To the Panhandle, Thanks for everything! Hart Pisani

To those of you not up on you're 90's cinema, the headline is an ode to the classic 1995 comedy, "To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar." Any self-respecting Patrick Swayze fan already knew that, of course, but now, onto the main point.

I wrote two weeks back that my time with the Amarillo Globe-News would be coming to an end soon and soon has turned to now. Aside from a pair of basketball gamers, this will be my final piece for the AGN before I make my way north to become the sports reporter for the Joliet Herald-News. I couldn't take off without saying my own farewell and thanks for the past two years of my life and career.

When I first came down here I mentioned not having enjoyed my time in Iowa, my previous stop. Fittingly, someone from Iowa found the column and bashed me on the internet. More fittingly, I proceeded to talk more smack about Iowa in future columns. The point here being that the five months I spent in Iowa were not enjoyable.

I got anxiety going into the office each day wondering how many voicemails or emails I'd have telling me I was pathetic or doing a terrible job. I hated having to check Twitter (or whatever they're calling it now) and see people calling me "middle school writer" or "failed sports reporter." By the time I left Iowa, my confidence in my own ability was genuinely shaken.

Confidence isn't something that comes naturally to me. I was bullied much of my life and I've had some personal issues I've had to overcome. Yet when I got to the Panhandle, I had sincerely begun to worry that those people in Iowa might be right. Maybe I wasn't as good at this job as I wanted to be.

Then I met y'all. The people of the Texas Panhandle. In a time where I felt lower in my career than ever before, it was y'all that picked me up, brushed me off, asked how I was doing and what you could do to help. From the very get go this community treated me like I'd lived here my whole life. For all the travels I've had since leaving New Orleans, I'd never felt more at home.

In Iowa, when I made a mistake I was called an idiot and told I had no idea what I was doing. In the Panhandle, I often got emails that read, "Thank you so much for everything you do for our kids, but just wanted to let you know there was a typo in your most recent story." That's the character of the Panhandle.

In Iowa, when we didn't have time to get to something, my reporters and I got dragged and told, "There's no excuse for this." In the Panhandle, I've been the sole sports reporter for the Globe since November of 2022 and what I often hear is, "I'm really impressed that you get as much done as you do."

In Iowa, when I announced I was leaving, I read, "good riddance" and my departure was celebrated. When I announced I was leaving here, I was overwhelmed with the amount of positive messages, emails, DMs and more that I got wishing me well and saying, "We hate to lose you, but proud of you for taking the next step."

Appropriately, a person from Iowa went out of their way to bash me for being "on the move...again." Guess they miss me up there.

Seriously, though, the past two years have been everything I needed for my career exactly when I needed it. When I've sat in with my friend Allen Roberson at the Panhandle Sports Star, he often refers to me as "The hardest working man in sports." He's asked me a few times, "How do you manage to get it all done?" Normally I just make up some answer, but the real answer is: Y'all.

It was the coaches of the Panhandle who helped make my job easier by sending me the stats, schedules and signing details. It was the players that made the athletics so much fun to cover. When my plate was too full, I was too tired and overwhelmed, and I wasn't sure if I could keep going, it was the readers and community that kept me going. The Texas Panhandle reignited my fire and drive to keep on doing the job I've wanted since I was 12.

In my time here, I've twice received national recognition for my writing by the APSE, including just this past Monday. I've gotten to cover the induction of Zach Thomas into the Hall of Fame, interviewed stars such as Corbin Carroll and Joey McGuire, and wrote the local obituary for Terry Funk. I know there are many prep athletes I covered that will one day be right up there with those names.

More than the awards and events, though, I've made friends for a lifetime. Allen and Jake Bosen with the Panhandle Sports Star. KJ Doyle, Preston Moore and Rylee Robinson with NewsChannel10. Kale Steed, Mike Roden, the list of media members I've met and become friends with goes on.

Add in those I've come to know from Palace Coffee Company, Nick's Fight Club and Pistol Pete's and I have countless reasons to come back and say hello some time.

I've never made it back to Sterling, Colorado. Alaska is too far away to head back. I have no desire to ever go back to Iowa for any reason. The Panhandle, however, will be a place I have every intention of coming back to, if only to say hello. I wouldn't be heading where I am if it wasn't for this place and the people in it.

I'd like to close out first with some advice from me to y'all and then with a quote. The film "American History X" had a line that you should always close with a quote because someone has already said whatever you have to say and they've probably said it better than you. But first, a suggestion: Be crazy.

In the three years I freelanced in New Orleans, I had more than a few people tell me to, "Get a real job." When I told them I was building up my portfolio to eventually become a full-time sports reporter, they thought I was crazy.

When I finally got that opportunity to be a full-time sports reporter, it was working in a town of 12,000 people and a county of 23,000 people in the middle of nowhere. Those same people told me I was crazy. Yet I interviewed an Oscar nominee, covered Dalton Knecht in his JUCO days and covered the Colorado football team before it was cool.

When I moved to Alaska to take a promotion and live where so few could say they did, they said I was crazy. Yet I got to experience the Midnight Sun Game, the Aurora Borealis, and run my own sports section.

When I moved to Iowa after less than a year in Alaska, they said I was crazy. That time, they were right. Still, I got to be there the night Trevor Penning was drafted by the New Orleans Saints, cover current Milwaukee Buck AJ Green, and cover college star Sahara Williams in her prep days.

And yet again when I moved to the Panhandle, they told me I was crazy. "There's nothing out there," one person said. "You've only been in Iowa for five months, just tough it out." They told me. "Dude, you're crazy." APSE Top 10 recognition two years in a row, covering a Texas League Championship and getting to experience Texas high school football? I'd say it worked out.

Now, I'm moving to Chicago, one of the biggest cities in the world. Isn't that crazy?

Well, I better be going. Got some packing to finish up and two cats to get prepped (did I mention I got a second cat here?). Hopefully the good habits I picked up here will stay with me as I go up north to another windy city (did I mention that's an old picture and I've lost 75 pounds since taking it? (I may have gained 10 back when I went home for Mardi Gras.) So with that, I'll keep the crazy train going with a quote by Steve Jobs, who also wants you to stay crazy.

“Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.” - Steve Jobs - Hart Pisani

This article originally appeared on Amarillo Globe-News: To the Panhandle, Thanks for everything! Hart Pisani