When I was in high school, I was a bit of an idiot who probably didn’t deserve a second chance. Jack Elder gave me one, anyway.
I was set to be on staff for the Manitou Springs High School student newspaper, The Prospector, for my senior year. I had freelanced a little and was excited about the chance to write about the school’s sports teams.
In a few of my freelance pieces, I had written some things that had irritated a coach. That coach then went to Debbie Bennett, the English teacher in charge of the paper, to voice his displeasure.
She told me I couldn’t be on staff that fall. That news hurt so much. In retrospect, it may have been the consequence I deserved (although I can’t remember now what I wrote but I do know that I was likely too big for my britches at that moment).
What hurt worse was that the coach had gone to the Pikes Peak Bulletin, an upstart weekly newspaper to which I’d also started to send sports stories. To my recollection all these years later, I had never published anything in the Bulletin that should’ve warranted a dismissal from contributing.
But that’s what (briefly) happened. An exchange between my mom and then-Principal Rob Cody resulted in a call from the school to the Bulletin to say the coach had no business taking a school matter to an outside business. They should consider bringing me back.
It was Jack Elder who supported that move. I still remember meeting with him to talk about what was expected of me in terms of coverage, deadline and behavior.
I was so happy to get the chance to keep writing sports because even then, I knew that I wanted a career in that field. I did it for the experience and didn’t make a single penny. I don’t know if that kind of arrangement would fly today, but at the time it was mutually beneficial to both me and the Bulletin, which was still very much an infant paper.
The Bulletin’s sports page as seen today looks that way in large part because of Jack. My standing as a writer for the paper when I was in high school led Ralph Routon to recruit me back to the Bulletin when Larry Ferguson retired as editor in 2015.
I remember a couple of years ago — before no one could gather because of COVID-19 – the paper’s staff was meeting maybe around Christmas time. We all had to introduce ourselves (a lot of us don’t see each other often, if ever) and say how long we have been with the paper. Jack was sitting two chairs to my right.
“My name is Daniel Mohrmann and I take on the entire sports page. I’ve technically been a part of the Bulletin since 2002, when Jack Elder had me writing Manitou sports when I was still a senior in high school.”
Jack and I didn’t interact much after I graduated, but that was my subtle gesture to let him know how eternally grateful I was for his faith in me. I don’t know if he took it that way, but he gave me a smile and a head nod.
I’m so much more appreciative of that interaction today than I was on that day.
Without Jack Elder, I don’t win a column writing award for the Bulletin at the CPA honors a few years ago. I don’t pursue sports writing — specifically high school sports writing — as a career. My work with Mile High Sports, CHSAANow.com and every outlet I’ve freelanced for in between probably never happens.
I could’ve very easily given up on this avenue, but Jack gave me a second chance. Maybe I deserved it, maybe I didn’t. But I made the most of it in so many ways and that never would have happened without him.