NEW ORLEANS — Greetings from the Big Easy.
Yes, I’m here. Yes, I know I retired.
It’s complicated.
First of all, I’m not here on assignment for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. I’m here at the behest of Christy Towers. My sweet wife and fellow UGA alum actually has never attended a Georgia football game with me. Oh, we’ve been to plenty of stadiums together. But typically that begins with a goodbye kiss about three hours before kickoff and then ends with me tiptoeing into a hotel room somewhere trying not to wake her in the wee hours of the morning.
No, this is sort of a retirement gift to each other. We’re walking into the Caesars Superdome together, sitting together and walking out together. I might even wear some UGA apparel, which I haven’t done since I attended the school in the 1980s. Christy bought me a shirt and pullover for Christmas. How I will act between kickoff and the final horn, I have no idea.
The last game I attended as a “fan” was against Auburn, in Athens in 1997. That was my first year at the AJC, and I wasn’t covering the team at the time. It did not go well for the Bulldogs, so I hope this time it goes a little better.
What the spouses of sports writers go through deserves some attention here. We work weekends basically all year long, stay up to all hours of the night and are on call 24/7. Breaking news seems always to come at the most inconvenient of times. But they become conditioned to it and, with few exceptions, understand why we must always pack our laptop regardless of the destination or occasion.
I have my laptop here, too. I’m still doing some work, just not for the AJC as of the end of the night New Year’s Eve. I’ll just say I have to see to its conclusion the Bulldogs’ 2024 season. I’ll be able to provide more details in 2025.
Mainly, I plan to kick back with my wife and enjoy some time together. We’ll visit the French Quarter and maybe stroll through Jackson Square, and I’m certain there will be at least one beignet from Café Du Monde. Most important, there will be no deadlines this week.
As for this correspondence, the good folks at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution offered me the opportunity to write a proverbial “farewell column.” I wasn’t going to at first because, frankly, who cares, right? People retire every day and, honestly, none of this really has been about me anyway. Being a reporter all these years, you come to understand that your job simply is to tell people what you believe they need to know about whatever it is you’re covering and then get out of the way.
In the end, though, I wanted to offer a few thank yous and say farewell, for now.
I’ve thanked my wife already. I need to thank my children and grandchildren, too. Your love and patience while I was constantly interrupted and endlessly distracted are appreciated and never has been taken for granted.
Some other thank yous:
To my late father, Ray Towers, a youth football coaching legend whose Thursday night coaches’ meetings in our dining room gave me a fundamental understanding of and appreciation for the game.
To Patsy Zimmerman, my English composition teacher at Redan High School, who insisted I had a gift for writing. I’m still not sure she was right.
To UGA, for guiding me to a career I didn’t even know I was seeking.
To the late Dan Kitchens and the late Conrad Fink, UGA journalism professors who taught me the fundamental rights and responsibilities of a free press.
To The Red and Black, for offering me the opportunity to learn newspapers from the inside out.
To UGA’s Claude Felton, for teaching me the school’s side of the sports business.
To Blake Giles, Hank Johnson and the late Billy Harper, Athens Daily News/Banner-Herald editors who gave a wild college kid a break and showed him the ropes.
To former AJC sports editor Don Boykin, who finally broke down and hired me after my years of applying, begging, pleading and praying. I had no idea what a spiritual influence you would become.
To Bisher, Hummer, Wilkinson, Stinson, Kindred, Bradley, Tucker and so many others at the AJC. They were heroes well before I met them. Then they showed me what it meant to be a “hack” (a term of endearment in the newsroom) and gave me confidence just by including me in their dinner plans.
To James de Gale, for coming up with the concept of DawgNation and including me in the plans.
To Caitlyn Stroh-Page, my editor for this last football season and a bright light for the future of sports journalism.
And finally, to AJC Sports Editor Chris Vivlamore, for bringing me back, for always having all our backs and for never backing down. He’s retiring, too, and that makes me happy.
I couldn’t possibly mention everybody, but I promise every one of you has been in my thoughts these past days and weeks.
As of the end of the night New Year’s Eve, the AJC email account I’ve had for 27.5 years no longer will be active. So, if you happen to have any questions for me on the other side of that, I’m providing a personal email for you to send correspondences if you wish. You can reach me at ctowersajc@yahoo.com.
In the meantime, thanks for reading my stories all these years and for reading the AJC.
