members, more helpful for their day-to-day jobs. We’re working on it.
Did I get all the virtual programming off the ground that I wanted to? No. Did we solve our regions conundrum? No.
But did I have so many great conversations about the business this year, over my three years as an officer? Did I gather many times with various motley crews of APSE members trying to solve the problems in sports? Yes. I even had one into the wee hours last night. Shout out, Team McMuffin.
I did do one big thing. Garry D. Howard told me not to be self-deprecating, so I will allow myself to brag.
My predecessor Jorge Rojas had wanted to come up with another contest for APSE. But it didn’t come together during his term and I mull how I would put the finishing touches on his idea. And then representatives of Billie Jean King came to me wanting to find a way to honor journalists who cover women’s sports. Suddenly the way was clear, and the Billie Jean King Award for Excellence in Women’s Sports Coverage was born.
In many ways, this was also about infrastructure (and financial stability), just like everything else.
The reason Billie Jean King came to us was because we know how to run a contest. And this was a revenue-generating idea that continues our mission of annually recognizing professional excellence in sports journalism with a wide-ranging national contest.
Because we wanted to get it off the ground this year, with a Women’s World Cup and an explosion in interest in women’s sports, especially basketball, softball and volleyball, on the books in 2023, it came together hastily. So wIth the help of APSE officers and Foundation board members, we came up with the parameters of this new contest essentially in January and February, collected entries in March, and started judging in April. We will be announcing the finalists later tonight at this banquet.
The response to this contest was so overwhelmingly positive from entrants and judges that I am confident it will only grow and improve from here. This one is my baby. I plan to be involved for as long as you’ll take my help.
And a helping hand is what I hope to be for this organization going forward. APSE is in good hands, of course. Dan Spears has been such a bulwark of this organization for so long. Plus, he’s more organized than me, better dressed than me and … AS charismatic as me. Dan’s wisdom and levity have been a salve for me, and I know he will be the same for APSE. Though Paul and Perryn will say they have no idea what they are getting into, they are tremendous journalists and leaders of exemplary sports departments who are devoted to this organization. I came into this organization around the same time as Tony Maluso. He’s my APSE brother and I’m proud to see him stepping up.
Last year I said the problems that we face as an industry are existential. That word appears in the program of this conference, which is themed “Sports Journalism at a Crossroads.” Last year in Las Vegas we were talking about the demise of my beloved New York Times sports department and upheaval at the LA Times. The dominoes kept falling. Sports Illustrated died and then came back to life. Now we can’t stop talking about what’s going on at The Washington Post.
People I saw in Vegas were laid off in the days and weeks after. People in this room have been laid off in the last year. I sat next to Mike Sherman at one dinner in Vegas, where he talked excitedly about his new venture Sellout Crowd. When it got up and running, he immediately joined APSE. This week, Mike Sherman was here as a free agent.
These challenges are not going away. They are not magically solved by late nights at the bar scribbling things on napkins, though many good ideas can come from there. But these challenges make this organization as important as ever – as a support system for journalists, a network for finding jobs, for institutional knowledge about changing goals and structures in our departments. And, yes, as a place that annually, continually, celebrates the great journalism we produce. At one of the sessions today, Zach Cavanaugh talked about gaining “momentum” from this conference. I hope you have momentum from this conference, for your own lives and for the life of this organization.
It’s time to say my thank yous and depart. There are too many people who have meant so much to me to list them all here without talking up precious time to honor our winners tonight. But thank you to my fellow officers during my three-year term: Bill, Glen, Dan, Paul, Ed, Jorge and Gary. Thank you to my senseis Tommy Deas and John Bednarowski. Thank you to my past-president inspiration Lisa Wilson. Thank you to my APSE friends, new and old. Thank you to my Star Tribune fam, led by Chris Carr, who let me take the time to do this job right.
You will not be rid of me. My work for this organization isn’t done. I’m excited to be part of the APSE Foundation board. I will be one of your hosts at next year’s summer conference in Minneapolis, though I’ll have to help plan that without coffee talk with Glen at Angel Food Bakery in St. Louis Park. I can’t wait to show off my town.
I have jokingly counted down the hours and minutes until I was done with this job this weekend. But I too have gained momentum from this gathering, as I always do when we get together. So I’ll see you in February in Florida, next June in Minneapolis, and on those Zoom screens in between.
Thanks again for this opportunity. It’s been an honor to be your president. And now it’s a joy to be a past president.
